Scholars observed that urban spaces in South Asian cities are layered with meanings, values, and norms mediated by shared language and cultural moorings. Homes are not simply shelters but spaces that shape and are shaped by social interactions and cultural values. They are the microcosm that functions as an important social determinant of health and wellbeing. Prevalence of multigenerational living guided to a large extent the ways in which meanings related to aging were constructed here both by individuals and communities. The rapid increase in nuclear households in recent years has unboxed yet another set of meanings associated with aging. This paper advances greater sensitivity and awareness of the lived experience of older adults and their negotiations with old age in order to understand the correlation between housing and health. Based on qualitative fieldwork in the eastern metropolitan city of Kolkata (in India), this paper argues that meanings of aging are deeply embedded in social interactions and it influences to a large extent how housing affects individual and community health. Anthropologists have often argued that it is by sharing food that kinship is made and even reproduced in the domestic context. In this paper I also discuss the social construction of aging and eventually demand an age-friendly culture in Kolkata. I suggest that the solutions that can to some extent reverse the vices of aging, such as isolation and loneliness, lie in the building of a strong ‘social infrastructure’ (Klinenberg 2018) in the city. It is at this intersection that this paper will be a study of the social construction of aging, values and meanings attached to home and wellbeing in everyday life.
