Retirement Plans

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One of the favourite topics for conversation between  M and I is retirement plans. Yup, we're both ready to throw in the towel, ride into the sunset, invest on dentures and what not. On some days, when M is tired of staring at his Excel sheets and graphs and I'm tired of intense Facebooking, we start talking about what we'd like to do in life once we have saved up enough and GBM has either run away from home to become an engineer or disowned us for having bad haircuts. 

M's ambition is to become a maid. Before we got married, M told me that he finds housework to be 'therapeutic'. I remember telling him that that would be true if one were in need of therapy. This is why we got married in the first place. Yin-yang. Anyway, M believes that a couple of hours of domestic work in a few houses would not only pay for his upkeep, it would also keep him cheerful. Since he won't have an alcoholic husband beating him up and taking away his salary at the end of the month, this is not such a bad plan.

My dream, on the other hand, is far from the realm of the mundane. I want to be a spiritual guru. When I was working for CM, a proposal came from the Swami Nithyananda people to adapt the mahan's work into children's books (don't gasp- his books, not his videos). My then boss asked me to go through his work and tell him the feasibility of it. When I read the books, I was amazed by the swami's talent. He could say absolutely the same thing in a million different ways and make you believe that he's actually said a million different things in a billion different ways. 

As a writer, I was inspired. I figured out that all you need to sell your book is a cover photograph with kunguma pottu on your forehead and curly hair on your head. There will always be earnest people who want to buy your bullshit to fertilize their minds if you do this. I told my boss that though I tremendously enjoyed reading the books, we probably didn't have the resources (i.e., I wasn't going to trouble already troubled teenagers by creating more swami books for them to read) to go ahead with the project. Besides, it was always risky to get associated with godmen and such like. A couple of months later, the Nithyananda video was leaked and my boss was impressed with my foresight. Which makes me believe perhaps I am a spiritual guru with third eye after all. The easiest way for me to become a bestselling author post-retirement will be to make a slight change to my facial makeup and I'd be set till I leave for my heavenly abode.


We also make joint-retirement plans. Like opening a restaurant or desserts-only place. This is probably a result of having watched too much Masterchef Australia because I still can't tell apart all the dals. Why eat dal when you can eat fish is something I'll never know the answer to. (Incidentally, my other ambition is to become a Bengali because they are probably the only folks who eat fish even if there's puja and all.) Anyway, since M is the type who likes growing his own herbs and I have impressive work experience as a waitress (I waitressed during my student year at Brighton- see, I even have foreign credentials), we might actually do this. I have brilliant ideas for restaurant themes and everything. I'm very tempted to put them down here but you just have to wait. Decades from now, you'll be seeing us in TOI's Page 3, baby. 

I'll become so famous that everyone would want my spiritual blessings and my fish recipes when I'm in my deathbed. But me, I'll hang up a sign that says 'Dying. Do not Disturb.' over my bed and shut my eyes singing 'Oh, oh, oh, wondercake'. And that would be it.


Boy, I can't wait to retire.