Never Retire Before The Angel Arrives

While deleting unnecessary data from my hard disk, I noticed this photo of an old man that I took about two years ago and a stormy question started stirring up my relaxing thoughts.

‘Why most of the people retire much before their last breath?’

I’ve really failed to think up a cogent reason for someone’s calling himself or writing ‘retired’ with his name after completing his job tenure with his employer, be it a government department or a private organization.

I still recall when the father of one of my childhood chums received notification of his retirement; he clearly looked fatigued, exhausted and surrendered.  I personally felt a little saddened because of emotional attachment with my friend.  An air of gloom and murkiness could be sensed in the atmosphere that remained so for many days to come.

My friend’s father started appearing in the mosque to offer prayers while growing a semi-grey beard.  Anybody could notice that he was not the same person that people had known prior to his retirement.  He had retired from the post of a Section Officer implying that he was an educated person.  Yet, his post-retirement activities were quite limited.

Now, when I look back over a long span of the past, many faces of retired persons have started appearing on the screen of my memories and I can’t see any one of them trying to face the colossal change and doing something different from the common lot. 

I suppose there are very few retired personnel, particularly from civil services, who would prepare themselves to take some giant step while reaching such an important milestone of their journey of life.

Some time in July of 2008 I was giving driving lessons to my two daughters when we caught sight of the gentle and angel-looking old man in the above photo that carried a visible grace on his age-worn and wrinkled face. 

He was almost around 75, a little slow in his movements and used to drive up to that area every morning for landscape oil painting.  He always looked apt in his work fully concentrating in the job to achieve desired results.

I told my daughters that unlike other retired persons he was trying his level best not to retire before the last breath and that’s what life is all about, living an active life by keeping themselves busy in creative activities and not just trying to stay alive until the angel of death arrives.


Creative thinking is the essence of life.  I'm of the opinion that the day human mind ceases to think creatively would be the beginning of the process of the promised doomsday.