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Spice of Life | Rest assured, retirement is an opportunity, not a calamity
I’ve come to realise that retirement is not about adding years to one’s life but about adding life to one’s years. I have understood the value of leisure and identified a hobby that I enjoy
The day had finally arrived. After 39 years of service, I was to retire. The company had issued a circular giving details of a felicitation function planned for the afternoon. The language felt cold, even brutal. I was to be relieved from the services of the company after attaining the age of superannuation, the circular said. It seemed like a double whammy, a combination of a pink slip for age-related reasons.
A day before, to say my final goodbyes, I had gone to one of the company’s far-flung manufacturing units, the whole office had unitedly taken all possible precautions to ensure neither delayed flights nor lengthy meetings would hamper my return. Company regulation required me at the headquarters on the last working day to pack me ceremoniously off into retirement.
The speeches at the felicitation had begun in right earnest. Initially it seemed business as usual, my responsibilities included felicitation programmes when others superannuated, but this time the chickens had come to roost. I abruptly realised it was my departure that the speaker was referring to. What eulogy and what eloquent praise, I had to pinch myself to believe it was me they were talking about.
A speaker picturised a blissful period that I could now look forward to and that several good things awaited me from the next day onward. What good times? My wife had actually been waiting eagerly for this day. Each morning, I would now have to make breakfast, pack the family’s lunch boxes, hang up the damp clothes after removing them from the washing machine and drop her off to her workplace driving through Bengaluru’s interminable traffic. I would stop being important at home as well. A hurry in the morning, the wife was sure to say: “Where are you rushing? Take it easy, you are retired now, you have nothing to do during the day anyway.”
I used to enjoy my workday at the company. It was my “karma bhumi” and I looked forward to coming to the office every morning. The tasks were streamlined, our objectives were clear and targets stretched just enough to make them challenging. It was indeed a happy place and working here used to remind me of the jolly initial years at the beginning of my career.
An increase in life expectancy has changed the concept of retirement, now half your work life is still left, leaving you a time management problem. Earlier, always short of time you wished for one or two hours more before a deadline, now there is all the time in the world. No schedule, no meetings, no far-off outposts to visit.
Yet again there always was a native place or an ancestral home to look forward to settle down after retirement. Nowadays this concept of native place is only for the leave travel concession forms, leaving you confused on where to settle down after retirement.
Several years have elapsed since the day of my felicitation function. I have come to realise that retirement is not about adding years to one’s life but about adding life to one’s years. I have understood the value of leisure and identified a hobby that I enjoy. Retirement now seems to me to be an opportunity not a calamity. priyannaik211@gmail.com
The writer is a Bengaluru-based freelance contributor
