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!