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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