Skip to main content

Retirement



Most of my boyhood companions have either retired from their jobs or are on the verge of retirement. Officially I have a year left for entering that stage of life in which you never get a day off. Personally, I wouldn’t want to retire at all till the last breath. Being practical, I know that the best time to start thinking about retirement is before my boss does.

School reopened yesterday after a month’s summer holiday. Reopened partly, that is; the whole school will reopen when the monsoon ushers in a totally different mood in the state. As we got ready to go to school yesterday, Maggie remarked about the inertia that the one month vacation had built into her psyche. It is then I realised that I was waiting for the school to reopen. I hope my boss won’t think of my retirement too soon though I know that even he is restricted by the given system.

What actually buoys me up is the reward I receive from my students for my efforts. The results of the Board Exams were released yesterday and my students’ performance filled me with delight. I’m not an adherent of the Nishkam Karma doctrine of the Gita. I will not continue my job beyond a day if my students’ performances are not up to my expectations. I leave Nishkam Karma to the saints in the Himalayas and the emerging pundits in current Indian politics.  

But the prospect of retirement doesn’t threaten me the least. In fact, I’m well prepared for that inevitable phase of life. Reading and writing will continue to be my faithful companions. Perhaps, I’ll begin to enjoy many things which I never cared to notice hitherto. I’m pretty sure a whole new reality will open up before me.

A friend wished me happy old age on my last birthday assuming that I had turned 60 when I had only turned 59 in fact. I told her that even 60 is not old age now. I’m still young and will continue to be so till my last breath (hopefully). Let others retire. I shall recalibrate. I know how to make new beginnings.



Comments

  1. Keep writing sir,, touched souls

    ReplyDelete
  2. That's so true Tomichan - the best time to start thinking about retirement is before my boss does. Very nice to know about your teaching experiences. I think there will definitely be a lot to do once you retire, esp on the blog sphere. You have got a good number of dedicated readers eager to hear your experiences. :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Either you would have misread your fried or your friend would have misread your spirit - which cannot be deemed worthy in friendship!!! Go back and read again. Probably, the friend wished you for turning young again. See, a friend has to know you well. Am I right;)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Nice Article.had wonderful information.Great Work.Keep Going



    best old age homes in hyderabad

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

Florentino’s Many Loves

Florentino Ariza has had 622 serious relationships (combo pack with sex) apart from numerous fleeting liaisons before he is able to embrace the only woman whom he loved with all his heart and soul. And that embrace happens “after a long and troubled love affair” that lasted 51 years, 9 months, and 4 days. Florentino is in his late 70s when he is able to behold, and hold as well, the very body of his beloved Fermina, who is just a few years younger than him. She now stands before him with her wrinkled shoulders, sagged breasts, and flabby skin that is as pale and cold as a frog’s. It is the culmination of a long, very long, wait as far as Florentino is concerned, the end of his passionate quest for his holy grail. “I’ve remained a virgin for you,” he says. All those 622 and more women whose details filled the 25 diaries that he kept writing with meticulous devotion have now vanished into thin air. They mean nothing now that he has reached where he longed to reach all his life. The

Unromantic Men

Romance is a tenderness of the heart. That is disappearing even from the movies. Tenderness of heart is not a virtue anymore; it is a weakness. Who is an ideal man in today’s world? Shakespeare’s Romeo and Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s Devdas would be considered as fools in today’s world in which the wealthiest individuals appear on elite lists, ‘strong’ leaders are hailed as nationalist heroes, and success is equated with anything other than traditional virtues. The protagonist of Colleen McCullough’s 1977 novel, The Thorn Birds [which sold more than 33 million copies], is torn between his idealism and his natural weaknesses as a human being. Ralph de Bricassart is a young Catholic priest who is sent on a kind of punishment-appointment to a remote rural area of Australia where the Cleary family arrives from New Zealand in 1921 to take care of the enormous estate of Mary Carson who is Paddy Cleary’s own sister. Meggy Cleary is the only daughter of Paddy and Fiona who have eight so

The Ugly Duckling

Source: Acting Company A. A. Milne’s one-act play, The Ugly Duckling , acquired a classical status because of the hearty humour used to present a profound theme. The King and the Queen are worried because their daughter Camilla is too ugly to get a suitor. In spite of all the devious strategies employed by the King and his Chancellor, the princess remained unmarried. Camilla was blessed with a unique beauty by her two godmothers but no one could see any beauty in her physical appearance. She has an exquisitely beautiful character. What use is character? The King asks. The play is an answer to that question. Character plays the most crucial role in our moral science books and traditional rhetoric, religious scriptures and homilies. When it comes to practical life, we look for other things such as wealth, social rank, physical looks, and so on. As the King says in this play, “If a girl is beautiful, it is easy to assume that she has, tucked away inside her, an equally beauti

Yesterday

With students of Carmel Margaret, are you grieving / Over Goldengrove unleaving…? It was one of my first days in the eleventh class of Carmel Public School in Kerala, the last school of my teaching career. One girl, whose name was not Margaret, was in the class looking extremely melancholy. I had noticed her for a few days. I didn’t know how to put the matter over to her. I had already told the students that a smiling face was a rule in the English class. Since Margaret didn’t comply, I chose to drag Hopkins in. I replaced the name of Margaret with the girl’s actual name, however, when I quoted the lines. Margaret is a little girl in the Hopkins poem. Looking at autumn’s falling leaves, Margaret is saddened by the fact of life’s inevitable degeneration. The leaves have to turn yellow and eventually fall. And decay. The poet tells her that she has no choice but accept certain inevitabilities of life. Sorrow is our legacy, Margaret , I said to Margaret’s alter ego in my class. Let