Doing nothing for a living

It may sound strange, but in my early teens, I aspired for only two kinds of jobs: that of a chowkidar or that of a librarian. Both of these jobs, to my young self, involved doing very little work and mostly required sitting idle and getting paid. What a wonderful life and livelihood it would be to earn while doing nothing!

Before I could realise this dream, I started drifting and happened to complete my graduation and then a post-graduation in Electrical Engineering, after which, luckily for me, I landed the job of a shift engineer in a hydroelectric power station in an electricity board. While others tried their best not to get posted as a shift engineer, I was rather happy to be one. I remained a shift engineer for a good eight years. I lived all by myself, doing almost nothing except reading all sorts of books, newspapers, magazines, and whatever I could lay my hands on. In a way, this period was a time of self-abandonment. 

Then came a long period of about a quarter of a century, during which I remained professionally very busy and had little time for my favourite indulgence of reading or doing nothing. The job basically involved deciding all the electromechanical parameters of various upcoming hydroelectric stations, including Nathpa Jhakri Hydro Station (1500 MW), which had to be tailor-made. Though this time period was professionally very gratifying and helped me later get engaged in private or public undertakings, I missed my favourite job of doing nothing. 

For the last decade, after retiring at fifty-eight, I am again on my own, doing nothing except reading, reading and reading, and occasional writing, and professionally working intermittently as a consultant for private or public undertakings. I like to be in my own reverie and get disturbed if this routine gets upset by any extraneous circumstances.

Though I am a naturally peace-loving man and love doing nothing, my mind remains restless, and peace has eluded it in the real sense of the term. The following lines of a beautiful Ghazal written by Shaayar Faiyaaz and sung soulfully by Pankaj Udhas, who died recently, sum up the state of my mind aptly: Kum nahin meri zindagi key liyey/ Chain mil jaayey do ghadee ke liyey (It is no less for my life/if I get peace even for a moment).