Happy Retirement!

I had read somewhere that, retirement is the reward after decades of hard work and an opportunity to spend more time with family, to travel, and to do all the things on your bucket list you wanted, but were too busy to do when you are working.  I do not know, if this is an exact description of the state of mind of a retired person.  This would probably vary from individual to individual.  By and large, I think this exactly fits into my idea of retirement.

During the working-phase of my life, I had a never given a thought, as to, what would life be, or what I would do, after retirement; always assuming that the life, as I knew then, would go on and on.  It had never occurred to me, that someday I would get old and bald; no longer required by the company that had employed me; skillsets would age; technologies would change, or there would be a fixed retirement age (which is 60 years in India, now for most of the government and public sector enterprises including banks).  After reality kicked in, and retirement was almost upon me, I realized, that on the day superannuation dawned/resignation submitted, my name would just be a closed entry on the company’s records.  I would be merely acknowledged, as an ex-employee, on exit from the company.  The company which had, until the day prior to my last day at office, commended my work ethics and quality of work delivered; bestowing me with fancy titles, had overnight deleted my ID out of the systems and blocked out, physical access to all of their facilities.  As I happened to visit my beloved office, the next day after my retirement/resignation, I had to request my ex-colleagues to log me in, using their ID and escort me to the department, I had wanted to visit.  All the admiration and respect I had commanded the day prior, amongst my colleagues, had vanished overnight into thin air.  It was literally like, I had become persona non-grata, with the company.

During my working days, weekends and other public holidays were great fun, to go out with the family on social visits or reading or simply enjoying a lazy day at home.  ‘Me-time’ and ‘sleep-time’ were always at a premium during those hectic working days.  Mondays used to be a drudgery due to heavy traffic conditions on the streets and workloads left over from the past week at office.  Immediate bosses and superiors used to reach office early on Mondays brimming with fresh ideas, displaying high energy and vigour; waiting to pick on and browbeat their subordinates with their new ideas.  Their ideas were normally tried out on the middle level Managers, who had, no option, but to nod their heads in agreement, like a bimbo.  If you were to disagree or raise any objection to the boss’s ideas, you were a marked man!  No small favours would be entertained; which were unavoidable in our line of work; like sometimes coming late to the office, leaving office early due to some work or engagement or even during promotion processes; there were always some such frivolous favours that needed the boss’s nod.  Basing on my experience, working life, indeed was a real pain, especially in the middle management; sandwiched between demanding superiors and indifferent subordinates.

After years of waking up early in the day to an alarm clock, it was luxurious in the first few days, post-retirement, to over-sleep for some time and wake up leisurely, with no particular place to go and above all, freedom from routine obligations.  Life was great, no motoring to the office in the terribly mad traffic conditions, no bosses to get shouted at, no subordinates to deal with.  Once the initial euphoria of the post-retirement life passes on, new challenges, arise.   Many, new unforeseen factors come into play.

The biggest challenge would be on the home-front.  People around you, resent your presence at home; especially the women folk (you guessed it!) because you are staying at home, like them, with them, in their hitherto unchallenged domain.  Women folk, generally, do not like or want your presence, day in and day out, around the home space, that they have created and nurtured, over the years.  I can understand their animosity; You see, it is, but, natural when someone who has not been home during the daytimes for years and decades together, suddenly comes alive and tries to mark his attendance at home.  Ladies, please forgive me, I should not have said this, just a slip of the tongueJ.

After the initial challenges, as detailed above, on the home-front wane (you see, the famous Charlie Chaplin quote comes to mind, nothing is permanent in this world, including our troubles or worries or even irritations or fightsJ), comes the new challenge of what to do with the rest of your life.  People with extraordinary passion or energy continue with their life/career pursuits in line with their passions even after their formal retirement; however, for people with no particular skillsets, the daily lazy routine bites.  It is my considered opinion, that nature counter balances this state, generally, by inducing some adverse health condition such as diabetes, or high blood pressure or heart condition or some such debilitating health condition, not necessarily life-threatening conditions or diseases; in order to keep the retiree, busy in life.  The retiree would have some new health challenges on hand to discuss and mope about with his retired group of friends in the neighbourhood parks; exchanging health related advice and discussing ad nausea, the present Indian political scene and current affairs.  As the popular quote goes, ‘Time and tide wait for no man’, time swiftly marches on, relentlessly.  It is soon time to say goodbye to the world, as we know it!

Coming to my plans, it had always been my dream that I would travel around the world and visit interesting places, post-retirement.  Come retirement, many of the post-retirement plans remain only on paper.  Our travel plans kept on postponing due to one reason or the other.  Nothing moved forward.  Life remained in a limbo.  The upside of this, however, is money to that extent has been saved, which would come in handy for a rainy day, especially if you are living off a pension, like me!

Boyhood Memories

It was a time like no other; the wonderful times that I had, as a young boy, growing up in the sixties and seventies.  Boyhood memories, with all its carefree charm, wondrous, playful, fun-filled life, has a special place in my heart.  Looking back, I was blissfully unaware, of what life had in store for me, down the line, just a few years ahead.

The games, we played as youngsters, had some typically funny names; although same or similar games with minor variations existed all over the country.  Just off the cuff, I remember a few names, (of course, in local lingo) such as, lagory, soorchand, icepies, gilli-dandlu, bugri, goli, tyre aata (typically a motorbike or moped tyre was used with the help of a stick or sometimes even the palm was used to roll the tyre on the streets); and of course, the ubiquitous gully cricket, generally played with tennis ball. Sometimes as a substitute for tennis balls, a rubber ball; or a sponge ball; or a cork ball; or even balls made from the produce of trees that bore red flowers in autumn, were used. You see, the frequent use of tennis balls was a costly affair and moreover, the tennis balls, had a tendency to lose its woollen exterior, very early, and turn into a bald, hard rubber ball.

The cricket bats, sometimes, were just flat wood planks shaped in the form of a cricket bat; cheap cricket bats were available in plenty in sports stores specially meant for playing cricket with tennis balls or rubber balls alone.  These bats, more often than not, broke when played with hard balls. 

For ‘wickets’, three stones were placed as ‘wicket’ markers at both ends; sometimes the three ‘wickets’ were marked on a wall, drawn with red-brick pieces or charcoal pieces. 

We could not afford to buy the 'wickets' or balls and bats ourselves; most of the time, we were dependent on some benevolent sponsors.  Many a time, the balls disappeared into the roadside sewers or drains or even house gardens, from where retrieval was not possible.  The boys who got us new balls, were considered to be important patrons and given special privileges, like batting first.

Playing one or the other games with boys of similar ages, during all times of the day was our main pastime; come rain or hot sun shine; the weather gods, never bothered us.  As cheeky boys, we were in the habit of sneaking away from home, sometimes even during the hot midday sun, away from the prying eyes of the parents.  All that was needed to start a game, was just a companion of similar age to play and an empty street, bereft of traffic.  Each game had a unique flavour to it and all the boys and girls of my generation knew each of the above games, by heart.

I am not sure, if the millennial generation has even heard the names of these games.  I think, many of these games have simply disappeared into antiquity, may be, they are lost forever.  Please don’t get me wrong; I am not making out a case that the games should be revived and the youngsters of today should start playing them.  Each generation of youngsters have their own way of choosing a pastime.  The present-day generation are all for video games and app-related games on their mobile phones and play stations; which are available aplenty and have probably replaced the physical games to a great extent; you hardly see youngsters playing on the streets, these days; the latest craze in the app category, it seems, is the game Pokémon Go.  Sometimes, makes me wonder how the games for youngsters get invented and how they get caught on, in the popular imagination of each generation.

Many of the games we played, required plenty of spare time and open spaces.  Luckily for us, as young boys of seventies, we had all the time in the world and many of the streets in Bangalore were free of traffic; there was very scarce movement of traffic all around Bangalore; most of the vehicular traffic was, just cycles and two-wheelers.  Cars were few and far between; mostly owned by few people, who could afford them.  This reminds me, there were only three major companies manufacturing cars in India.  The regal-looking, Ambassador; Fiat, later named as Premier Padmini and of course, the cute small car of those times, the Standard Herald. All these cars were manufactured in collaboration with UK or Italy.  Japanese cars, which we see, all around us, in plenty, these days, were unknown in India in the sixties and seventies.

As a young boy, I loved the Ambassador car and fervently wished to own the car, some day.  That, however, remained a dream, unfulfilled!  Of course, it never occurred to me, at that point in time, that the Ambassador car, would one day become a relic of the past, soon to be confined to the dustbin of history (or remain only as Kolkata taxisJ). 

As fate would have it, my boyhood days were soon cut short due to the prolonged illness and subsequent demise of my father; this forced me to grow up overnight and assume the mantle of a responsible adult. However, the wonderful, fun-filled memories of my boyhood days, still remain with me and regale me in my present out-of-work, retired state!