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The Twilight Years "When life offers a dream beyond expectations, it’s not reasonable to grieve when it comes to an end." BUSY years in service keep unhappiness at bay. With every upward step in service, there comes a rise in power and perks—power to order people, to be waited upon, to be listened to—but after this golden phase comes retirement and this time, it’s author Mohinder Singh’s turn. The 75-year-old retired bureaucrat now has to come to terms with the loss of power and position. Time has come for him, too, to sit in a corner and analyse how life has gone so far. Beginnings, ends, and mid-points of decades now have become even more significant as times to sum-up, in case time runs out soon for him?
Spared of a life-threatening illness, financial disaster and other major calamities, Mohinder’s life is an aggregate of good luck as well as bad luck—satisfactory 35 years of government service, rapid promotions, no setbacks and comfortable living quarters in pleasing surroundings. An enviable garden, good health, a stable marriage—something that every couple has to save for, anticipating their old age. Both sons successfully launched into the world, understanding daughters-in-law and likeable grandchildren. And post-retirement, he has this feeling of a failed life, 75-year-old and not accomplished one single act of consequence. His plans of opening a bookshop or doing consultancy work seem unpromising, so he decides to write autobiographical fiction. But what Mohinder wants at this time the most is the company of his wife, the one who stood by him for 50 years through the thick and no little thin. Like, as they, say life is not fair most of the times, it comes as a rude shock to Mohinder when three days before his golden wedding anniversary, his 67-year-old wife, otherwise meticulous about her health, suffers a stroke in sleep and part her ways leaving him to his destiny. Time, the greatest healer, seems to work less in this age and the ability to deal with the loss is perhaps no less significant than the loss itself. Journeys, as they say, are the midwives of thought. A few places are more conducive to internal conversations than a moving plane or train. The unexpected death of his wife gives him no time to be prepared. Mohinder experiences numbness and refuses to cry. He grieves loneliness more than the death. But with time, just like his younger son, Jogindar, for whom it was not easy to understand how it feels to be old and unwanted, had predicted at the time of his mother’s death: "Who knows, he may fall in love again. Acquire a mate. Give him a second chance to find lost love. He’s young at heart and fond of female company. Has money and property." And Mohinder’s life
takes another turn when he is expecting the least, as he falls in love
with Gyan, a teacher at his wife’s school. Who says retirement is
just an end, a closing, it can also be a new beginning for someone who
finds new love at 77!
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The
Twilight Years, as the name
suggests, is the story of a retired IAS officer who has enjoyed all
the good things in life, and now fears retirement.