The Hindu Business Line : One day in the life of a retired journo

One is fit and fine for an afternoon siesta to realise, like Lin Yutang, that the earth is the only heaven. In all the working years one never had a siesta, making for the only regret in my life.

It was a Monday afternoon. Mumbaikars were running up and down, scampering. Till some three months ago, one was doing the same.

Walking the Azad Maidan without any work to do or thoughtto think, one put to use the mobile presented by my son Ganesh. Calling Paul for an afternoon chat, we decided to meet at the Press Club by 2 in the afternoon. With a new Press Club coming up (nobody is sure when the work will be completed), members have one small hall and in the afternoon it turns roomy with journalists chasing the rise and rise of the Sensex. We settled down for a drink in an empty Press Club.

Paul was looking bright as he was leaving on a week’s holiday to his cosy home at Lotlim village in Goa. If there is any place in India this writer would like to live for ever it is in one of the ancient, empty homes with gardens in Goa. Paul tells me the homes are going, bought by builders from Mumbai and Delhi. Despite the place being bruised by loud tourists, the ordinary Goan still keeps his cheer with a glass of fenny and a cigarette. Sages searching the peace of the beyond turn contented sinners after a trip to Goa. Sipping vodka, Paul asked me, “What do you do the whole day. Don’t tell me you are not bored. But before that why did you go for a mobile after retirement.” We have been friends for over 14 years, with the first hand-shake being in the offices of the Indian Express where we worked together. “Come on Paul, it is easy. I do nothing. The mobile has been given me for my family to keep in touch, They are afraid I may overstay at the Club, ” one said.

My neighbours wonder how I waste my time. Well, it is like this… The day usually starts at 5 in the morning with the door bell rung by Ranjit, our milkman from Dahisar. If he is late, I am late. Not caring to use a wrist watch, one lands up on Linking Road with a changeable moon overhead. Days of the brisk walk are gone. One strolls, stops, gazes, wishes a good morning to friends busy putting their limbs into knots and continues.

Past Linking Road one enters the LIC Colony where one is familiar with most of the trees. Finishing the first lap of the Colony, one takes a break under a banyan tree watching bats (Flying Fox) flying back to rest on mango trees after a night of feasting. They scream before settling upside down. If lucky, one can spot an ashy grey wren warbler, hopping and calling loudly; then there is the coming alive of roosting sparrows with their vocalisation reminding one of school bells ringing. Do schools now have bells?, one wonders.

By 7, one is home for a tall glass of filter coffee going with any book on the shelf. At present, one is reading, The Importance of Living by Lin Yutang and the poetry of Emily Dickinson. There is a poem of Emily one is trying to learn by heart (though that is not happening) which runs: “I’m nobody! Who are you?/ Are you nobody, too?/Then there’s a pair of us – don’t tell?/They’d banish us, you know./ How dreary to be somebody!/ How public, like a frog/To tell your name the livelong day/To an admiring bog.” And the last poem in the collection called “Farewell” which ends: “Good-by to the life I used to live,/And the world I used to know;/And kiss the hills for me, just once;/Now I am ready to go.”

After an hour one enters the kitchen helping Rama with cooking – from buying vegetables in the market to steaming sambhar and bhaji on the plate. It takes about two hours with the lady hovering around to avert any slips which could ruin the lunch. It is also the time one’s mind wanders thinking of an uncle (on my father’s side) adept in the kitchen; for my aunt the kitchen was a no-go place as she hated the job. His aviyal and onion smabhar – with the fragrance tugging neighbours by their noses – are something one is trying to match in vain. He surely had a “sambhar thumb”. The two are no more.

Cooking over, one goes on errands (put up by the family on a notice board) to banks and the markets and also for a quiet smoke. The vegetable vendors have become my friends (offering price discounts and shorting on the measure) though the bank clerks are not. Home again for a second round of coffee to go with the day’s newspapers, which get dated by the “Breaking News” on the TV channels. Old papers, like old clothes and old shoes, make one comfortable. It takes all of 60 minutes to get unnerved by the scoops, the edits and the punditry, making a bath inevitable.

After applying some Ayurvedic oil to get some vegetation on one’s bald pate, one has a cold water bath singing to oneself followed by lunch. One is fit and fine for an afternoon siesta to realise, like Lin Yutang, that the earth is the only heaven. In all the working years one never had a siesta, making for the only regret in my life. If Rama has the inclination, we go for an evening walk; otherwise one foots it alone.

Some more reading or enjoying Cartoon Network and Pogo, before going to bed by 11 expecting a new day. When, however, there is a one-day, 20x20 or Test match on TV, one dumps Yutang and the schedules (including the siesta) to watch a Sreesanth getting restive on the cricket field and being paid for it.

P. Devarajan