SEIZE THE DAY, MY FRIEND!

It’s always, earlier the better, when it comes to planning for the time after you hang up your boots. It’s a longterm proposition and is often tangled with a host of duties and dreams. Saving from an early life smoothens the job but a late-starter is certainly not a no-getter.

- Himali Patel

After a 10-hour toil through the day, the 40-something man would go to sleep every night, clinching a dream. Fifteen more years of struggle and then a happy life with a lot of sun and smile. Sunil Dahima was not frugal when it comes to spawning the dream. He cared to build his dream block by block. A solvent retired life, his two daughters educated and married happily, and a 10-day holiday by the sea every year – he planned everything meticulously – but he didn’t care enough to work towards his dream.

He was unprepared when one day he realised that the sea had suddenly turned too rough to sail. A host of eateries mushroomed in the vicinity of his small restaurant and he failed to match pace with those mightier rivals. Fifteen years zipped by and the dream crumbled at one blow, not block by block this time. Dahima lost it all. The man from Bangalore suburbs represents 51 per cent of over 600 million working Indians who hardly have anything planned for their life after retirement. For most of them, the golden sundown comes as a blazing blow when the income stops one day. The appalling state of financial planning brazenly stares at them. The situation is worse when seen in the backdrop of a year of nightmare we have just left behind.

Dreamers are countless in this country but there are too few doers who work towards making their dreams real. Ironically, the 49 per cent doers have something planned but they are mostly clueless about the widening gulf between what they have planned and what they would need. A study by PGIM India Mutual Fund throws up yet another contrast. While retirement planning was rated low when it comes to priorities, security for children and spouse, and fitness and improved lifestyle ranked higher. If there’s anything to blame for this, it is nothing but lack of awareness about life after retirement.