Just seventy years young and it’s time to shape up and party
Now, let me tell you something. Retirement came as an enormous relief. I was as fit as a fiddle; I was free as a bird. I felt young at 60 and I could do all the things I wanted to. I had a decent pension that would take care of me until death, and of my wife after that. As much as I enjoyed working, I was now looking forward to the second act of my life.
I had taken evening classes in film production at NYU and when I returned to India, I settled in Mumbai and finished a screenplay. I showed it to various friends in Bollywood as well as influential producers they knew. Unfortunately, no one liked it, absolutely no one. Trends had changed while I was away; multiplexes had come up. That was okay. I had other tricks up my sleeve.
I moved to Delhi where I should have settled in the first place. I did a newspaper column, Flotsam and Jetsam, which took in every subject under the sun. When the editor sensed I was running out of ideas, he asked me to write a column on booze. Now, there was a subject I knew something about! The High Spirits column proved popular, even if I say so myself.
A publisher commissioned me to do a book. Chasing the Good Life sold some copies and got some good reviews, not many. These days I am busy proofing my second book, which will be published in autumn. I am also working on the final draft of a novel, my first work of fiction. Is the novel any good? I have no idea. For all I know, it is a stinker, probably unpublishable. That’s okay too. I enjoyed writing it. If the novel does find a publisher, there will be god-given opportunity for authors I have maligned in my book reviews to get back at me. What fun!
Do I ever get bored or lonely? Where is the time? I write during the day and party most evenings. I hope I make it to the age of 80. I exercise six days a week at a fitness centre to keep my ticker going, I do yoga but I really have no defence if cancer or something like that strikes.
If I reach 85, I would consider it a bonus. Life would be pointless beyond that age. I would have done everything I could possibly have wanted to do. I can rest on my achievements, if any. The unfulfilled dreams would have to remain just that. The children would, by that time, be middle-aged and the grandchildren, teenagers, would begin to find grandpa a bit of a bore.
I know people who are going great guns in their nineties. Unfortunately, I do not have their genes. My neighbour, Khushwant Singh, is 93 plus and is still a prolific writer and the town’s best wit. In the evenings he is surrounded by beautiful women. Frankly, I find that ridiculous. These women should be hanging out with someone younger and more attractive. Like me, for instance.