The other day, I went for a morning walk, after many months. Going to beach early morning for a brisk walk and drink the fresh oxygen fully and feverishly would no doubt invigorate our health and keep us active all through the day. Despite my good knowledge about the benefits /profits of walking, I have hardly translated those attributes into a good habit. On that day I missed that walking beauty too, and the sky was overcast with cloud and hence no sight seeing of morning rising sun and ruminate over its infinite beauty, later.
But I could meet my old time friend leading now a peaceful retired life. He was senior to me in college, both as a student and later as a colleague, but belonging to different subject. Indeed I had forgotten that that he had sought voluntary retirement even before the retirement date arrived. I enquired about his health and his only daughter settled overseas .It was refreshing to talk and I could wander back to my college life and all the politics revolving around it. Then I put a question, a spontaneous one, having seen his academic side in the past: “Are you doing any project or active in reading the subject?”
Pat came the reply: “No more subject. I have just retired. That’s all. There are many more things to do now, I could not do earlier. I just relax, play cards and do some light reading,” he went on. This reminded me of one of my Pune professors saying to me when I was in the final leg of my PhD journey: “After retirement , no more H.O Theorem or Samuelson’s Factor Price Equalization Theorem. I would bundle them and keep it at a distance.”
Could Professors, who once upon a time, were academically active, turn into some other entity later, not at all related to the subject just because they are retired? I can understand people like Jayakanthan, taking a retreat in writing, after pouring down a torrential output for ages, which I am sure, many of us have not digested yet. But kindly remember, writers like him were not employed in any formal organization, and hence the question of official retirement was hardly present in their life. Being freelance writers, they must have suffered financially too, as writing at any point of time is not lucrative and certainly monetarily a non rewarding event.
But I have also come across people, senior and aged professors who have at times short term memory problems; one of whom I vividly remember clearly- the one who forget names as quickly as he hears them , sits before the computer in a remote village until 2 or 3 Am and browse through ‘Hot Economics’ , enjoying the intellectual fight between the Salt water and Fresh water economists debating on the causes of Global Financial Crisis and also the very crisis in Macro Economics itself. They can’t just delink from the subject although they officially retire from the institute. Tribes like Prof. Paul Samuelson, who breathed last recently, were active, until the end came. Recently Prof.Subramanya Swamy, his one time favorite student and later a co-author in writing a few papers, relating to index numbers,has recollected his past association and made a pertinent reference that Prof.Samuelson was active even at the ripe age of 90.
At 60, I feel that I have failed to do many things which I should have done . Perhaps, I have attempted to chew more than what I could digest. I too want to belong to a set which cannot delink from the chosen discipline, until the cosmos kiss us and take to a different world? I hope Prof. Ram Gopal of Annamalai University would give company to wade through the waters of intellectual madness and taste the elixir, called ‘Economics”. The sheer academic greed will keep people like us in good stead, and make us young and energetic. Retirement need not put an end to one’s intellectual madness.
But I could meet my old time friend leading now a peaceful retired life. He was senior to me in college, both as a student and later as a colleague, but belonging to different subject. Indeed I had forgotten that that he had sought voluntary retirement even before the retirement date arrived. I enquired about his health and his only daughter settled overseas .It was refreshing to talk and I could wander back to my college life and all the politics revolving around it. Then I put a question, a spontaneous one, having seen his academic side in the past: “Are you doing any project or active in reading the subject?”
Pat came the reply: “No more subject. I have just retired. That’s all. There are many more things to do now, I could not do earlier. I just relax, play cards and do some light reading,” he went on. This reminded me of one of my Pune professors saying to me when I was in the final leg of my PhD journey: “After retirement , no more H.O Theorem or Samuelson’s Factor Price Equalization Theorem. I would bundle them and keep it at a distance.”
Could Professors, who once upon a time, were academically active, turn into some other entity later, not at all related to the subject just because they are retired? I can understand people like Jayakanthan, taking a retreat in writing, after pouring down a torrential output for ages, which I am sure, many of us have not digested yet. But kindly remember, writers like him were not employed in any formal organization, and hence the question of official retirement was hardly present in their life. Being freelance writers, they must have suffered financially too, as writing at any point of time is not lucrative and certainly monetarily a non rewarding event.
But I have also come across people, senior and aged professors who have at times short term memory problems; one of whom I vividly remember clearly- the one who forget names as quickly as he hears them , sits before the computer in a remote village until 2 or 3 Am and browse through ‘Hot Economics’ , enjoying the intellectual fight between the Salt water and Fresh water economists debating on the causes of Global Financial Crisis and also the very crisis in Macro Economics itself. They can’t just delink from the subject although they officially retire from the institute. Tribes like Prof. Paul Samuelson, who breathed last recently, were active, until the end came. Recently Prof.Subramanya Swamy, his one time favorite student and later a co-author in writing a few papers, relating to index numbers,has recollected his past association and made a pertinent reference that Prof.Samuelson was active even at the ripe age of 90.
At 60, I feel that I have failed to do many things which I should have done . Perhaps, I have attempted to chew more than what I could digest. I too want to belong to a set which cannot delink from the chosen discipline, until the cosmos kiss us and take to a different world? I hope Prof. Ram Gopal of Annamalai University would give company to wade through the waters of intellectual madness and taste the elixir, called ‘Economics”. The sheer academic greed will keep people like us in good stead, and make us young and energetic. Retirement need not put an end to one’s intellectual madness.
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