Curious about all the insights from our latest podcast but prefer reading over listening? Here’s the full conversation in a written format, so you can dive in and explore every tip and takeaway at your own pace.

Host (Sanjay):

Hi everyone, welcome to one more episode of What If You Live to Be 100. Today’s is a very special episode because I have a guest on this episode this time, and the guest is none other than my very dear friend, Ashok Venkatramani. Ashok has had a brilliant professional career.
He’s spent a lot of time with Unilever across various roles, and after that has been in the media industry for many, many years, heading Star News and thereafter the ABP News Network as CEO, as well as Zee Media. And after all that long professional career, he has turned to entrepreneurship and is running a very interesting business in the space of analytics, media analytics, etc. But that’s his professional side. I have known him since the time we were in college together.
We were at VJTI, did our engineering there, and thereafter Ashok has gone to IIM Ahmedabad for his MBA, and he’s also done an Advanced Management Program from Harvard. With all that, his career has also seen him be at various places across the country. And today, in fact, we’re going to focus a lot more around, you know, the home, and what makes the perfect home, or is there something like a perfect home, especially for this phase of life when we are in the 50s and 60s. So with that little background, I want to get started with Ashok and first of all welcome him on this podcast show.
Hi. So Ashok, at the outset, like you know, you want to talk about you recently moved into this new house. I mean, and we know it’s a lovely place here. What are your initial thoughts, just about the various places that you’ve lived in? Just let our viewers know where all you have stayed right from childhood, and you know, what has each home sort of given you or left an imprint on you. And then, you know, now that you are here, how did the journey happen, just from your home’s point of view?

Guest (Ashok Venkatramani):
Okay, so, you know, I grew up in a very, very small place called Kalyan, just on the outskirts of Bombay, which is where my dad was working, and we were living in a colony. So for the first 18 odd years of my life, I have actually lived in a small colony on the outskirts of a very large city.
And somehow, living in the city in those days looked highly aspirational, though we were living in a small colony on the lakeshore, full of—away from the din of the city—studying in a private school just next door, and with full, you know, club facilities, playing facilities, and all of that, you know, all the right things we should need for growing up. Yet, in those days, Bombay was highly aspirational because we always felt that we are living in deep suburbs and away from the magical place of a very large city like Bombay.
I think once I moved into corporate life, my job took me literally everywhere—Bangalore, Chennai twice, Delhi, and Calcutta, of course. Ahmedabad, I studied for two years.
So, you know, I think one of the things which a transferable job ingrains into you is that adaptability—that the place is not important, but building a network around you wherever you go and quickly adapting was the need of the hour. And I’ve done that for almost my entire career. You know, no place was more than three years, so not just me but also my family.
So somewhere that kind of got ingrained, and hence the need to build an ecosystem around you of friends, and friends, you know, in all these cities. And today I’m grateful that not just in these cities but also in other places—as part of this—Los Angeles, Dallas, New York, San Francisco—I’ve got a cluster of friends who make me feel like home the moment I land there. And I think that’s what a lot of these things have taught me.
I think contextualizing it to your own theme, I think it’s not so much the place but what you make of the place, and more importantly, what you create in the place you go, right, I think becomes very important. And I think that’s a lesson I carry, and I think as I move forward into the 60s and 70s, the value of that is all evident today.

Host (Sanjay):
Right, okay, got it. Yeah, nice. You know, you said that wherever your mood and wherever work and life has taken you, you managed to, you know, create a good ecosystem and friends and support and all that. As life progresses from an age perspective, is it becoming—you know—is it still easy enough as it was when, in earlier days, earlier days there was a work ecosystem and, you know, you would have work colleagues naturally, and you had maybe kids going to school, and so, you know, sometimes parents of kids and all that becomes a certain initial trigger to build a network.
And now, at this point of time, now you recently moved at this age, has it been equally easy to kind of create a local ecosystem? Because also the need for something more local, more closer increases, because sometimes, you know, at this point of time you might have an odd health issue where you need quick support, you need a local GP you can trust, and whatnot. So has it been equally easy at this point, or was it easier earlier because there were other ways?

Guest (Ashok Venkatramani):
I think what happens is, firstly, maintaining the ecosystem requires a lot of effort. So the ecosystem doesn’t happen on its own, and I think that’s the first thing we need to remember.
Secondly, when I say you need to invest in the ecosystem, whether it is going out of the way to befriend, whether it is retaining those friendships, investing in those friendships—simple things like remembering dates, remembering special occasions of those friends, keeping in touch, making that extra effort to keep in touch when you actually land up into a city where you used to live in the past, going out of the way to actually go and meet and catch up with those people—is what I mean by saying investing.
To my mind, that investment is very important, right. Often what happens is when we are younger, we forget to invest. In fact, both me and my wife, we take a lot of pride in the fact that we never miss occasions of friends, whether it’s, you know, special occasions like kids getting married or, you know, losing somebody near and dear. We always make it a point to actually travel, go meet, invest. And they may have been friends many years back, but we still haven’t lost that touch.
Yeah, that investment—what it does is that we don’t realize it, but that investment actually grows. It helps you grow relationships. It also helps you strengthen your own ecosystem. It also helps you in cultivating a nice habit into yourself—that person you are naturally made like that. You’re not, you know, remember-today-forgotten-tomorrow kind of a person.
I think we have consciously done that, and that’s become a way of life for us. And I think a lot of the reason why this ecosystem for us is still intact is because we have invested in it consciously, not with an intention of realizing something out of it at a later stage in life. Obviously, you don’t remember all that, but it’s just that we met good people, nice people, and we said, why lose good people in your life? So you retain. That’s, I think, at the heart of the ability to retain this ecosystem today.
When we look back and when we are taking some important calls—whether it is to do with where we want to go to settle down—and like, for example, we decide to come and settle down in Bombay, despite, you know, a lot of the decision-making on why Bombay and why not Delhi, or why not Chennai, or why not Bangalore, was driven by actually where we felt the most comfortable in terms of our own ecosystem, where we knew that we would take to that city like a fish to water. I think those are factors which actually played a lot in terms of, you know, choosing and actually finally coming back and settling down in Bombay.
Having said that, we are acutely conscious that where we are and how we are at 60 may not be the same as how we are and where we are at 70. And which is why, despite now settling down in Bombay, we have not lost contact with Delhi friends or Bangalore friends or even San Francisco friends or New York friends. So I think we kept our mind open. Okay, we’re not locked or anything. We still kept our mind open.

Host (Sanjay):
Okay. No, it’s actually a very interesting point, and we are going to pick that up again in the sense that, you know, sometimes one would feel that when you’re at around 60, and especially if you choose to move and make a home somewhere, one would often think that, okay, you know, this is where now I want to spend the rest of my life. And, you know, here’s Ashok telling us that, hey, not so—not necessarily so. So it’s a very interesting cue.
But I want to actually make sure that we appreciate what bigger point Ashok made in what he just spoke about—the investment in relationships. And for Ashok and Purnima, his wife, it didn’t start in recent days. There was no sort of, you know, quid pro quo angle that, you know, I should invest so I’ll get it back. I mean, it was a very natural thing. And I know him—I know that because he said, but I also know that because I know him for a long time. And they’re always there for occasions and with friends and all that.
And that he just mentioned now—what do we take back from there? You know, when we are especially focused at this point of time in life, hopefully many have done what Ashok has done, and maybe some of us didn’t do enough of that. Is it still— is it too late? Well, you can’t undo what already has gone by. But if you are in a place today, and if you’re in the, you know, 50s or 60s, there’s still a lot of life ahead of you. And you want to be sure that there is a good circle of friends, a support system, and it’s not late to be sure that there is a certain sincere approach to building the network and investing and nurturing that.
So, you know, there’s a little away from our conversation around the home piece, but that was something very interesting which came out, and I thought, you know, let’s recognize this very interesting learning.
But going back to the home discussion that we’re having—so, you know, obviously, you know, you have done it interestingly. You have moved at many places, and you are reasonably comfortable at various places. But let’s look at an average person in kind of our age group. And you and I both know there are many people who lived in a particular place for many years. I mean, maybe they didn’t need to—they were working there, they were doing a business or something.
And in those years of growing up, of sort for yourself and your family, generally what used to be the important thing about the location was, say, proximity to work, proximity to children’s schools and colleges and all. And those were central locations generally. Only thing is, over the years those became more and more sort of crowded, and, you know, a lot of noise and honking and all. And of course, all the green spaces and all disappeared, especially in a city like Mumbai, like where both of us live.
Given that, you know, should the—you know—you’re hitting at about 60, 65, all that support system is right there—you know, your friends, your closest, your doctors and whatever that you feel like, oh, I’m so dependent on them. And yet, does that become reason enough to continue being there because you’ve always been there? Or how easy or difficult would it be for somebody to think about a change, and is it even necessary?

Guest (Ashok Venkatramani):
So, you know, I’ll give this response in—in—structure it a bit. I think the first thing we need to understand is there is a period called active life, okay, and then there is the rest of the life—I’m calling it passive life, for lack of a better word.
Active life is when you’re fit—fit to travel, fit to eat what you want by and large, okay, to move around, and flexible, both physically and mentally stable, and so on and so forth. And I’m saying I’ll probably give ourselves maybe another 15 years, maybe if you’re lucky, 20 years, not more than that.
After that, what I call is a passive life, where you’re alive, but God knows what ailment you have, whether you’re mobile, not mobile, your spouse is mobile, not mobile. You know, you’re dependent on one another. You know, if one of us is not well, a lot of it hampers. So I’m calling it that as a passive life.
I think I would handle the two phases differently, okay, when we are in the active life, we, I think, value our independence. We would love to give our kids their independence, and, you know, would be very happy to stay where we have built our own ecosystems and are very comfortable in our ecosystem.
So, for example, I built my ecosystem in Bombay. I’ve got friends, I’ve got really good friends, and they give me not just company, but they give me other things which I don’t have. And I’ll come to that in a bit. But yeah, I mean, I built the ecosystem, and my kids are away in the US. I don’t want to go to the US at this point in time because I’m very happy, and I think I can take care of myself. Both me and my wife, so we are very happy. And I’m calling it—during the active life—we value the independence, we love the ecosystem, we love the flexibility, and we would like it that way.
When it comes to the passive life, let’s say, you know, at whatever point in time in life one of us is ailing or is not there, or we lose one of us, or one of us is, you know, indisposed and is no longer mobile, that’s when I think the entire criteria for what we are seeking changes.
During the active life, for example, I would loathe to go to an old age home. Yeah, I’m calling it old age home. A lot of people get offended by that use of the word, but I’m calling it, you know, old age home because I find that, you know, we’re still very active, we are flexible, we’re mobile, and I find that those kind of places are more for people with passive life. I find a lot more cynicism there. I would like to, at this stage of active life, interact with people younger than me, not older than me, interact with people who are more active than me, not less active than me, and so on.
So I think during the active life, I wouldn’t look at something like that. But when I am moving on to my passive life, depending on the situation, depending on the fact that, you know, where my children are—so if my children are settled in the US and I’m settled here, and I am dependent on somebody, I don’t have much of a choice.
Either I move and stay close to them and compromise with a lot of other things, like ecosystem not being there, I have nothing more to do mentally, I wither much faster—physically I wither anyway—or I choose that life. Or I say that, listen, I don’t want to let go, I don’t want to do any of those, I stay back, but then I suffer because I’m alone. I’m dependent on a neighborhood, I’m dependent on hired help, attendants, when I stay someplace where there’s a doctor nearby. Mentally I’m lonely, I don’t have my near ones, near and dear ones, anywhere near me.
So I think I would first of all compartmentalize it. I think, which is why I said earlier also, that I am flexible. And I think one of the things I would advise is stay flexible. Treat—firstly, I’m saying—treat active life and passive life as very different, because the criteria is going to differ in your active life as well as in your passive life.
Be flexible, because you do not know what’s going to hit you, and how the challenges are going to come. And be mentally prepared to let go of a few things. So, you know, there is not going to be anything ideal. It will be unrealistic to expect, let’s say, when you are in your passive life, your children to, you know, leave their lives in the US or wherever they are and come all the way and settle down next to you. I think that will be selfish, and that will be unfair.
At the same time, if you choose to either stay back, you let go of—you have to compromise on a few things. You choose to go and stay closer to your children, then you compromise on a few other things. That flexibility, I think, one has to maintain, if one has to survive. And I think as long as we are mentally prepared to stay flexible and recognize that you can’t have everything, best of everything, you need to let go of a few things, I think we should be okay.

Host (Sanjay):
So actually, I am thinking of three different rejoinders or further questions to what you just mentioned—like three things—and I’m going to put all the three out so that, you know, they are on the table, and then you can respond one at a time.
The first one is that while talking about where to find home, right, you know, I want to also look at the physical location. I mean, like, say Mumbai is fine, but being where you are—so like I give this example that I know people who lived all their life, let’s say, on a very crowded, now very crowded, MG Road in Ghatkopar, right, because work used to be there, kids’ school used to be there. But it’s only become increasingly crowded and noisy and all that.
And here’s the point of time in life where you’re actually looking for some quiet, and, you know, you want that in an evening you can actually go down and take a little walk amongst the greens, which is not there. So physical location is what I’m talking about. I understand the parts about the support system or where your friends are, you know, but that’s like a little—you know, when you say Mumbai, yeah, you have friends around, but every day—so every day is your day, your home, your compound, or your location.
So is it of interest to consider if somebody was in that kind of a location, realizing that as time goes it’s only getting worse and not better? So if today it is very crowded, it’s going to go out of control in a matter of time. So do you keep bearing up with that because of other comfort, or do you think about, even at that point, to think and move elsewhere in the city, maybe suburbs or whatever? So that is a physical-location-related question.
The other, which you mentioned earlier—and again you brought up with the flexibility aspect to it—and, you know, the way you separate active life and then little passive life, is my concern that, you know, moving homes is always—as much a physical—emotional and all that baggage of it comes with it. And if one had to, you know, mental readiness or flexibility apart, there’s a huge sort of, you know, displacement in all respects—from, you know, you have a comfortable corner in your house where you keep going, and, you know, you got used to it, now a new place, new system.
So as we grow older, you know, is it—my sense is that may become even more difficult to adjust, because, you know, your entire life—like, I see my dad, you know, it was very tough for him to adjust because there was a place where he used to go, and then, you know, everything—whatever—all kinds of, you know, that. So that’s the second thing—that is it a factor that, you know, the later that if you had to go somewhere, whether it is to the US to be closer to your kids or to wherever else, do we actually put it off till we are 75, 80, and then think about it, because then, you know, maybe our mental, physical faculty—you know, a lot of things might be lesser—and then, you know, you adjust that. So that’s a question—if one had to do it, is it easier to do earlier?
And the third question, of course, is, you know, I mean, generally speaking, you know, from being close to kids, if one had to be, let’s say it’s the US and you had to be nearby, you know that for you, having spent most of your life in India, even though you may have friends and etc., but being there, there is a certain dependence on the system—maybe the kids, maybe the friends, and it’s not as comfortable a social circle as you built here. The culture is also different. That may not be easy to just, you know, go to a neighbor and say hi, let’s have a cup of tea. It may not be all that. And then driving around and all sorts of things may come in.
So, yeah, as a part of the flexibility, you are willing to make that adjustment to be near the kids. But kids will also have their own life. They’ll be married, they’ll have kids, and they may need to move because their work and all may take them around. So you will keep going around with them.
The fourth one, I’m going to put it, but if we want, we’ll remember the question and come back, is what you mentioned about the old people’s home, as you call the old people…

Host (Sanjay):
No, I’m not sure. Because I’ve been doing this podcast and all, I’ve been doing a little homework and looking at these.
First, they don’t want to be called old people’s home—they call it senior homes. They’re actually attracting people from early 60s, ideally. They make it seem like a fun place to be. They’re very fancy also. I mean, you go to a 5-star senior home, everything you want is there. And some of them, like in Bangalore, I know about these gated communities where there’s one tower which has this kind of people, but the rest of the towers have normal younger people. So you go down and take a walk in the park, all kinds of people you meet, younger also, and all that.
So have you had exposure? Have you got an exposure to that? And are you finding the relatability to the kind of old people’s home that you refer to versus this? And is that an option?

Guest (Ashok Venkatramani):
Personally speaking, I feel it’s a very interesting option in today’s day, with kids being all over the world. But we go back to the first one, sorry. I tabled all the questions, but go back to the first one, which is physical location. What is the aspect? You know, where you are? Because every day you are living here, wherever you are. Every day, you need certain things which become interesting and a necessity—a little quiet, a little calm, a little green, a little place to walk around and, you know, do things. How important is it?
No, I think, okay, let me try and answer. You asked me three, four questions—hopefully I won’t forget. Let me first talk about the physicality. Very important. No question about it.
I think the fact that we have seen 10 transfers in 30 years—which is on average literally once every three years—means that we have not got stuck to one place, which I know a lot of people have a problem with. We have built bonds, but we have not emotionally stuck to a place. So that flexibility, we retain.
Secondly, answering your physicality question—yeah, we did evaluate these seven, eight cities. We looked in, and we kept our evaluation very simple, in terms of good hawa, good pani, and greenery. We just kept these three. We’ve been thankful that we have good hawa, good pani, and greenery in where we are living right now. Though I must put a caveat: it’s not permanent, nothing is permanent. Delhi was a serious option, but then Delhi pollution clearly was a no-no.
Bangalore remained a serious option. I still own a house in Bangalore, but given the traffic in Bangalore, and ability to commute from A to B is so bad, we somewhere down the line lost interest. Chennai, we find too hot. So we looked at all of that, but we finally said, yeah, this is a place.
We were also, I think, somewhere lucky that we got some very close friends who own very large farmhouses in Karjat. We have some close friends who own a very large house in Alibaug. And there, ours is an open invitation—they come, they stay with us, when we go there we stay with them. So, if and when we feel like going away for a little bit of greenery, we just need to take the car and drive down to one of these places. So we made that system here.
That said, some of these factors did go into place. Right now, since I am running a company and I need to still be in Bombay, yeah, Bombay is an option. But we have not closed our mind here. Ten years down the line, if we need to revisit, we will revisit.
I think somewhere, I’m also answering your question number four. While our evaluation of senior citizens’ home is probably outdated, and these places are changing very fast, 10 years down the line, would we be open enough to consider it? Yeah, why not? I think the willingness and ability to change and adapt to change is probably the only thing constant.
Sure. And we are trying to retain that. At this point in time, I find them a little more cynical than what I think I am. I would much rather like to spend time in Yagdala.
The other thing about, I’m calling it not just physical but emotional and physical. Yeah, I mean, see, there are no right or wrong answers.
When I look at myself, at a point in time, I chose to refuse foreign postings because my parents would have been alone and my brother is already abroad, and my mother was just recovering from a terminal ailment. So, at that point in time, circumstances required that I stay close, literally a flight away at best. So, I actually refused.
I chose, I made a career move saying I would only work in India. That was a conscious choice. Now, I’m not expecting my kids to make that choice. For me, either to choose the option of staying back and hoping I’ll manage, or saying, listen, I’ll make my sacrifices and go to the US where my kids are—I think that’s a call we need to take.
We will cross that bridge when we come to it, maybe at 70 or 75, whenever. But I think if we do have to make that choice, we will be mentally ready to make that choice. So, to each his own, but my only two-bit is that getting stuck to something, either physically or emotionally, itself could be a handicap.
And the only thing I think I would tell myself and people of this age group is be flexible and be ready to adapt, change, because these things are not permanent. We think that once we retire, a lot of things will come to a standstill. It’s not the case. Change keeps continuing. Probably that’s the lesson I learned from having 10 transfers in 30 years.

Host (Sanjay):
Absolutely. I want to just slightly summarize one of the things. Very clearly, Ashok mentioned: to each his own. And at the same time, as you can hear, from his evaluation of having been in many cities and evaluating where to finally make home at this point, he’s flexible—10 years later, it could be something else.
It did take into account the need for greens, fresh air, clean water, all that. And the connected point is, you are at 60, you feel, “All my life I’ve lived here. Now there’s traffic, this is there. Why should I shift?”
But realize that traffic, noise, and air pollution are getting worse, not better. If you have been there for the longest, it doesn’t mean you should continue to be there. You probably have 30–40 years of life ahead of you in today’s day, and you want to continue to suffer?
As you age and have more need for cleaner air, safe water, do you want to continue to be there? Now, what are the options? Evaluate to your comfort—maybe suburbs, a small town, maybe some interesting place like Karjat or Alibaug, or even a senior home. Keep options open, recognize that change may be necessary.
One last point I want to add: I think most of us will pull through the active life part. The challenge is going to come when the passive life part starts.
That is a complete black box. We do not know what is going to happen, and our ability to navigate that part is directly correlated to how flexible we are.
When I see my father today, who after living in Bombay for 40 years, chose to move to Chennai because all his siblings were there, today most of his siblings are not there anymore—they’ve all moved to their children’s place. His own kids are no longer with him; they’re all over the place.
The challenge he’s grappling with is loneliness. While all other things can be taken care of with money—attendants, cook, maid, all of that—I can’t replace or help his loneliness. And I don’t have a solution for it. I feel sorry for him, but that’s life. He has to learn to grapple with his loneliness, and he struggles with it.
I don’t know what we are going to grapple with. But I think how we navigate that is the crucial part, and how we keep ourselves open to be able to grapple with it—I think that is the key part. Absolutely.
So, just to share a little perspective from my side on this subject: wherever I currently reside, somewhere in my head, I feel that it’s a place where I can potentially live the rest of my life. Even I don’t know where my daughters will be, because their work may take them anywhere. So, those are only close relatives, and they are outside India anyway.
So, for me to port myself somewhere else doesn’t sound like an idea at all. I need to figure out my home based on my own personal circumstances—me and my wife. And if the daughters happen to be nearby, it’s a bonus. I would think of it like that. I don’t want to constrain them from choosing wherever they want their life to take them.
What I’m trying to do, consciously or otherwise, is build a very good support network where I am. Thankfully, there’s a good community which allows me to do that. Instead of feeling anxious about moving, there’s a system in place that makes life manageable. So it’s a work in progress. Let’s see how it goes.
The larger question—you mentioned active life and passive life—the focus of this podcast, “What If You Live to Be 100?”, is to address multiple facets that impact our lives at this point. One of them is lifespan versus healthspan.
So, besides mental flexibility, healthspan matters. If we continue to have good physical health, we might be able to keep doing all that. But if issues arise—like knee problems or other limitations—then we might feel hesitant to make big moves.
Which brings me back to the question: is there a factor of age when choosing to move, and how confident we are about health? Mental flexibility is one thing, but do you think that 70 would still be a reasonable time to consider a move—whether to a senior home or closer to your kids?

Guest (Ashok Venkatramani):
Well, speaking a little about myself: we have a decent home, but sometimes we get tempted—shall we look for a bigger one? The whole idea of finding a new place and doing it up from scratch, spending a year on that, sounds daunting today. I mean, I did it before—but doing it now, even thinking about it, feels overwhelming.
Speaking for myself, we’re through with that phase—the urge to buy a new place or redo it. In fact, we consciously kept our current home minimalistic. Nothing on the walls—we just got tired of it. When we moved in here, almost two-thirds of the items that adorned our walls were given away. No emotional attachment.
Simple things like which car to drive, how many cars to keep, should we have a driver—these things have become minimal. Till a year back, I had two cars and a driver. Now I have only one 14-year-old car, and I don’t feel the urge to change it.
So, we’re through with all that. My personal view is that as we age, we see the futility of materialistic attachments or quests. Many of us after 50 didn’t feel the urge to work for money. We were working for self-actualization, satisfaction, passion—certainly not money. Just as that quest died naturally, this materialistic quest dies too.
For some, it dies around 50; for some, 60 or 65. I don’t think it will be a pressing issue.
Some friends of mine—anecdotal example—used to have multiple houses. They moved cleverly: they sold almost everything and now have just one small house in Delhi, while spending extended periods elsewhere.
For example, they spend winters away from Delhi pollution in Goa, and have lived in Goa for two years. This year, they plan to live in Mysore. Summers, they go to Europe for a couple of months.
This shows the value of not getting materialistically attached to a base, but keeping a small foothold—an anchor—and staying flexible.
And we find great value in that. I find it very inspiring and aspirational. It goes against the very thread of being materialistic—looking for bigger houses, bigger cars. I think we’re through with that phase in life.
For us, a car is just something that takes us from point A to point B. Today, with drivers on hire, Uber, and the quality of cars, why do you need more? You don’t. Even my own sons—they’re doing reasonably well, but they don’t own a car in the US. It’s not needed. It’s a very different way of thinking. So, yes, we’re done with that phase.
I suspect most of us will be done with it at some point. Absolutely. By the time we reach around 60, we’ve seen a lot in life, traveled, and enjoyed pleasures that once gave us a high. Now, it’s fine whether it’s there or not—it doesn’t matter. We’ve moved beyond that.

Host (Sanjay):
Absolutely. So when you mentioned not doing up your house, let’s shift focus inside the house. Do you consciously prepare your home for possible deterioration of the physical self? Making it “senior-friendly,” as it’s often called—even if we don’t like the word? Appliances, automation, minimal hindrances—anything you consciously thought about while setting up your home?
Guest (Ashok Venkatramani):
A strong yes. And this wasn’t driven by our needs while in the active phase. It was because I had dependent parents. I had to make the house friendly for them: toilet guards—not in this house, but in theirs—anti-slip tiles in bathrooms, removing bathtubs so they could use the space easily.
Simple things like raised steps, double doors, grill doors, safety features, paying the watchman to watch over them, multiple attendants to monitor daily needs. We even trained them to use apps to call an SOS carpenter or electrician if needed, especially when we weren’t there.
It’s about making a home passive-life friendly. Not just physical—it’s also about the support system for emergencies: power outages, health emergencies, anything that could happen in the middle of the night.

Host (Sanjay):
Absolutely. Observing our parents teaches us so much. We might be in the same scenario in 10–15 years, and by preparing their homes, we can anticipate what we might need. Being proactive while still “active” is the right time to set up these systems.

Guest (Ashok Venkatramani):
Exactly. Whether it’s smart home automation, security, or technology, it’s worth doing now. Security is huge—every day, you read stories of break-ins targeting seniors. Preparing for that is necessary.
Also, it’s not just technology or physical preparation—it’s the ecosystem. For instance, we sponsor the education of the maids’ and cooks’ children. This builds loyalty and trust. In case of an SOS, they can rush over. These are gestures above and beyond what they earn, done out of goodwill.

Host (Sanjay):
Exactly. And eventually, that safety net will be essential for ourselves as well—be it for emergencies or unforeseen challenges.

Guest (Ashok Venkatramani):
Yes, absolutely. Physical, emotional, technological—all aspects need attention.

Host (Sanjay):
Another important point is how our thinking is shaped by past experiences. Many of us grew up in joint families, always surrounded by grandparents, uncles, and aunts. Decisions around where home should be didn’t factor in loneliness because someone was always there.
Today, families are more nuclear, with children scattered across the globe. That system of constant support no longer exists, so we need to anticipate societal shifts. The same goes for domestic help. Previously, maids and cooks often served families for generations, building deep trust. Now, many want to work in companies or factories, so that automatic trust and availability isn’t guaranteed.
We need to adapt and plan for these new realities.
It’s getting harder and harder to find reliable help—even here in India. Sure, in the US, you do your own dishes, drive your car, and manage everything yourself. In India, we’ve been lucky, but that’s changing too. We don’t know what the situation will be like 10, 15, or 20 years from now.
So, it’s worth thinking about how we want to structure our homes, our support systems, and dependencies to manage well in the future. That’s a larger perspective that comes out of today’s discussion, and I want everyone listening to ponder over it.
We’ve had a really good conversation, and now, as we wrap up, I’d like to leave a few final thoughts on the overarching subject: making the right home decisions at this stage of life, while thinking ahead.
When we were in corporate life, we often heard the phrase: “the only constant is change.” I honestly didn’t fully appreciate how true that would remain even after retirement. But it is. So here are three key takeaways:
One: Be ready to change. Nothing is fixed, even at this stage of life. Even if you love your home, your city, or your routines, change will come, and being prepared is critical.
Two: Think of life in two boxes: active life and passive life. Planning differently for each phase is essential, because what you value and need evolves over time.
Three: Never underestimate the power of your network. Relationships and friendships remain as valuable as ever. Even people you met just last year can become close friends. Some associations may fade, others will deepen, but your ability to form meaningful connections never diminishes.
Investing time and energy in relationships—just like in a marriage or family—is crucial. It pays off in ways you might not immediately realize, and the value only grows over time.

Guest (Ashok Venkatramani):
Absolutely. That’s one of the most important lessons I’ve learned. Your network, your friends, your support system—they become a real source of strength as you age. Even when circumstances change, the effort you put into building and maintaining relationships continues to pay dividends.

Host (Sanjay):
Exactly. Investing in your network, in your relationships, in your friends—that’s a takeaway that really comes out strongly from our discussion today. And I completely agree with that.
You know, I’ve always enjoyed being in one place most of my life, but in many ways, I’ve envied people like Ashok—especially kids of armed forces families who move often. It builds a certain strength of character, simply because you’re constantly adapting. I, on the other hand, had the comfort of staying in one place and didn’t have to adapt so many times.
But you can really see it in Ashok—10 places in 30 years, and everywhere, he needed to find home. Maybe it came naturally to him and Neema, or maybe they cultivated it. Either way, it’s a skill—and it’s not too late for any of us to invest in it. That’s one of the key takeaways from this conversation.
So, a final thought on this subject:
There are many aspects to deciding where to make your home at this stage of life. If you’re in a place that’s noisy, crowded, or polluted, don’t feel stuck just because you’ve been there all your life. Be open. You still have 20–30 years ahead of you. Consider making a change if it’s in your interest.
Whether it’s moving to a suburb, another city, or even considering a senior home—be open to possibilities. And then, there’s the aspect of being close to your children—or not.
Net-net, because of all the permutations and combinations around this choice, there is naturally some tension in deciding what’s right. And, as they say in film scripts, tension is what drives the story. We’re at a stage in life where this tension exists, because we still have to figure out the answer.

I hope this conversation has helped get your thoughts going. The decision is always yours, but take a moment to reflect: where do you want your home to be for the next 20–30 years?

Thank you.