Postcards from the past

Dear,.......

So finally you have decided to hang up your gloves. Congratulations, you have retired-- time to kick back, relax and rethink philosophy. Time to pursue more philanthropic and altruistic pursuits. Now you have many choices before you, enjoy life to its fullest, relax, watch TV, read the newspapers from start to end, chat with friends, eat and drink what and when you want, window shop, visit London and other places. Earlier I too was looking forward to my retirement, after 36 years of working non-stop, but then the nest egg I salted away has become a pigeon egg. So when the kids grow up and move away, it will be difficult to even maintain an empty nest. The temporary collapse of the economic system and inflation means the end to my dreams of a well earned lazy retirement. I won’t find it hard to meet expenses; they are everywhere, ha ha. So it seems like I cant even retire & will have to keep on working to keep the wolves from the door. The only time I felt free, unshackled and close to Nirvana was when I had the heart attack/ Angina, it temporarily robbed my brain of functions and debtors in a silent euphoria! It’s a pity, because now all those exotic locales and countries I wanted to see are not possible with oil prices shooting up, I will now have to read about them from travel brochures or the internet.
Even driving around the country side by car is not possible as it costs$100 to fill up my Toyota SUV (sports utility vehicle) at this rate the next generation will have to walk 11 miles to school like my father used to in the 1930’s. It will be difficult to visit friends and relatives, of course the youngsters will communicate by cell phone, sms, and email & one can also indulge in chats with face book. By the time my 2 super brats Natasha & Farishta complete their education I will be strapped for cash and credit card debt will be irrepayable. The only function of economic forecasting was to make weather forecasts look respectable, so it looks like its all downhill from here. I wish I had like Arun gone to the Gulf or got on to the job elevator early in life, and then I would have been at the top of the fiduciary rankings. But I wasted my salad days falling in love with Malu when I was seventeen in the summer of ‘67, she was attractive and a much older women, but left me to marry Gopalkrishnan. Wrong time, wrong place I guess, lecturers were the most sought out bachelors in those days. Though I forgot all I learnt in college, the yellow lecture notes and black boards full of algorithms never helped me even in later life, not in the real world. So I can only dip my pen in nostalgia and ponder about those long forgotten stories and the romance of a bygone era. I too am tired…… and scared to think what I will do when I am retired, I am not there yet. When in youth as a student I wanted a job, then as a professional I wanted to rise to the top and earn more money, then marriage, later busy with career and raising my children and providing for them, now retirement. My children have already divorced me on the grounds of being computer illiterate and technically challenged about I phones, and after retirement my wife and in laws will treat me like some boring but necessary home appliance (washing machine).But I will have the greatest luxury in the world, the luxury of time to think and occasionally do what I want to do.
What was the real purpose of my life???