Aug. 01, 2024 08:53 AM EST

Ap Photos: At A Home For India's Unwanted Elders, Faces Of Pain And Resilience

Amirchand Sharma sits for a portrait at the Saint Hardyal Educational and Orphans Welfare Society shelter where he is a resident in Garhmukteshwar, India, Thursday, April 18, 2024. Sharma, who is about 65, arrived at the center about five years ago. He says his sons were not prepared for the amount of care he needed after he was hit by a motorist and left paralyzed. They drove him several hours from his home and left him at the banks of the Ganges River, he says. "They said, 'Taking care of him is not our cup of tea,'" Sharma says. "They said, 'Throw him away.'" (AP Photo/David Goldman) David Goldman, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Amirchand Sharma sits for a portrait at the Saint Hardyal Educational and Orphans Welfare Society shelter where he is a resident in Garhmukteshwar, India, Thursday, April 18, 2024. Sharma, who is about 65, arrived at the center about five years ago. He says his sons were not prepared for the amount of care he needed after he was hit by a motorist and left paralyzed. They drove him several hours from his home and left him at the banks of the Ganges River, he says. "They said, 'Taking care of him is not our cup of tea,'" Sharma says. "They said, 'Throw him away.'" (AP Photo/David Goldman)
Rajhu Phooljale stands for a portrait at the Saint Hardyal Educational and Orphans Welfare Society shelter where he is a resident in Garhmukteshwar, India, Thursday, April 18, 2024. Phooljale, who is about 65, was badly hurt in a hit-and-run accident that left him blind. He no longer could work as a cook and his wife left him. Under the guise of taking him surgery, his two sons took him to a New Delhi hospital, far from their home, and then deserted him. "I never thought my sons would do this to me," he says. "I never thought one day I would be here." (AP Photo/David Goldman)
Shushila Jain sits for a portrait at the Saint Hardyal Educational and Orphans Welfare Society shelter where she is a resident in Garhmukteshwar, India, Thursday, April 18, 2024. Jain, who is about 80, says she felt forced to leave her home more than 10 years ago because of a toxic situation with her daughter-in-law. She spent her life caring for four children, her husband, her in-laws and her three grandsons, and never imagined when she needed help she would have to turn to strangers. "I never thought it would come to this," she says. "I thought I would also be taken care of, but it was something else in my fate." (AP Photo/David Goldman)
Vijaya Lakshmi, 85, stands for a portrait at the Saint Hardyal Educational and Orphans Welfare Society shelter where she is a resident in Garhmukteshwar, India, Thursday, April 18, 2024. Lakshmi, who is about 85, was part of a well-educated Mumbai family: She taught chemistry, her husband was a college lecturer and her son was an engineer. After her husband died, though, her son fell ill with cancer and she sold everything she had to pay for his treatment. He died anyway and Lakshmi said she had no other relatives willing to help. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
Chhoti, who does not use a surname, sits for a portrait at the Saint Hardyal Educational and Orphans Welfare Society shelter where she is a resident in Garhmukteshwar, India, Thursday, April 18, 2024. Chhoti, who is about 70, says her children abandoned her and her husband at a faraway temple. They lived there for more than eight years before they were brought to the center about three years ago. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
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The children they raised do not come here. The grandchildren who brought a sparkle to their eyes no longer climb into their laps. No siblings or in-laws or nephews or neighbors arrive either.

This is not a place accustomed to visitors.

The Saint Hardyal Educational and Orphans Welfare Society is a refuge for those who epitomize a troubling trend in India: Older people abandoned by their families.

Here in Garhmukteshwar, on a rural patch of northern India about a 90-minute drive from New Delhi, these outcasts live out their final days among scores of others who have nowhere else to go.

A smattering of those who come here have no close relatives on whom to rely. Others left their homes on their own accord, often driven by smoldering family feuds, abuse or neglect. In the worst cases, they were left to die on the streets, turned away by their own children.

This series of portraits by David Goldman of The Associated Press, all taken on April 18 at Saint Hardyal in Garhmukteshwar, captures the faces of the people who call it home.

Come down the dirt road. Come past the shrieking metal gate. Come to the halls of this shelter and the bedsides of these castaways and witness India’s secret shame.

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