Beyond Wrinkles and Stereotypes: Meenakshi Menon’s GenS Life Empowers Seniors to Live Boldly

New Delhi, August 21, 2025

One of the most difficult aspects of growing older is watching your parents age — the once steady hands now wrinkled, the tireless steps slowed by wobbly knees, and conversations often reduced to reminders about medicines or doctor visits. For Meenakshi Menon, however, ageing is not about limitations but about freedom, courage, and redefining life’s later years. At 66, she is a grandmother of two, an organic farmer, scuba diver, entrepreneur, and environmentalist who has refused to let age confine her. Determined to challenge stereotypes, she founded GenS Life, a tech platform designed to empower people over 60 to live independently, connected, and without the weight of loneliness or monotony.

The platform, her fifth startup in four decades of entrepreneurship across advertising, marketing, and media consulting, offers services ranging from yoga and travel to tax filing, mental health support, and even security verification. For Meenakshi, the idea was born from two reflections: first, her dual role as both mother and daughter at 66, navigating the complexities of ageing parents and the guilt children often feel; and second, her personal experience with ageism. Recalling an incident at a store where a salesman dismissed her as too old for an iPhone, she realized how deeply age-based prejudice was ingrained. “If someone like me, who has achieved so much, is made to feel inadequate because of my age, what must others go through?” she asked.

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For Meenakshi, self-care is a way of life — whether it is walking 4–5 km daily, working out five days a week, scuba diving, or spending time with her grandchildren every week. According to her, elders should maintain hope because retirement shouldn’t be a time of decline but rather of reinvention. “What if you live another 30 years? Do you want to think every day that your best years are behind you?” she says. Her message to women over 60 is equally powerful: embrace realities like menopause and PCOD openly, and guide younger women to avoid the mistakes of past generations.

For Meenakshi, true wisdom lies not in asking others to follow in your footsteps but in encouraging them to create their own path — with independence, dignity, and joy