Mochoo had retired from over 30 years' service as overseer in a nearby sugar estate. He was deciding what to do to fill his day. To help him, some friends and relatives of his came forward with a few suggestions he might like. Meanwhile, his niece settled overseas came back home on holiday.

Out of affection for him since childhood she advised, “You've worked for so long. Take a complete rest now. Just relax and enjoy your retirement as long as you live.”

But Sir Walter Scott warns that too much rest is rust. Soon, Mochoo was taken ill as a result of being idle. Also, remaining at home almost all the time without any activities, he was embittered, particularly seeing his children doing things that he could not expect from them. He was indeed healthy and strong as long as he was busy working. Shortly afterwards, he developed such complications that he had to go for dialysis thrice a week and eventually passed away.

“Who will cry when you die ?” asks Robin Sharma, one of America's top consultants in the field of leadership and life improvement in his soul-stirring book under this title. Life goes on without you. It makes no difference for the world at large. You are not indispensable. People around you, even those you have been holding dear and for whom you have done all to make them what they are today will gradually forget you. That's the way of the world.

On the other hand, some people look forward to their retirement or take an early retirement only to enter on a new career or start doing something they have always longed for. They could not do it earlier because they had to work hard to finance their children's education or were hard-pressed by other priorities. And now is the time for it.

Instead of languishing in loneliness or simply talking about their good old days, for such forward-looking people, life is a celebration as teaches Swami Ramdevji Maharaj, world-famous yoga master and founder of the Patanjali Yog Peeth. In time to come, they discover life to be a colourful proposal, a mission to fulfil.They are those in whom the fire to do something is not just still present despite age but steadily burning till the appropriate time is there for them to make it.

Among this category of people can be counted successful businessmen, consultants, painters, reformers and writers who have become celebrities. Some of them even say that they should have retired a long time back. In all of them there was a dream, an overpowering will to achieve, to succeed in the face of all odds. Like Lord Alfred Tennyson, they strongly feel and believe

“… that which we are, we are;

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”

In no way then should retirement mean mere waiting for death, doing nothing. Death is a necessary end. It will come when it should come. Nobody can prevent it. Man's dearest possession is life, the greatest gift from God. Why not live its remaining years happily and successfully with something in view?

<B>By Kaviraj SOHUR</B>