Tag: Calvin and Hobbes

Retirement.

Two triggers came to me on the same day which made me suggest this topic for this week’s 2 on 1 Friday post. Please do go over to Shackman’s blog to see what he has to say on the same topic.

The first was this cartoon in one of the daily newspapers that I read every day.

Luckily for me, I did not have a son like Calvin to make me surly during my working days and in any case, those days were not like what they are today.  We did not have to spend so much time commuting to and from work nor were we under the kind of pressures that today’s employees face in work situations.

The other was a WhatsApp message sending me this link to a post on Facebook.

Again, luckily for me, my old friends continue to be my friends and though the number is reducing there are still enough to keep my mind occupied with them as well as in reminiscing about the good old days.

Having started my working career at an unusual age of 16, by the time I had reached my mid forties, I had decided that I should retire by the age of fifty. This was so that I could see a lot of India and some parts of the world accompanied by my wife. For various reasons I was unable to retire at that age but was able to at the age of 52. Not bad, I thought but, life had other plans. Again due to various reasons, I was unable to implement the plan to travel and so was sort of drifting around when life intervened again and pulled be back into corporate life on three different occasions. I finally retired from corporate life at the age of 62. I did have some gaps between assignments during which I also underwent two major surgeries and tackled some major domestic issues.

For the past 14 years, I have lived a life of a retired old reprobate as so affectionately termed by my dear brother. I have not had any retirement blues as many of my friends have had though I did go through some difficult times being a full time care giver on two occasions since the retirement.

My retired life revolves around a lot of reading and a daily dose of solving crossword puzzles. This blissful existence is interspersed with reunions of various kinds about which I have blogged elsewhere, meetings with like minded reprobates in Pune where I live and visits to or from friends and family.

I am one of those blessed seniors who still has company at home in the form of his son and daughter in love plus two very affectionate dogs. To add spice to the life, two alley cats have also decided to adopt us and keep visiting us to ask for snacks at frequent intervals. Hardly ever a dull moment!

It helps that social media like Facebook and WhatsApp have brought many friends and family closer to me and so, I do not find myself at loose ends ever. The only exceptions are when due to public holidays, I do not get my daily dose of news papers and crossword puzzles when I have to depend on additional reading to pass the morning hours.

The Third Eye.

This photograph is of Swami Dandapani. No, I am not a Sales Agent for him but am posting this here to illustrate something else. If you were to ever meet me in the mornings when I am at Pune, you will see me with the same kind of Vibhuti horizontal stripes on my forehead as well as the tilak just above the nose and between the two eyebrows.

These two applications indicate that I follow Shaivism. The horizontal lines are symbolic of inevitable destruction of the body as the material used is ash from our sacred fires. Ash is symbolic of the human body becoming ash after cremation. When one applies the ash on his body, one remembers that he is subject to becoming ashes.

The tilak is more important for this post. The spot where it is applied is called the Ajna Chakra in yoga. The material used is either sandalwood paste or kumkum powder or both. I use both. Applying this on one’s forehead during morning prayers is to invoke the earnest request to open the third eye of the individual, which would enable him to differentiate between the real and the unreal, or the permanent and the impermanent.

I am delighted that my favourite Comics character wants to become a Shaivite!

Disagreements.

“If two people constantly agree with each other, then one of them is useless; but if two people constantly disagree with each other, then, both of them are useless.”

~ Japanese wisdom.

I came up with the topic for this week’s   2 on1 Friday blog posts where Shackman and I write on the same topic. The idea came actually due to the fact that by and large, both of us are in agreement on the topics that we write up on though we usually approach them from different backgrounds and experiences but, usually come to the same conclusions. We do however, differ on some topics but we take those in our stride and keep moving on. The disagreements do not come in the way of our relationship or the weekly blog posts.

On the other hand, I have had differences of opinion with some other visitors to my blog who have decided either not to comment or totally stop visiting and I simply have accepted that this is also part of experiences of relationships and moved on. Naturally, I too have stopped reciprocating but, that has not come in the way of relationships continuing off blogs via emails or WhatsApp messages etc.

I think that my approach is healthy one and one that has kept my relationships intact over many years. I think that allowing disagreements to mar relationships is foolish and would prefer not to indulge in it. What do you think?

Do please go over to Shackman’s blog to see what he has to say about the same topic. Thank you.