Japan, with its famously long-lived population, has given the world many useful things: Bullet trains, sushi, Toyota, karaoke, and a wonderfully blunt expression for what can happen when a husband retires.
It is called fūgenbyō, loosely translated as “retired husband syndrome.” The term describes the stress some Japanese women experience when husbands who spent decades at work suddenly retire and are home all day. Headaches, irritability, sleeplessness, anxiety, and depression have all been associated with the phenomenon.
India may soon need its own version.
For 35 years, the Indian husband had somewhere to go—the office, bank, court, government department, factory, or endless meetings. His wife built an entire life around his absence. She knew when the maid came, when she wanted her tea, what television programme she watched, whom she telephoned, and exactly how long an afternoon nap could last without anyone asking, “Are you sleeping?”
Consider the retired Indian bureaucrat. On Friday evening, he leaves an office where people called him “Sir,” appointments were sought to see him, and files arrived for his approval. On Monday morning, he wakes up to discover that nobody has put up a file.
There is, however, a household. So he takes charge.
{{/usCountry}}There is, however, a household. So he takes charge.
{{/usCountry}}His first administrative review begins at breakfast. “Why do we buy this brand of milk?” Nobody knows. “How much does it cost?” “And why do we need two packets?” By Wednesday, expenditure rationalisation has begun.
The maid, who has run the kitchen for 14 years, discovers that she now has a reporting officer. “What time are you supposed to come?” “10 o’clock.” “It is 10:12.” She looks at his wife. His wife, who spent 15 years building a delicate diplomatic relationship with the maid, knows better. This is how governments fall.
The retired banker creates an Excel sheet for household expenditure and announces that vegetable costs have increased 14.7% year-on-year. The wife suddenly acquires an unpaid management consultant.
The retired colonel is up at six and cannot understand why everyone else isn’t. The retired professor begins forwarding articles to his wife while sitting six feet away from her.
For decades, the traditional Indian marriage operated on a remarkably successful territorial arrangement: He had the office, she had the house. Then retirement abolishes the border.
With couples looking ahead at 20 or 30 healthy years, renegotiating marriages formed in a very different age becomes essential. The wife who spent decades managing a home does not necessarily want a newly appointed chief operating officer.
There are conventional solutions: Golf, gardening, consulting, volunteering. Every housing society could perhaps establish a Retired Husbands’ Centre: Newspapers, tea, Wi-Fi, and comfortable chairs. Send them there at 9 am. Collect them at 5pm.
Or you can do what we do. Divide your time between the children—one parent goes to one child, the other to another. Change stations periodically; meet occasionally during layovers. The children get grandparents, the grandparents get purpose, and nobody has time to investigate why the maid arrived 12 minutes late.
That just might be one secret to a happy retirement.
The writer is a Chandigarh-based former Indian Revenue Service officer, and can be reached at punamsidhu@gmail.com