When Col Raja Shantanoo Subedar retired from the army five years ago, the most logical thing for the Artillery officer would have been to settle down in their 2-BHK flat in Aundh in Pune, which is also his wife Shailaja’s hometown. Instead, the couple moved to Nashik. “Two things worked against the city for me, the rising real estate prices coupled with the high cost of living and the fact that my wife could not drive her car in the maddening traffic,” says the 62-year old now leading a blissful retired life in Nashik.

The story of Col Vaibhav Gokhale (65) is no different. Gokhale has been born and brought up in Pune and his entire clan lives in the city. He also owns a house in the upmarket Bhandarkar road area. Post-retirement, Gokhale decided the city was not living up to the pensioner’s paradise sobriquet.

“Pollution and traffic congestion, that’s what Pune of today is. I did not want to grapple with any of it at my age,” says Gokhale, who bought land in Nashik and built a bungalow there. He says his adopted city is a “hundred times better than Pune for retired people”.

As the city grows to accommodate a whole new generation of students, techies and other professionals, pensioners are being edged out.

“I had always planned to settle in Pune after retirement, having done two tenures in the city. We had a small flat in Mundhwa and I hoped to move into a bigger one by selling my bungalow in Dehradun. But when the time came, we realised that the congestion in the city and the spiralling cost of living would not give us the quality of life we wanted,” says Brig ML Sabharwal (65) who sold his flat in Pune and moved to Dehradun.

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