No children, no savings: the 80-year-old Kolkata taxi driver still working every day for his wife

Rabindranath Sarkar and his 67-year-old wife live in a small tin-roofed house near the railway tracks in Dum Dum, Kolkata, with no children to support them in old age. Every expense — from food to medicines — depends on what the 80-year-old earns driving a rented taxi each day.

According to Kolkata-based content creator Chaitali Bose, who shared Sarkar’s story in a video that has since gone viral, he has been driving taxis for more than five decades. His day still begins around 6 am and some nights doesn’t end until 11 pm, nearly 16 hours on the road, made harder by the fact that the taxi isn’t his — he rents it daily and must pay the owner regardless of how many passengers he gets.

Both Sarkar and his wife are dealing with health problems: he has chronic asthma, while she has a heart condition. Medicines are expensive, but Bose says stopping work isn’t really an option for the couple. Their home reflects the hardship — during monsoon, rainwater seeps through the leaking tin roof, and repairs keep getting delayed because there are always more urgent expenses.

The video has drawn a wide response online, with some viewers questioning whether elderly people like Sarkar receive enough financial support, and others saying his story exposes gaps in the country’s social security system for ageing workers.