The Mehta family says that caregiver Pandurang Ghote (left) and 87-year-old Kheemraj have developed a father-son relationship. Pic/Pradeep Dhivar

On A sunny February morning, when Pratik Sonawane, a practising nurse, stepped inside Prabhakar Joshi's Dadar residence, he wasn't expecting the warmest welcome from the 70-year-old. Joshi suffers from dementia, a progressive brain disorder, which causes memory loss, decline in cognition and difficulty with activities of day-to-day life. "Due to the condition, he is also suspicious of new people. So long as I enter the house with a member of his family, he is fine, but if I drop by alone, he tends to get distrustful of me," says the 25-year-old. This posed a challenge as, after a couple of weeks, when the rest of the family would be away on holiday, he would have to manage the patient all by himself.

It's been two months since the day Sonawane first came into the Joshi household as a caregiver. Today, both Sonawane and the septuagenarian have managed to forge an unlikely bond. "I'm with him 12 hours a day, and take care of his meals, diet, walks and hygiene. He responds well to me," says the Byculla resident.