Thoughts And Trivia

As I wrote in an earlier post, I took voluntary retirement from my Job as a CEO (General Manager) of a Railway Zone of Indian Railways. I had anticipated the emotional turmoil and the insecurities of a work-less future, but the events were much more heart wrenching than I had anticipated. I could barely manage to not to cry openly in Public. In retrospect I feel I should have let the tears flow..
Let me start with the defining moment of my last day in office.
The build-up upto that day had left me physically and emotionally tired. A month of leave-taking farewell parties had already taken its toll on my digestive system. A big deficit of sleep had accumulated over a few weeks. It has been a tenet of self-discipline with me, that I should always retain enough physical and mental reserves, needed for any unexpected emergencies like - accidents and other mishaps that are the professional hazards of the job.
But that day (3rd July 2009) I was not in such a condition. I could not sleep despite a pill. (A Hindi film dialogue says: "Sleep, my dear, is not a daily affair"). Before leaving for office, my wife and I stood in the temple at home and prayed to God and our Parents. I told her that, what we are leaving behind was never ours. We were tenants here and it’s the attachment that had developed - which is causing us the pain. Let’s move-on and not look back over the shoulders.
Office was as hectic as any normal day. There was backlog of paperwork that I could not leave for my successor. Then suddenly people started trooping into my office room at 5pm. It was the last farewell. There were even 5 divisional heads and their teams on video-conference. Suddenly, all too soon, the formalities were over and I was ushered out of my room. Used to giving orders in that room, that day I complied to the dictates like a child. From the beginning of the scene I had become emotionally numb.
I had imagined that when I leave office, I will try to look back from the door at the scene of last two and half years of cheers and tears. I will try to burn an image good enough for rest of life. But it was not to be. Like a person in trance, I was moved out by a tidal wave of crowd that had gathered. Events had gathered a momentum of their own. A part of me rebelled and wrestled with the flow of events. It did not want to go. I realized my full persona was not united in my decision to leave my Job prematurely – it was more an intellectual decision.
The scene in the lobby below was much more sombre. People were lined in large crowds to bid farewell in traditional way - with garlands and handshakes. There was also a band playing cacophonic film songs. Soon I was lead into my usual seat in the car. But it was very unusual. By now tears were welling up in my eyes. I controlled them with all my strength. There were people all over office complex. On all balconies and even on the roof. I had truly loved all Railwaymen who worked with me and had developed deep emotional bonds, but I had not known its reciprocation. Soon the car gathered speed and I realized that it’s all over. I will never get a chance to look back. I should have allowed my emotions the cathartic luxury of sobbing at the end of one world and entry into after-world.
It was not unlike real death and soul's journey beyond. I could experience, how my soul will get tortured on my death by the attachments. Even there, part of me will never like to go. But there I will be able to sob without anybody noticing or hearing.

Posted by Girish Bhatnagar at Saturday, July 18, 2009