What Does She Do Now?

What Does She Do Now?

/ February 9, 2025 / 30 Comments / Human Resources, Industrial Relations, Social Security

Her Happy Retired Life

I was casually glancing through the new year greetings I had received and sent, and it struck me that I had not met Daisy Garud for a long time. I called her and we decided to meet over a coffee.

(This is the third blog post on the theme of ‘Life After Retirement.’ The First blog ‘Their Life After Retirement’ can be accessed here. . And the second blog post was ‘Goodbye India Hello Australia’. Hopefully my blog posts will lead to heightened sensitivity to the social issues presented.)

I first met Daisy when she joined a group of volunteers to revive Thane HR group. That was way back in 2008. I got to know her better as we organised programs for Thane HR Group. A simple person, whose maturity, openness and confidence in herself strikes you when you meet her. Everybody respects her because of the person she is.

I meet people in the Starbucks which is on the second floor of Viviana Mall. It is a small area and relatively quiet too. Moreover, the staff now recognises me as their regular customer.

We settled at a table near the entrance. We could see people coming up and going down using different escalators. A metaphor for people’s lives, I felt.

‘Tell me Daisy, what are you doing these days?’ I asked as I sipped Americano. ‘Old people often fear stepping on to the escalators.’ I was looking at the escalators.

‘You will be surprised if I tell you what I am doing these days,’ Daisy said scooping up ice cream from her Frappuccino with a spoon. And then there was a big smile; I instinctively knew she will tell me something interesting.

‘I resigned from my job with just a year to go for my retirement at sixty’

‘Oh! That’s interesting. I mean, when retirement is approaching, many people want the final days to pass quickly, but they do not resign! That’s unusual.’

It was unusual. The reasons are immaterial for our story but suffice it to say that she is the type who will carefully weigh her options before deciding on the way forward. Impulsiveness does not define Daisy, yet she had resigned on the spur of the moment. And her happy demeanour added to the mystery.

‘I am a yoga teacher now!’

‘Don’t tell me! I can’t believe this!’

(Daisy Garud)

Daisy worked for a multinational company and then with a financial sector organization. Her good work was appreciated by her seniors, but domestic problems forced her to take a break. She rejoined the industry as a contract employee. And with her excellent performance she was absorbed in permanent cadre but soon the incident which forced her to quit the job followed.

Daisy is the eldest among five siblings. She looked after six senior citizens in the home, and among them was her father-in-law who is presently 102 years old. Despite the difficulties, we never saw her complaining, and her smile never faded.

Daisy had regularly practised yoga. She applied at once when Ambika Yog Kutir invited applications for training people as Yoga Instructor. It took her about eight months to gain proficiency at level 1. Thereafter, year on year started gaining more knowledge by doing Ayush Yoga certification courses every year up to level 6 which makes her now a Yoga Therapist.

As Yoga therapist she has been working for geriatric care centre for past two years. The number of patients on an average handled is 23 to 28 and are of different health conditions and age group ranging from 45 to 99 yrs. In this centre people with health conditions like Parkinson’s, Arthritis, Dementia etc practice yoga with others who may have mobility issues due to old age. 

In addition, she also completed the pre-natal and post-natal yoga course with Dr Sharvari Abhyankar. Prenatal and postnatal yoga helps pregnant and new mothers in many ways,

Currently she is enrolled for Diet and Nutrition course at DY Patil University, Nerul, Navi Mumbai. And Daisy also desires to qualify as yoga therapist for autistic persons.

At Inner Wheel Club, she has been managing a project called Surakshit Bachpan which is developed by Dr Sawroop Sampat to teach Life Skills for school students. 

As if all this was not enough, she joined a class for learning Kathak dance. This was a well-kept secret. Nobody in the family knew it till the class had its annual event – the family was surprised to see Daisy performing Kathak dance on stage!

  *   *   *

People who lose or move out of their job suddenly remind me of a kite stuck on a tree. Very few can untangle and fly high again. Daisy could manage to untangle and fly high, but usually people can’t.

Coping with job loss is not easy. Our job gives us identity which is lost with the job. We feel loss of control over our life. As we have seen in the earlier blog posts in this series, relationships with relatives and friends gets (painfully) redefined. The social network is lost or becomes irrelevant. Job loss is rated as second most painful event next only to the loss of spouse.

Recovering from it is not easy. People are overinvolved in their jobs and do not have any identity besides what work gives them. We are not known as sitarist, photographer, singer pursuing these identities seriously alongside our job. Reinventing identity becomes a painful journey.

Daisy who was practising yoga saw opportunity in the adverse situation and her life story of which we have only a glimpse is a classic one of reinventing oneself. This appears easy in hindsight, but it has its own roadblocks and hurdles. It requires commitment.

Those who successfully manage reinventing themselves practice two things: First they experiment with many ideas and explore some ideas in great depth, and second, they stay committed to their new identity.

Commitment and Exploration – these two factors help us gain new identity; Daisy’s life story reiterates this conclusion.

Vivek S Patwardhan

“What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.” All work copyrighted.

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