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Bidding adieu to tradition of holding farewell parties
Spice of Life: A new protocol was devised for farewell functions and not more than three speakers were sanctioned to say “a few words” for the retiree
Like our birthday, our retirement day is fixed, too. The day we join service, we are made to remember the year of our retirement. Often, while filling forms, applying for loans, for passports or for permission to travel abroad, we have to fill the date of our retirement and it becomes just a routine.
The feeling of retirement sinks in only on the day one actually retires, the day our professional colleagues gather around over a cup of tea to give us a send-off. During the course of my career, I have been a part of these farewells for 35 years. I remember, I was just 26, when I first got an opportunity to be a part of a retirement party. Those were the days when retirement parties stretched long as it was a part of the tradition of our college.
With the principal seated on a higher platform along with the staff secretary, the vice-principal and the retiree and his/her family members and a huge gathering of almost 300 staff members, listening to one speaker after the other, some friends, some colleagues from the department and some speakers who volunteered to the staff secretary to be included in the list. We, the fledgling newcomers not fully acclimatised to the traditions and not attached with the retiree, passed time with much difficulty. At the back of the mind were the small kids we had left at home and a worry for their welfare. Hence, in spite of our physical presence, we were mentally absent and just waiting for the speeches to end and rush for a delayed lunch. That was when I was in my late twenties.
Gradually with time, the professional life in college and the people started getting the better of me. I started listening earnestly and attentively to what was said for the retiree and sometimes got emotionally charged when the retiree unfolded his life’s journey. And then as I became senior, my involvement in the parties was looked up to, sometimes I was even asked to say a few words for the retiree as the list of speakers started declining and my oratory skills started getting recognised.
In retrospect when I think of those functions now, there is a clear-cut graph of these parties becoming less emotional and more formal. A new protocol was devised for the farewell functions and not more than two or three speakers were sanctioned to say “a few words” for the retiree. Gradually, it became an established norm and those who were to speak were given an instruction to watch the time limit does not exceed 10 minutes. The natural flow was regimented, and the retirement parties became less spontaneous. Then a time came when it didn’t even remain a formality.
A retiree’s popularity was measured by the number of staff members who attended the party. The show of courtesy ended and people who had any grudge against the retiree, showed it by boycotting the party. And with this, the charm of the retirement party was lost, and many retirees for the fear of a showdown refused to take the party, fearing absenteeism, in front of his/her family.
All traditions debunked, a post-modern era set in when the farewell party, for the host and for the guest lost its sheen because of new ideologies and clash of viewpoints. The way grand narratives are questioned, and traditions subverted, the college became a political arena, the microcosm of what is happening worldwide. Liberal humanism gave way to the rise of separatist tendencies, an uneasy coexistence of several ‘political parties’.
And then the Covid-19 pandemic ended it all. Human existence locked down in virtual medium bid adieu digitally. When institutions reopened, goodbyes were conducted with a handful of mandatory officials with masked faces stationed at a two-metre distance on the pretext of safety protocol. It was an end of farewells as we knew them.
The writer retired as principal of Mohindra College, Patiala. She can be reached at sangeetahandadr@gmail.com
