March 24, 2026 ·
Wanted to share a song I really liked from Hindi film Dhurandhar The Revenge I saw last week, Phir Se; meaning yet again. The lyrics go something like my eyes are watered yet again; thought sadness was behind me. Amazing sounding. Give it a listen.
When I voluntarily quit oil & gas, I went through lots of formalities both on-paper and ceremonially in-person, that described me leaving as retirement. I didn’t think much of the word until I used it with friends and family, after which I realized it’s a heavy word to be using. Coincidentally a few coworkers also retired on the same day as me in the usual conventional sense. I could tell some perceived mine as failure, others as astronomical success, but most overestimated it in either direction I felt. I also realized the default expectation is that retirement is a once-in-a-lifetime thing; that one is to work their entire life and then retire; so the fact that I was retiring young was signal that things had gone either extremely badly or extremely well. This sort of judgement call, I observed, gave people actually retiring at 65 or whatever the age is unease. I learnt people resist being perceived as not being useful.
Years later now that I’ve thought about it more, I think retirement like the song lyrics, is something that happens over and over even though the unexamined expectation is that once it’s done with, it’s ultimate and final. An expression I heard that made me chuckle while traveling recently was someone saying they were retiring for the night instead of the conventional good night.
Phir se retirement.
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