Retirement Plan

A great saint of India, Kabir said thus: do today that which is due tomorrow; and at this moment that which you are supposed to do today...

Unwittingly though, I am given to procrastination, or ‘postpone the evil’. Thus, in the five years preceding my retirement, I shelved to my master Retirement Plan all projects that involved either physical or mental labour - or both. No wonder, on the day of my retirement the list ran to a staggering 48 items. To name a few: vigorous weight-reduction workouts; retrieve from the attic the dust-laden religious scriptures and mind-boggling, not-more-than-two-pages-a-day, philosophical books and demystify their contents; attempt to fine-tune my vocal chord (when no one is at home, that is) to render it a semblance of music when I sing; and, above all, take up what was closer to my heart two decades ago - write light-reading pieces which, in the absence of anything better that day, used to get published in the leading Indian leading newspapers.

Retirement has got past a little over a year ago, but those 48-odd items still await translation into reality. One of them is to read books. Of course I did read some books, but covered the first five to fifteen pages, before I hopped on to another, yet another, and doing justice to none. The solitary book that I read from page one to the end was: ‘100 ways to live 100’ but, here again, I confess, with a liberal skip of pages in between.

I got an opportunity to gauge my skills at singing recently when I joined a chorus to sing religious songs. The chap next to me however spared repeated side-glances at me as though wondering whether I should really care to render the support.

As for the regular workout, my wife and I attempt to take a walk in the mornings to the nearby lake. It has a large playground as well. On Mondays the walk is ruled out because a workforce of five drive their four-wheel lawn mowers at break-neck speed, providing the spectacle of a formula race. Consequently, apart from the noise pollution, there is an unlimited supply of grass all over the pathway.. I am allergic to grass, and I have my wife’s permission not to take risk. Walk on Tuesdays is risky because that is the day the sprinklers operate. Inanimate though, these sprinklers water both the grass and cemented areas without discrimination. Thus, unless one is determined to have a shower-cum-walk with chances of a Laurel-and-Hardy type fall, and resultant slip disc or hip injury, very few will venture. And either on Saturday or Sunday morning, we skip the walk because all of us together in the family watch a movie or two and go to bed late the previous night. On days that are still left, the weather takes charge - too hot, cloudy, drizzling, etc.

The writing front too would have met with the same fate but for the persistence and perseverance of my two sons – one in Phoenix and the other in San Jose. Given to sobriety (being the elder one), the Phoenix son’s customary question on return from Office has been: “So, Dad, were you able to attempt anything today?” instead of asking pointblank, ‘Did you write anything at all?” It is a different thing that very often I take our two-year old grandson for a walk to the park synchronizing with my son’s return from office - to avoid this direct question. The younger one in San Jose is made of a different mettle. He rings up unfailing twice a week. My evasive replies that I helped the elder one in gardening, shopping, repair work, etc. fall into his deaf ears. He is down to earth, and emphatically reminds me that no doubt physical activity is important, but mental activity is no less, more so if one wishes to keep off dementia, Alzheimer’s, etc.

So much for the sons. The modus operandi of the lady of the house, however, is different. She is a past master at persuasion. Three decades of life with me, and who can know more of me. That leaves my two daughters-in-law. They are nice. They joined our family less than five years ago. Still hibernating, you see.
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To add insult to the injury, at my retirement farewell function I was referred to as untiring, diligent, methodical, etc. - expressions that had managed to evade my annual appraisal reports in the preceding 35 years. (What bothers me is why they reserve these expressions for the farewell function?) Anyway, I was taken in by these encomiums, and in that moment of weakness I listed in my thanksgiving speech things that I hoped to be busy with on retirement - with a time schedule, to cap it all. And with email coming handy, many of them still stay in touch, all eager to get the ‘progress report’, if any, that is.

So, driven to despair from all quarters, here I am hammering a piece to reflect the thought process of a retiree, for whom freedom and quietude still remain cherished ambitions.

V.V. Sundaram
16 August 2006