No Retirement, We are Women

                                                        No Retirement, We are Women            

It was Tuesday, a week day, busy for those under 60(the only exception being academicians for whom a plus five is added) to rush to their workplace while for women like me well past that age, Tuesday was no exception. It was very much like the any other day. What happened yesterday, Monday, I asked myself and found it difficult to find the answer. Yesterday had receded into oblivion and lost forever for everyone without exception. Despite all the new age discoveries, no one till now has found a magic wand to wave the past back into the present. Yesterday cannot be lived today just as today cannot be lived tomorrow. We can all muse over yesterday and yesterday’s yesterday and yesterday’s yesterday’s yesterday in a geometric progression but all the yesterdays of the world elude our grasp. Those twenty four hours and the sequential progression in the reverse have all been canned and not even historians who spend all their time to give a plausible account of the past can relive them. All history is at best a virtual reality, a realistic simulation of yesterdays.

I am past the official age of superannuation but as a housewife, I have no retirement. I do not have the luxury to sit and ponder over my yesterdays and even if I desire to relive them (and to re-live better than my lived period in the past ), I cannot return to those days that are now only in memory. This is one of the genuine problems, I presume, all retirees face (I specifically mention ‘retirees’ because they have all the time in the world to contemplate on problems, genuine as well as imagined) and they wish they were younger by a decade or two to live those years once more  with greater wisdom and maturity. But soon comes the realization that virtual past is a reality and cannot be grasped. Thank our stars, this helps to get over the longing for a re-run and accept the new order of life when time becomes inconsequential. All those in the last stretch of their life know that one day is like any other day and all the days and all the nights cannot put time back again on their time(less)table.

The phone rang and the voice at the other end with a latent curiosity asked me “how is your husband spending his time? My retirement day is not far off and would like to take tips from him how to live the workless days”. Thank God, the voice didn’t say “worthless days”. I mumbled pleasant nothings to avoid a direct reply as I knew that my husband was engaged throughout his waking hours scouting for possible jobs to avoid the prospect of spending workless days. For the last few months in anticipation of that dreadful day when he will be given a farewell tea and a few pseudo praise of his work ethics, intelligence, compassion, he used to say “ Retirement is not for us,  men, because we have been working almost since we were born.” “What about women? “ I gently mumbled hiding my irritation. He did not grasp my insinuating question as he cavalierly answered that “ women go to work only to escape boredom at home while for us work is religion. For us to sit at home is embarrassing and  shameful and we need some occupation to be away from rocking the chair at home.” He followed his wisecrack  “if I had been in the office, I would have had by now  two cups of tea from the canteen”- a signal to me to be the canteenboy( girl) at home. 

I returned to the kitchen -my workplace- since the time I was married-nearly forty years ago. Since my husband was earning well, he did not value my degrees and told me not to work and stay home to mind the children and his parents. It has been a daily routine for the last four decades to be the first to get out of bed and be ready with tea and coffee as required by him and his parents, get the children ready, prepare breakfast, prepare lunch packets for the office goers ( he and his father)and for the children and so on and on till retiring to bed last after seeing that everyone was well tucked into their beds. Demands of the children as they grew were of a different order but the pace and routine were the same. Is there a retirement age for women, I wondered! Even for those who, unlike me, had been working outside, their age of retirement from office in no way gives them retirement from the domestic chores. On the contrary, they are expected to take up the responsibility with added vigour  to compensate for the “neglect” during their years of service. But the amazing thing is women never ask for retirement even as they commiserate with their husbands, who for want of a post-retirement job are forced to stay back home. My friend who had sounded highly embarrassed to tell me that her husband had retired a week back was her gushing self when she called me two days back to say that he had found a job. The “lost and found” delight was evident in her voice. “Poor chap. He was very distraught and agitated for the last one week. He could not think of anything other than a job for himself. Thank God, he has found one otherwise he would have gone berserk, not knowing what to do with time hanging on him.” I wondered why she never complained about her stay at home for the last forty years. She never once had felt the need for retirement and her job was not limited to a 10-5 routine but extended from five in the morning till eleven at night. She was always present to attend to work and even now nearing 60, she does not feel that time has come to sit and relax. Is this a patriarchal mindset that women have been subjected to from their girlhood days-that is, men should work outdoors, women should work indoors and this is how society can run with duties apportioned to the two genders. But patriarchy is silent about women’s retirement.  For woman,it i  all work and no retirement and that makes them happy, healthy and wise. . And so no one, least of all women speak about it. Retirement, thy state is not for women.