Elderly and isolated

Having received a complaint on July 29, 2008 that a terrible stench was emanating from a small bungalow at Malcolm Baug in Jogeshwari, officers from the Oshiwara police station went to Shroff Villa. There being no response to their knock, they broke open the door, reported the Indian Express (IE) on July 30, 2008. Inside the house they found the decomposed remains of Homi Miller, 65, who had been dead for two or three days. Seated on the floor beside the body as if in a trance was Miller’s 85-year-old maternal aunt Jeroo who resides in the same house. "When we enquired... what had happened, her vague replies made us suspect that she might be mentally unstable,” Police Inspector Dattatraya Sankhe informed IE.

Miller, a retired bank manager, was diabetic and suffered from other related diseases, reported The Times of India dated July 30, 2008. The Villa’s owner informed the police that Miller had spoken to him on Saturday (July 26) and might have died that same night. He had advised Miller to go to a doctor as he had developed gangrene, which the latter did not do because he had no money, reported DNA on July 30, 2008. Miller and his aunt, both unmarried, had been living at Shroff Villa since 1972. They had no relatives and seldom used to go out, wrote DNA.

In its edition of July 31, 2008, the Afternoon Despatch and Courier (ADC) voiced its concern over the "very large ageing population” of Parsis due to "genetic longevity, which is both a blessing and a curse as trudging into extreme old age isn’t a pleasant prospect, given the natural degeneration of the body and a slowing down of all systems. Then there is the issue of isolation. Many do not marry and face the prospect of ageing all alone.”

Offering some constructive advice, ADC wrote: "Perhaps the Parsi community needs to focus on elderly care – set up support groups in the ‘baugs’ that volunteer to look after the elderly by running errands for them, checking on their wellbeing every few days, and alerting a local doctor should someone appear unwell.”