I Don't Want to Retire. I Want to Disappear.

I live in Bangalore. I have a small red Alto.

Most days look fine from the outside.

I still keep asking myself one thing.

What am I actually working toward?

Not which company. Not which title.

What kind of life?

The treadmill I almost didn't notice

I remember a time when I had very little and somehow felt like I had enough.

My life was simple. Pay for the room. Send something home. Keep a little for myself. That was it.

That was a life.

And honestly, I was happier.

I wasn't thinking about the next number. I wasn't calculating five years ahead. I was just living with what I had.

Somewhere along the way, that changed.

You get used to things. Then what felt like enough starts feeling normal. And once something becomes normal, the mind starts asking for the next thing.

A little more.

Then a little more than that.

I don't think that wanting ever really stops if you keep playing the same game. The goalpost just moves.

You run. You reach it. Then another one appears.

And after a while, you realise you've been running without actually deciding where you wanted to go.

I don't think this is greed.

Maybe this is just what the treadmill does.

That's the loop I want to step off.

What I actually want

I want to take the Alto across India.

Not only the places that look good in photos. Not only the famous ones.

I don't think a place is beautiful or ugly. A dusty bus stand has a story. A quiet forest has one too. A small town at 4pm, when nothing is happening, has one.

I want all of it.

I want to stop. Talk to people. Eat whatever is being cooked nearby. Listen to how they speak, what they laugh at, what they care about.

Culture is not a museum. It is a chai stall. It is someone telling you the road ahead is bad, then giving you directions anyway.

I get excited just writing that.

I want to wake up in a village, do a little work if I have to, then drive to the next town with no big plan.

I want to send my parents on trips. Not because I have to. Because I want to see them see things they never got to.

The Alto trips

The Alto is not a fancy car. Some trucks look at it and keep looking.

We go anyway.

Not a title. Not a corner office. Just the road.

I left in a cricket jersey once because it was on the chair. I was not going to a match. I was going to look at trees.

If the car complains on a hill, I'll complain back. Then we'll both keep going.

I don't need a long list of names. A mountain road if it calls. A coast if the air smells like salt. A forest if I need the noise in my head to drop.

Wherever the Indian roads will take this small car and some patience.

Sitting where nobody needs me

Sometimes I want to sit alone. A plastic chair is enough. A bit of ground is enough.

Nobody talking. Nobody asking for a minute of my time. Only birds. Maybe an animal walking past like I am not important, which is a relief.

I want to sit there and think about why an egg becomes a bird and not something else entirely. I want that kind of time.

The next few years

First, more of India. Weekends. Then longer stretches. Work that can travel with me, so the laptop sits in the passenger seat and does not run the whole day.

Then farther. Slower. Same idea. New roads.

Later, I want a quiet place with good internet and no alarm. Working a little because the work is interesting. Or not.

Either way, I want to be free.

What free actually looks like

Not a beach with a cocktail. Not a reel.

Free looks like this: waking up with no alarm, making chai, stepping outside to hear birds, opening a laptop for a few hours because the work is interesting — not because someone is watching.

Free looks like driving because a village on the map looked interesting.

Free looks like calling my parents and saying — Pack your bags, I'm putting you on a train to Ooty.

Free looks like sitting with a thought for as long as I want, without a meeting pulling me back.

Why I'm writing this

Because I don't want this to stay a thought between two tasks. Then life happens, and you forget what you actually wanted.

I'm writing it down so I can't forget.

So that a few years from now, when some part of me wants the safe road, I can come back here and remember.

A quiet place. Bird sounds. No alarm. The Alto parked outside.

That's the plan.

Written from Bangalore, where I'm still figuring out the first step.

← Back to the world