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Had IT doyen NR Narayana Murthy suffixed “work 70 hours a week” with “to retire at 40”, he could have possibly escaped some backlash backlash News18 Narayana Murthy Is Wrong: Problem Is Productivity, Not Working Hours Read more for his contentious remark. After all, there is a cohort that wants to retire between 30 and 50 years of age—the financial independence, retire early (FIRE) chasers.

They hope to hang up their boots early, driven by the urge to live a life on their own terms. Take Soumya Chatterjee, for instance. A 31-year-old journalist with a leading publication, he invests thrice what he spends each month with the intent of retiring at 40.

But for the majority of Indians, the FIRE aspiration is likely to remain just that.

“Less than 1% will be able to retire early. It’s not the story of the common person,” Shashi Singh, founder of financial planning firm Finmyn, told The Ken.

The spirit is willing, but the corpus is weak, so to speak.

For one, the quantum of money needed to make that call is staggering. For instance, a 40-year-old now seeking to retire at 45 will need to accumulate a capital of Rs 6.5 crore (US$780,000)—assuming a monthly expense of Rs 1 lakh (US$1,200), life expectancy of 90 years, annual inflation of 8% and 9% return on retirement corpus. Change any of these assumptions, and the requirement will also change.

Add to this the extras—providing for children’s higher education, weddings, holidays, and medical emergencies—and early retirement becomes a fading dream.

All the financial planners The Ken spoke with think it’s very difficult, if not impossible, to retire early in India. These planners are registered investment advisers (RIAs), specialists in this line of work.

Sure, there may be some who’ve hit hit Livemint https://www.livemint.com/money/personal-finance/early-retirement-how-these-individuals-achieved-financial-independence-and-retired-early-11694539032829.html Read more the mark mark The Economic Times Retirement planning: How to adopt FIRE model to retire early, achieve financial security Read more of accumulating Rs 6 crore (US$720,000) to Rs 18 crore (US$2.2 million) by their targeted retirement age of 40–50, but they are mostly edge cases edge cases edge cases Something that is not usual or expected.

A Chartered Accountant, Anand chose to pack the power of numbers with words when he left a career of seven years in accounting, putting together MIS reports, and investment research to enter journalism. Before joining The Ken, Anand was Deputy Editor at The Hindu BusinessLine, a newspaper he worked at for 11 years.