In a recent article in the London Daily Telegraph, Deborah Moggach, the author of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, reflected on how her grandmother remained an important part of her family's life right up to the time of her death, and contrasted this with the way that elderly people are often treated nowadays. This reflection led to an interesting, radical idea. The following is an adapted extract from this article.

'How we treat the elderly was in my mind when I wrote my novel These Foolish Things – now reborn as a film, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. The chances are most of us will end up in a home. If it happens to me, however, I don't want to do it the British way. I don't want to be shunted out of sight, staring at a ploughed field or the rain-lashed sea. It seems perverse that the more immobile someone becomes, the further they're removed from the action. More than ever, I would want to be surrounded by life, with stuff going on around me. And I'd much rather it was called a hotel – as Madge, one of my characters says, "the word hotel still has possibilities".

'And I decided that if I couldn't be within the bosom of my family, I'd like to be somewhere hot. India sprang to mind for many reasons. We outsource everything else there; why not the elderly? It's hot, it's cheap, and there's plenty going on outside one's window. The streets in India are teeming with life. And if one does venture out, it's safe; in India teenagers are respectful and obedient. They look up to the elderly, who are considered founts of wisdom – true, we are! Underlying this idea, of course, is the looming collapse of any means of funding the elderly in the UK – the pensions time-bomb, the strain on the National Health Service. We're all living too long and there's no money to pay for us, and it's going to get worse. My solution – to send the elderly to developing countries – actually makes sense.

'And it's already happening. Spurred by the film, there's been a spate of articles about new retirement homes being built, not just in India but in other developing countries such as the Philippines, where labour is cheap and there's year-round sun. Of course, it's a long way from home and it wouldn't suit everybody, but there are huge advantages, especially if families are scattered around the globe anyway, as is often the case. How strange that what began as fiction is turning into fact!

'I think we're seeing a shift in consciousness. Life doesn't end with retirement; it can be a new beginning. If we're open to new experiences, we can find ourselves transformed. And let's stop calling ourselves old; I prefer very grown-up indeed.'