They raised us. Now we show up for them.
Thagai is a group of young people redefining what care for our elders looks like. Less like a service. More like family that turns up.
Love - Armour. What stands between a person and the world, and keeps them safe.
- Dignity, worth and greatness. What every person carries, at every age.
- Us. The people who stand around your parents, so they're never alone, never made to feel less, and never forgotten.
Thagai = the dignity, worth and greatness of every individual.
Love doesn't shrink with distance. Time does.
You're in Bengaluru, Dubai or Toronto. Your parents are in Chennai, and every night the call ends the same way: "all fine".
- A phone call can't see the knee pain she doesn't mention.
- It can't sit through the long, quiet afternoons.
- It can't go with her to the hospital, the bank or the temple.
You can't be their armour every day. So we became it. Young people in Chennai who show up, sit with them, and tell you how they really are.
Thagai started at home, with my grandfather.
Caring for him taught me what no course could. The best part of his day was rarely the medicine or the doctor's visit. It was someone sitting with him, listening to his stories, and treating him like the person he had always been.
Later, I saw the same thing with other elders around me. Most of them were not short of love. Their children loved them deeply. They were short of someone who could be there, because life had taken those children to other cities and other countries.
Thagai is how I keep my grandfather's memory alive. Every visit we make, we make the way I'd want someone to visit him: with patience, with respect, and with time.
Deepesh S AFounder, ThagaiConnect
This isn't a service. It's a movement.
- Growing old is not a problem to be managed.Our elders are people with stories, opinions and a sense of humour. Not a list of tasks.
- Care starts with company.Before the medicines and the bills, someone needs to sit down, have a coffee and listen.
- Distance shouldn't decide how loved someone feels.Wherever you live, your parents deserve someone who shows up.
- Two generations, meeting halfway.They get young company and someone to show them the new world. We get the stories, the wisdom and the recipes.
Young people who chose to care.
Students, techies, teachers and homemakers who genuinely love spending time with older people.
The Thagai family