An Unexpected Second Career

For more than three decades, I built businesses, attended board meetings, chased budgets, prepared presentations, and occasionally convinced myself that PowerPoint was a perfectly acceptable substitute for good literature.

I had an immensely fulfilling journey, one that gave me far more than I could have asked for.

Retirement, however, brought with it something I had never expected.

The beginning of a journey of reinvention!

I have come to believe that retirement is not about discovering your final calling on the very first day. It is about giving yourself the freedom to keep discovering new ones.

For me, writing simply became the first stop.

One result of that journey is "Chronicles from Mehra World", a series I have been quietly writing over the past few months.

At its heart is Arvind Mehra—an almost fictional gentleman who discovers, much to his surprise, that retirement does not reduce life's absurdities. It merely changes their subject matter.

Around him is a growing cast of family, friends and acquaintances, each blissfully convinced they are perfectly normal. Readers may occasionally arrive at a different conclusion.

The stories draw inspiration from retirement, relationships, everyday observations and the curious little obsessions that make us human.

While inspired by real life, these stories have been cheerfully embellished whenever the truth showed signs of becoming less entertaining.

I suspect many readers will recognise fragments of themselves—or perhaps someone they know—in the people who inhabit Mehra World.

Like countless lovers of humour, I owe an enormous debt to P. G. Wodehouse, whose gentle wit has been a constant source of delight and inspiration.

I can only hope that, in some small measure, these stories capture that same spirit of finding laughter in ordinary life.

Beginning this Thursday, a new episode of Chronicles from Mehra World will appear here every week.

Each story stands on its own, so you are welcome to begin anywhere.

While Chronicles from Mehra World will remain at the heart of this publication, I also hope to write occasionally about two other lifelong passions—the golden era of Hindi cinema and music, and the endlessly fascinating world of tennis.

If that sounds like your kind of reading, I'd be delighted if you subscribed and joined me on the journey.

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Welcome to Mehra World. Pull up a chair and stay awhile.