Can technology make us happier, safer, equitable and enterprising?

A first-of-its-kind companionship app for seniors offering ‘grandchildren’ on demand is set to launch in Mumbai, making it one of many valuable pandemic introductions using tech to improve what matters most to humans

At the D’Mello residence in Mahim, Christmas came early this year. It was sometime in September 2020, when Arthur D’Mello, 87, found his Santa’s number on a WhatsApp forward. He remembers calling up immediately, with just one wish: “I need a friend, who works as a lawyer, and can get a laptop along.” It may have seemed like a strange request, but his Santa knew just the person for this. That’s how Gargi Sandu, 27, came into Arthur and his wife Joyce’s life. This Christmas, the senior couple celebrated the gift of this new family member. “Gargi is like a granddaughter to me,” says Joyce, an organist, who has played at St Michael’s Church in Mahim for 66 years. For Arthur, who is a veteran legal expert, Sandu, a corporate lawyer, became the dependable associate he could bank on for activism. “[Ever since we met] I have taken on battles with every possible e-commerce giant [in the country],” says the lawyer. Sandu jokingly adds, “He has not even spared the CM of Maharashtra and the Pope.” The two are speaking about the many formal complaint letters Arthur has dispatched in the last few weeks, courtesy Sandu, who drafted all correspondence on her laptop. “With uncle, it’s like going back to law school,” she admits.

Their Santa aka Shantanu Naidu, who is sitting across us in the D’Mellos’ drawing room, is smiling. Naidu, author, startup founder and business assistant to Ratan Tata, is hoping to share Arthur and Joyce’s happiness with other grandparents as well.

Shantanu Naidu, founder of The GoodFellows, along with GoodFellow Gargi Sandu, and grandpals Arthur and Joyce D’Mello at their residence in Mahim. Arthur, a veteran legal expert, had signed up for the beta pilot of the project, seeking a lawyer who he could share his ideas with. Pic/Shadab Khan 

His soon-to-launch companionship startup The GoodFellows wants to bring grandkids-on-demand to the elderly. “I have a pre-existing affinity towards this generation, and it reached its peak when Mr [Ratan] Tata entered my life. I saw first-hand the benefits of inter-generational friendship—on one hand, [we get to access] this sea of wisdom, and on the other, they get to experience life in a very different way through the eyes of a younger person,” says Naidu, who in 2020 authored I Came Upon a Lighthouse: A Short Memoir of Life with Ratan Tata (HarperCollins India), an illustrated book, where he spoke of the bond he shares with the 84-year-old industrialist and former chairman of Tata Sons. Having interacted with many seniors, Naidu realised that while they were perky and excited when around people, they were also going through emotional hardships in their quieter moments. That was the genesis of the idea.

Work on the project began eight months ago. One of the first tasks at hand was employing young empathetic “GoodFellows” between the ages of 18 and 30 years, who would become companions or grandkids to seniors. “Word got out quickly, and we received around 350 applications. Our candidates went through very intense vetting,” he says, adding, “Because empathy is at the heart of what we do, we cannot afford to have a loose selection process.” That also makes it challenging. “Our GoodFellows need to be authentic and genuine, or seniors like Mr and Mrs D’Mello would see right through them. You cannot fake friendship and trust. And that’s why it’s going to be a slow scale-up.” Naidu, who personally interviewed each shortlisted candidate, gave them psychometric tests designed to gauge empathy and compassion. This was followed by a background verification. “After sifting through the responses, it’s not difficult to understand why some young people would want to participate in such an initiative,” says Naidu.

Joyce D’Mello and fellow grandpal Commander Sushanta Jana exchange gifts at a recent social meet-up for the grandpals organised by Naidu and his team

Sandu, who had been following Naidu on Instagram where he has 20.4k followers, chose to fill the vacuum that she had been experiencing after she lost her grandfather earlier this year. “I lived with my grandparents, and was close to them. At 85, my grandfather was active, and wanted to do new things. He wasn’t a lawyer, but he took a lot of pride in my work. When I worked with a law firm, he’d ask me about the cases I handled. Those conversations were the highlight of his day,” she recalls. “When I heard about this initiative, I knew I wanted to be associated with it. I think he would have wanted me to be attached to something like this.”

As of now, Naidu has a team of 15 GoodFellows, and he has spent time with them to “know their intent, personality and characteristics”.  A GoodFellow is trained to do anything and everything that a grandchild would—this includes going grocery shopping with the senior, attending to their doctor’s appointments, sharing stories or having a quiet lunch together, enjoying a game of carrom, going through a photo album, accompanying them for walks, catching a movie, and even teaching them to use technology.  

Children and relatives can nominate elderly family for the beta run on the website. It will go live end of January 

In September, the team launched a free beta pilot, which is still ongoing. As part of the pilot run, they invited grandparents to sign up for free for a 12-session-long programme. The website they launched (www.thegoodfellows.in), invited their children or others to nominate a senior relative (grandpal) for the project, by filling up a form. Naidu connects with the grandpal, and their family, within 48 hours. Once they’ve understood their preferences, a GoodFellow is assigned to them. GoodFellows is set to go live end of this month. Naidu is hoping to launch it as an app, so that families living abroad, who have elderly back in India, can sign up. While the first month of the service will be free, if the grandpal is happy, they can continue with a paid subscription. “This has not been done before, so I’d rather that they sign up and see the value in it, before deciding if they want to go ahead. We don’t want to bind them by a subscription immediately. Such an initiative can only be a success, when they trust us without inhibition or fear of getting trapped,” says Naidu. The reason it’s a paid service, he explains, is because, while the graduates are doing this out of passion for the elderly, “it’s important to give them dignified, respectable salaries for the time they are investing”.
Following the pilot run, they were able to gauge that grandpals would ideally like to spend every alternate day with a GoodFellow, and for a couple of hours each day. Arthur, who signed up for the pilot, says, “From the very first day that Gargi came home, I realised that she was a blessing for us. She has set the tone and tenor for a relationship, which we hope continues forever.” He speaks of how Sandu helps him with professional advice, despite a 60-year age gap.“I have always been impetuous as a person. There was this one time recently, when I was trying to highlight an issue of graft in the government office. When Gargi read my letter, she suggested I tone it down, as it was likely to attract an adverse reaction. I listened to her, and I must say that I got a response to it.”

Both Arthur and Joyce have sons and grandchildren living nearby in the city, and while they visit often, the pandemic had put brakes on their social lives. Joyce, 86, who used to host choir practice at her home before 2020 and would also regularly play the organ in church, has been unable to do this since March 2020. “We used to interact with people a lot, but now, nobody comes home [except family],” she says. Sandu was a breath of fresh air. “We got along immediately. These days we are constantly sharing forwards on WhatsApp, especially those of my grandson, who is a singer. Every time she finds one of his videos on Instagram, she sends it to me.”

Naidu hopes to have monthly meet-ups for the grandpals and their GoodFellows once they go live and kicking. They recently had an intimate get-together, following COVID protocols, at a residential society in Colaba. Naidu speaks of the heart-warming feedback he has received from an 80-year-old grandmother. “Though she has sons and daughters, she doesn’t want to trouble them. She told me that at one point, she had been so lonely that she had voluntarily checked into an old-age home. But, she couldn’t stay long, because she realised it wasn’t meant for her. Her GoodFellow [Krutika Kathe] has turned her life around. She said that she was so overwhelmed, because she never thought she could enjoy this sort of companionship at this stage in her life.” 

18-30
Age group of eligible GoodFellows

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