Hyderabad, May 22 -- Does retirement signify a profound sense of emptiness, wrapping up the venerated routine and professional identity and heightening the dread of emotional and social isolation? Does it usher in an "age of ease" (Oliver Goldsmith), or is it a "State of sovereign bliss" (William Wordsworth), or is it invested with tremendous "Restorative power" (Coleridge)?

Does it produce a sense of liberation and adventure? Is it a retreat from the noise leading to lasting contentment? Does it manifest the inevitability of change? Do academicians resemble musicians who never retire?

These nagging questions call for an answer. Louis Armstrong partly answers by pointing out that musicians stop when there is no more music (there is no c...