Readers will recall my posting about that Goat who retired.As usual,I had mailed the piece to some of my friends and readers.Here is a very hilarious response from my dear friend and a very gifted writer.He has also wished me a happy retired life in his inimitable style.THANK YOU dear Ateya ji !
Here is what he has written :
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For Broca’s Doodle Pad
By U Atreya Sarma, Secunderabad-56
Let the Billy now go to his Nanny Goat and bill and coo!
With Broca, the inimitable raconteur, his capture of, and take on, the military Billy Goat is so interesting and evocative that it has stirred me to supplement his views with my own impressions and also greet my friend, the most popular writer on the Muse India site, who would be bidding adieu to his bank by the month-end.
No solitary confinement, please!
The British Billy Goat has illustriously served the forces for close to a decade, with a single minded attention. At least now, let the Billy take interest in – and have a rollicking second innings by spending a joyfully productive time with – his Nanny Goat, and not so much bother about his earlier employer, save for his terminal and pension benefits.
It’s heartening to note that the Defence Forces treat well even their animal employees (not only the rare goats, but the usual horses, camels etc) and honourably pension them off, when their time comes. I understand that even the police dogs are also similarly treated (even here in India, though nobody knows how much of the benefit exactly goes down to the animal pensioner, considering our ingenious ways of pinching). (Even the hay of the starving cattle wasn’t spared during the heyday of that bucolic Bihari satrap!)
When we, otherwise, talk about animal rights (because their very existence is under severe threat owing to man’s gross and callous selfishness), we instantly encounter the retort: “Do you think that the life of an animal is more important than a man’s?” Totally forgetting that man is a symbiotic part of an eco system of which flora and fauna are an integral part.
I may be aged; but I won’t be caged!
It’s a good suggestion from Broca, the soon-to-be-pensioner, that even the human pensioners be allowed the privilege of being showcased in the zoos. There’s one difficulty, however. The human pensioners have their family members too to contend with – who certainly won’t like to accompany there, for they are still far young enough; and for that reason you also wouldn’t like to line up into the cage. You still want to roar within the four walls of your house – for now, or rather, at last or at least now, you are your own boss. You’re most likely to thunder: “I may be aged; but I won’t be caged!” Next, if you aren’t caged, you’ve the freedom to go about lots of places and people to visit – which you couldn’t do to your (and their) satisfaction all these decades of slogging days.
Mobile Zoos
And the reasons for a retiree to visit his ex-office (less so when it happens to be a bank) are hardly justifiable…what with the ATM and net banking facilities. All the same, there are some retiree bankers who make it a religious point to visit the bank on the monthly pension day in their own droves and relax the entire day sitting on the sofas in the banking hall in close huddles and chat away their time among themselves and also profusely greeting whoever passes them by – whom, however, they hadn’t cared to speak to while on the active rolls. Won’t these bunches of retirees serve as veritable mobile zoos?!
Who doesn’t itch for and love retirement, a golden opportunity to indulge one’s own tastes and call of heart and soul? Every imaginative and enterprising person of individuality does. The moron, the geek, the nerd, the (hobby-less) workaholic doesn’t; he shudders at the prospect. That’s why he keeps visiting his (?) (ex) office, unwelcome (though they say “You’re always welcome; you’ve no equal in work; please guide us for sometime…,” under a veneer of superficial courtesy, …until nobody seems to recognise you or the faces over there have considerably changed.
Now Broca, the ebullient
With personalities like Broca – with their healthy view of life, an integrated approach, and their vibrancy and multifarious interests – the second innings would be a much more exciting ball game. Society, a much larger one, looks up to interesting people like Broca – for mutual and edifying benefit.
A happy second innings to you
By the way, Brocaji, wish you a grand and fitting farewell at your office, where you are sure to be showered with a bonanza of ‘Credits,’ the ‘Carry-over’ of which would be a good fodder to ruminate for a good time to come. I am, however, sure that you would be using this fodder only as a side dish, for you’d be experimenting with and using your own recipes, once you are out of our office portals once for all and into the precincts of your sweet home. And one more special concession to you! You’ll be literally retiring at the end of the working hours on the 30th Saturday (that too a half-working day), a day ahead – with Sunday left as a bonus holiday for which day also you get paid your full salary! (Unless your office has the weekly holiday on some other day!)
May-end is the day for Broca
The ‘sir’dar bids them ta-ta!
Missing his lively jokes, his colleague bankers
Turning wistful and bidding farewell – go bonkers!
Family members go gaga to welcome this shah
To claim his exclusive attention with brouhaha!
Society, Doodle Pad, and Muse India
Look for more from him with éclat!
Dear Brocaji, A much more happy and welcome new and second innings to you! And may God bless you and your family!
oooOooo
A small, but much needed, amendment to my response. And so the amended line reads:
“In a ‘private’ sector company, you’ve to regard, I mean, respect, their ‘privacy.’ If I say “regard,” Brocaji would go on intruding and surveying everything!”