Dissecting the post-colonial concept of ‘retirement’

At times one realises that it is pointless to have stimulating discussions on living life to the full in a society that teaches one to ‘retire.’ Going about like zombies from exam to exam and subjecting the mind to the torture of memorisation and stuck in ‘permanent’ employment, we have indeed retired from the joy of knowledge, joy of creation, joy of productivity, joy of ideation 

By Surya Vishwa

Last month Sri Lanka and the world mourned the demise of a man who never retired; Merrill Fernando who passed away peacefully at age 93. Merrill Fernando revolutionised the tea industry at large and reclaimed the honour of authentically ‘pure’ single origin Sri Lankan tea. In the past few years in particular he and his sons innovated upon the concept of tea interlinking it with the national identity of Sri Lankan food and medicinal heritage. 

At a time when COVID-19 phobia was becoming a mental menace that masked the minds of Sri Lankans to their own indigenous medical heritage, Merrill J. Fernando guided Dilmah, his tea company to reinforce the merging of tea with the herb based immunity boosting traditional to Sri Lanka. At a time when most of today’s 90-year-olds would have departed this earth it seemed that the mind of Merrill J. Fernando was heading in the reverse direction, becoming younger than many of the ‘youth’ of our universities.

What then is ‘youth’? Is it only a biological phenomenon related to the passing of time? Does the term youth merit the idea of energy and ability merely based on a biological basis? How did the concept of ‘retirement’ come about? Did our ancestors who created the hydraulic civilisation and engineering/architectural heritage of this country ‘retire’? Did our ancestors who kept alive the indigenous medical heritage of this country ‘retire’? Did our ancient engineers who created world heritage marvels such as Sigiriya ‘retire’? Did we have a culture of our farmers ‘retiring’?

What is the psycho-social attitude of a ‘retired’ mindset? 

What is the micro and macro-economic cost of ‘retiring’ expertise?

Godfrey Gunatilleke, founding chairman of the Marga institute, one of the finest intellectual minds of Sri Lanka at 95, still continues to engage the changing dynamics of the development dialogue of this nation. His son Amar Gunatilleke recently mentioned how he is very punctual about starting his day at the crack of dawn and working through the night, interacting with the rest of the team as needed and supervising their work. 

Christy Richards of Sri Lankan origin and from Jaffna, who left the country in 1958, settling in Canada and thereafter pursuing a stellar career with the IMF, working in over 85 countries, returned to Sri Lanka 10 years ago. Today at 86 years young, in addition to still continuing his professional career and working through the nights on Zoom linked meetings with his global team, Christy has started a school and organic garden in his hometown in Jaffna which many children benefit from. When I met him recently, I made a hasty retreat because I felt so old. 

He had just returned from his daily 15 kilometre walk and started discussing his latest trekking plans. This time to climb Siripada during the off season in October this year. I would have possibly blushed a beetroot tinged brown when I echoed a similar interest and he frowned down and said ‘but you do not walk 15 kilometres a day – do you think you’re fit enough to climb Siripada’?

Ranjit Seneviratne at age 87 is busy organising education tours to his forest in the city (in Kollupitiya) which he consumes daily as raw salads and is not only vaccine-free but disease-free as well. He drives on his own, climbs trees and is more mobile than a teenager. The last set of academics to visit him was from China who had heard of his contribution to raising awareness on health and eating self grown raw plant based food. Ranjit Seneviratne, a marine engineer by profession and former FAO official based in Rome, was the co-founder of the biodiversity-organic revival movement in Sri Lanka alongside Ranjith Silva. 

I have seen several of the above mentioned personages amidst biologically ‘young’ academics and students and frankly except for having a few more of nature gifted adornment of wrinkles and silver hair, the enthusiasm, agility of mind and exuberance which is generally associated with youth, was markedly only present in the senior citizens. 

What of the younger set of humans especially linked to the local university system? They appeared exhausted, drained of creativity, lacking initiative and focusing either on the pursuing of academic ‘titles’ or steeped in their ‘official’ position which they were mortally afraid of losing. 

When I asked one academia connected official of a rather high stature what he thinks of national universities having in its entire land space of several acres only ‘plants of attraction’ and not a single fruit bearing plant, he merely shrugged his shoulders. When I pointedly identified vast land spaces which would fit several jackfruit, breadfruit, mango, cashew, umbarrella, manioc, karapincha, murunga and countless other food based vegetation, I was told that it was ‘not the policy’ to do so.

In compassion to the said official I changed the topic, as he shared how tired and overworked he was and the number of files on his desk signifying the number of official meetings that he had to attend per day. 

Another 40-year-old colleague in the field of academia, stated how tired he was ‘securing’ for his retirement. I asked him what he was securing and he glared and said ‘what do you think – money, what else.’ I asked him why he cannot secure his future by mastering some new disciplines – like law, art, farming or learning how to assemble a car. 

“No, no, you don’t understand. I am very tired. I am planning for my retirement,” he insisted. 

At times one realises that it is pointless to have stimulating discussions on living life to the full in a society that teaches one to ‘retire.’ Going about like zombies from exam to exam and subjecting the mind to the torture of memorisation and stuck in ‘permanent’ employment, we have indeed retired from the joy of knowledge, joy of creation, joy of productivity, joy of ideation. 

A year or so ago, meeting with Deshabandu Jezima Ismail, an educator of over four decades who founded the Sri Lanka Muslim Women’s Conference (SLMWC), is Chairperson of the Academy of Adult Education for Women (AAEW), Coordinator of the Muslim Women’s Research and Action Forum as well as Vice-President of the Girl Guides Association, the discussion turned to fashion. She shared the vibrant colours she chose and was then sporting a red rose in her hair – that style has made a comeback I believe and matched very well with the silk red dress she wore. Amazed, I asked her how ‘young’ she was.

She smiled and said that indeed her knees do become very irritating at times and then shifted to speak about her travel the week before to the East of the country where she hails from. 

I have met some of her students – who did not match up to even half of her zest for productive use of knowledge and passion for life.

Have we stopped to think about the economic cost of lethargy? In the midst of talking about ‘economic crisis’ have we stopped to think about the crisis of creating people who spend their youth planning for ‘retirement’ which generally is portrayed as lounging at home reading the newspaper?

A ‘retirement’ from one particular profession can of course occur at age 55 or 65 by transferring one’s mind to learning about another skill that ideally could merge and integrate with the earlier expertise. This could lead to a new business or a school. The sky is the limit for a mind alive and kicking. 

A friend, Sharda Jnwali of Nepal after her retirement from a global financial company created for herself a much renowned reputation by promoting the traditional food of Nepal for health and working with tourism related authorities in that country. 

Spending time in her home in Kathmandu a few years back we discussed ‘retirement’ and she laughed and said that she had retired from her earlier official capacity and created a new one for herself. 

Mental creativity and capacity comes through physical agility and wellness. If one has lived like a mobile hospital all one’s life, visiting that edifice and paying scant attention to educating oneself on the concept of health and indigenous health foods of the nation, then of course one cannot expect a brick in a hospital wall to be youthful. 

So, what is the purpose of our modern education, health system and entire post-colonial psyche? We study something, often go abroad and get ‘higher education’ and then we either stay in that country or return, with no clear idea how to innovate upon that knowledge. Often by the time we end up with a doctorate we certainly need a doctor. We do not visit the weda mahattaya as our grandparents did because we have been educated that the weda mahattayas are ‘uneducated’ and ‘unscientific’ so we take our lifestyle purchased illness to a modern science based doctor. 

Often we bestow on such persons our hard earned money and at times sell our fixed assets because life has made us very ill. 

Such persons of course have been retired from the time they learned to adopt this lifestyle. 

We conclude this article at this point. It was written to provoke thinking. We will continue this discourse in the weeks to come where we will discuss the national cost of expertise dying out with the individual. We will focus on the need for a system to maximise and continue to utilise the expertise of those who are past retirement age.