IN THE AUTUMN OF MY LIFE-II

It is about one year I retired from a 9am-7pm job. I did not feel like going back to this routine. So, I did not try hard enough for another assignment.

I have deviated from my initial plan.I never thought that I would spend time reading story -books, which was my favourite pastime when I was working.If I go back to my blog written 3 months after 'retirement', I find the following:

'A great thing will be brush up my knowledge of : Photoshop, MS Project, MINITAB & Six Sigma and learn a bit of : Coreldraw/Pagemaker, HTML (Elementary) & Web hosting, PRIMAVERA during April and September,'07.'

My time this year has gone into other areas.

• I have done good amount of reading on terracotta temples.... though not enough.In this process, I have been associated with 3 major libraries of Calcutta.Quite an enriching experience.
• I have come in contact with members of 'AISHEE', an NGO engaged in restoration of a Terracotta temple of Hooghly district.Now, I have been invited to join this group.
• I have visited numbers of Terracotta temples @ Hooghly district and Bishnupur, have taken hundreds of snaps and can start writing my 'OWN' articles.
• I have been an active member of PANIIT's 'IITians for ITIs' Project.
• I have entered into a contract with a company publishing articles on net.I have started @ the ground level out of my choice.I have now offer for shifting gear.
• I have made friends with Iftekar of calcuttawalks.com. While I have no commercial interest in 'walks', Cacuttacanvass will grow.
• I have remained active in Flickr through out the year.May be my skill for taking and editing photos has improved !
• I spent time with and for my family.

All these are activities with long time horizon.I learnt during my 40s , from lectures of and articles by Sharu Rangnekar, that a person must plan for post-retirement life.......s/he need have one or more hobbies to remain 'meaningfully occupied.I took that advice seriously though these activities are what I thought of doing much later in my life.

Publishing in net does give a person a lot of satisfaction. A person can always find friends , if he tries seriously, who enjoy similar interests and can contribute to his knowledge and ideas.I never could imagine such a pastime during my 40s!

I have regrets too.

• I lost my friend Knight, our black Lab.He was 8 1/2 years old when he left us on 12/10/07. We expected him to be around for another 1 1/2 to 2 years.A loss I am coping with.
• I have not learnt enough of Photoshop and 'Moviemaking',ie digital editing of my video shooting.
• I have lost the habit of reading novels.Night-time,my time for reading books, is now devoted to Internet.

All-in-all,this year , I have entered a different phase of life. Capital market has definitely added to my bank-balance......so I do not yet have a reason to worry in the financial front.

An enjoyable period of my autumn indeed !

A QUOTE FROM THE PROFILE PAGE OF 'JUMPING JACK',FLICKR

" Now, Flickr itself - there's a phenomenon, I'm not sure I love or hate - since it consumes all of my free time and more. Not to mention it makes me astonished, bewildered, envious but also quite furious on daily basis (even when it doesn't act up :) ).

Well, this (minutely altered) Natalie Merchant's lyrics very much describe how I feel about it:

I've walked these streams
In a spectacle of wealth and poverty
In the diamond markets
The scarlet welcome carpet
That they just rolled out for me

And I've walked these streams
In the madhouse asylum they can be
Where a wild-eyed misfit prophet
On a traffic island stopped and he raved of saving me

Have I been blind, have I been lost
Inside myself and my own mind?
Hypnotized, mesmerized by what my eyes have seen?
What they have seen...

Have I been blind, have I been lost?
Have I been wrong, have I been wise?
Have I been strong?
Have I been hipnotized, mesmerized, by what my eyes have found
In that stream carnival?
In that carnival..."

Changes - 11/27/2006 : my article for "OUR STORY"

THE TOPIC WAS :

How did the world change, in reality or in your perception, during your young adult years?

The world changes. Every day . Imperceptibly.

At other times , it changes extremely quickly , much more rapidly than human psyche can stand.When we have a war, a holocaust, a sunami, people affected are devastated.

The reverse can happen too. A leader transforms the society beyond recognition . A new nation is born , with new ways and meanings of life .

A man is a small part of this flow. A turbulent flow.

He starts his life with some ideas and a lot of dreams. The reality teaches him at every curve of life . The process of maturing . If he migrates to another society , he absorbs other habits and ... more importantly , different sets of values.

That is the general background. I faced no sunami and I traveled a lot in India and visited other countries , I have remained in my state for a long period too.But , even as viewed through my 'small window' ,the world changed a lot during my lifetime while my view points changed too.

West Bengal of 50s and 60s did not touch me much. 70s .... I was conscious of the political events. But , social structure did not change perceptibly. But, I saw India changing , surging ahead of us.

I used to read a lot ....and in the eighties , I worked in a MNC , visited Europe and saw how they think and perform.Money started changing Indians and middle-class started rising. But , terrorism was still uncommon except for in border areas.

Nineties changed us totally. Rise ( and fall of ) share-market, rise and rise of commodity price , inflation, aspiration, migration for academic and economic reasons, hard work .... greed, rotting corruption pushing up cost of living and judicial activism .... I saw it all.

I faced VRS and the process of survival thereafter . I noted : Americans retreat from Afghanistan and the meaningless genocide in Iraq . Politicians looking at the market economics like the proverbial one-eyed deer, thinking Chinese model of growth and suppression are the best way out for the developing nations.

The good thing : Indian professionals are earning respect across the continents .... they are growing in wealth and influence wherever they are established.

What have not changed : the season changes are as beautiful, as it used be in 50s and 60s.Poverty and ignorance and greed ( both individual and collective) are still our greatest enemies.