Retirement Benefits

I am retired. Retired of studies. I will be remembered by maximum two generations of juniors, after which I will join the crowd of unknown faces and names. Or, I might also become somebody really successful some day and be heralded as a case study in my institutions’ career prospectus brochure. I talk benevolently of days that have passed, to anyone who cares to stop by. Or doesn’t care much, but has been unwittingly trapped in a situation where the only way out is to hear my rambling days of the yore. I talk of those tough courses I had taken. Of professors. Of friends. Of foes. Of exams. Of results. Of ranks. It’s all part of a proud album now.

Somewhere in this album is a photo with my parents standing in the background beaming at their son. Somewhere there will also be tucked a photo of my father’s disgruntled face over a botched entrance exam. Somewhere else my mother would be explaining to some ever-inquisitive ‘aunty’ how her dear son is not actually lost in life; but is actually completing a brilliant secret science project underground. Somewhere in that album, my father would be juggling before me words like CA, CFA, MSc, BTech, MBA with unnerving adroitness. And somewhere in that album is a picture of my parents inviting all their friends over to celebrate their son’s first campus placement.

Which brings to my current state; having encapsulated atleast six years of textbook toil in the past two paragraphs. Now I go to office daily. Sit in a cubicle. Open my laptop; an instrument that had stopped looking dashing after my very first week at work. Attend meetings. Work against deadlines. Occasionally if things go right, I receive a pat on the back (literally, and no more!). If things go wrong, you go back home licking your wounds, being philosophical about life as a whole and the world as a globe. At the end of every month, a pay cheque comes- usually enough for me to watch new film releases, dine expensively and buy myself a monthly gift. But still it is dimunitive enough for my father to still nod his head disappointedly and say, “You can do better”!

People like my parents, and probably yours, and probably thousands and millions of others who expect a race horse out of a child…..come under the butt of a lot of idealistic disdain. Movies are made denouncing their mentality. Newspapers columns bemoan the poor child. ‘If the child wants to paint, let him’ ‘It looks like with the child, parent is also studying’ ‘Why make your child join the rat race’…….are things that are regularly intellectually hurled across to the average middle-class parent in India.

I had joined a theatre workshop recently. These are the kind of things that I’ve realized bored corporates often catch fancy for. It joins right in the category of salsa, pottery, guitar, piano, cha cha cha or yoga. Whenever some colleague gave me a questioning look on spotting me running in jogging gear from the office restroom; I reply quickly saying ‘theatre workshop’ and the person nods his head understandingly as if to say, “It’s okay, this too shall pass!”

“Hi, I am actually a…….model”, a pretty face sitting to my right said. “I have done print ads mostly. And yup, I am interested in acting”, she ended with a smile that carried from one end of her petite face to the other.

Others went on introducing themeselves; and I ended up nodding my head in acknowledgement to an array of actors, models, air hostesses, choreographers. Finally eleven pairs of eyes finally rested on me and I gauchely replied, “Hi, my name is Aurodeep. I am an Economist.”

‘Haanh?’, an audible hush went around the circle. “Wow”, the instructor finally said as if summarizing the group’s sentiments. “So why acting?”

“Imagine that the person is standing opposite you”, the instructor said in a droning voice as we all stood facing the wall. “Suppose you are mad at the person in front; how would you say this dialogue? Come on, shout.” Twelve people started barking like a pack of rabid dogs at the wall. “You are angry”, she continued, raising her voice and moving behind us like those really agitated coaches do in American movies while addressing a defunct basket ball team or an army unit. “You are very angry. That guy in front of you is your enemy. Come on more louder, Louder, LOUDER”
“Aurodeep”, she yelled as she came near me. “Be more fierce. More angry, I can’t see it in your face”, she ranted as I was increasingly failing to draw inspiration from a blank wall.

Additionally I was quite disturbed by the others. Pack a room full of people gesticulating and shouting their lungs out at the walls, and the end product looks sickeningly disconcerting. But on the top of everyone’s voices, one voice bellowed with great intensity, “Arrghhhhh, Mera aur main kaha baanki bancha hai !”, he screamed with theatric extravagence. He was a tall guy; handsome built, deep, resonating voice, a hero-like swagger. I looked around the room; and realized that there were actually quite a lot of my classmates who, like him had turned red and flushed in their faces, fuming and puffing at the wall. I looked back once again to my strip of the wall and muttered under my breath, “Sorry but I can’t offer you anything better.”

On the last of the six days, owing to incessant rains, I decided to share a taxi with four others in the group who were also going in the same direction. It wasn’t exactly a physical impossibility, since the other four with their showbiz aspirations had kept themselves conveniently thin to accommodate any such contingency. So I got seated in the front seat with the rest fitting themselves in the back. The guy with the vehemence and swagger was also in the group.

“Arre, koi contacts de na”, C asked him. “I want some serial roles.” R quite matter-of-factly pulled out his cell phone and announced as if he was giving dictation, “Duggu….93******. Then there is Aki. Aki; runs an event management company. Accha and take this number too…..you need to pester him a bit, but strong contacts hai uska”. The girl who had by now recovered from the frenzied typing on the mobile asked curiously, “You know so many people, man….how many years have you been in Mumbai?”

“Two. This September would make it two.”
“Wow, so any assignments?”

“I did a small role in a serial. My ad with Nokia will be coming out soon. And I am currently shooting one for a garments’ company. Arre you just need to be in the right place at the right time. Bas. Life is set. You know the guy who starred in Udaan? The lead role. He was a no one before that. One ad film. The director noticed him, and bas….I am doing theatre now to work on my acting. If you are a good actor, some day or the other, you will get the break.”

“Where do you exactly stay?”
“Evershine, Lokhandwala.”
“PG?”
“No, five of us have rented a flat.”

“My parents in Allahabad still think that I am doing hotel management.”
“Even me!”, another girl chimed in. “My father strictly told ‘no’. In our family everyone has studied something or the other. I didn't feel like doing MBA. I have auditioned for some plays, but getting into professional theatre is tough though. Mostly there are these close knit groups; there is hardly any scope for auditions. You need to be really good.”

"Auditions, na", another girl joined. “Does any one of you know how auditions for films work. Tried so many. Abhi tak kuch hua nahi (nothing has worked out yet),

For quite some while, having no such experience to contribute to the conversation, I continued to look ahead at the road and listen to transition plans of an airhostess into a model; a model into a hero; a choreographer to a model and a theatre artist to a film actor. All of them spoke fervently- of dreams, of aspirations, of hope and latently of desperation.

In an effort to be more social, I twisted my body and looked at the back seat packed with pretty people.
“Hey, what is your job like,” one of the models asked, as if in cognizance of my stunt.

“Well its basically understanding and forecasting economic variables. Forex and interest rate modeling. We give economic intelligence to companies- regarding growth prospects, industrial production, inflation…..”

As I went on, alarmed at how intellectual and heady I was sounding even to myself, it suddenly dawned on me why the tall guy was executing every instruction in that workshop with such aggressive meticulousness. Why others would look pained the moment the instructor would say that she expected better. Why most of them would shout, scream, jump, cry, breathe in, blow out…..all in a do-or-die fashion.
What was hobby to me, was profession to them. For me the workshop was a recreation. For them, it was a flight of stairs to another set of stairs, up a seemingly infinite staircase. A six day workshop had got over. ‘What would they be doing tomorrow morning’, I wondered. Call up some regulars for work? Scan newspapers for an odd audition? Preen themselves up for some forgettable shoot? Go for an appointment with a photographer, or a shady modeling coordinator, or beautician?

What would I be doing tomorrow?
Going to office.

I might like gallivanting from theatres to movie to workshops. I might enjoy reading plays throughout the day. I think I would love to play Hamlet. But waiting for a big break, seeking material salvation; I don’t think I would have liked to be in their shoes. I would not like to not dispense off with a nice, monthly pay cheque. I would not like to do a mental calculation before servicing any expensive desire.

They are indeed very brave people to have embarked on that path. Of uncertainty and personal calling. But somehow the coward in me is satisfied under the garb of a company ID. For all the tyranny that I faced from the education and social system; I think it atleast spared me of the war that I would otherwise have to fight on the street daily. I am glad that my parents stuck to their guns, put their weight behind me and pushed me up. I am glad that I burnt the midnight’s oil behind some excruciating exam. I am glad to have been beaten, and in turn beaten some in that conventional rat race. And I am glad that somewhere all that pressure and unambiguous communication of academic aspirations that an average Indian child receives dictation of; somehow worked in my favour.

In conclusion, I am glad to have lived the life of a slogging student.....and comfortably retired now! Making anything beyond office seem so much like an idyllic post-retirement cruise!