Ashish Kumar Was a Top PSLE Scorer. Now, He’s a 31-Year-Old Retiree.

[No guessing game]

All Images by Xue Qi Ow Yeong for RICE Media�

With an e-reader and headphones in one hand, Ashish Xiangyi Kumar strolls into a cafe at Woodlands MRT station on a Friday morning.

Beyond the sparsely occupied tables and the gentle morning sunlight filtering through lies the bustling walkway outside the café, teeming with the rhythm of morning traffic. Singaporean commuters, clad in office attire and engrossed in their phones, hurriedly make their way towards nearby MRT gantries.

Slightly over a month ago, Ashish was part of the morning rush hour.

Back then, he would have embarked on an hour's train journey to the Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI) at Clarke Quay, where he was a Senior Manager at the MCI's Digital Strategy Office.

That was, until he retired on February 13 this year. At the age of 31.

image-29.jpeg Ashish Xiangyi Kumar has so much time that he could spend an entire day with the RICE team on a shoot.
"I retired because life is brutally and hilariously short, and I can't find it in me to spend a second of it doing something other than what I love," Ashish, the early retiree, remarks bluntly.

He has always been uninterested in the conventional life of a working adult. In contrast to so many of his peers, Ashish is indifferent about moving up the career ladder. He was intrigued—and increasingly disturbed—by the idea that we spend so much of our time at work instead of pursuing our interests.

He lays it all out with the typical self-assuredness of a seasoned orator.

I learn why. In 2015, still a student at the University of Cambridge, he was crowned the best speaker at the World Universities Debating Championship.

Two years later, he found himself at his first job in the civil service—a role as Country Officer at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) headquarters.

His work involved receiving information from Singapore's foreign missions and "putting it in a form useful for Singapore's policymakers." Sometimes, it involved logistics and event organisation—making sure that name plates for visitors were printed correctly or a motorcade was lined up in the right order, for instance.

"In my last few postings, I was objectively having a great time. Very, very interesting work. Fantastic bosses and co-workers. But it didn't make the feeling [about work] go away," he explains, settling into his seat.

"Never at any point in my life have I looked at an adult working in a conventional job and thought, 'Oh, that looks interesting.' I've never had any interest in or attraction to that."

image-27.jpeg
A Retiree on the Nature of Work �

By conventional Singaporean metrics, Ashish is the ideal 'product' of a meritocratic education system.

He seems to embody what conventional Singaporean parents dream for their children—academic excellence and an iron rice bowl in the civil service.

At Dazhong Primary School, he was a top PSLE scorer (278, if you're wondering) and Singapore's top Indian pupil in 2004. He then enrolled in Raffles Institution; received an Overseas Merit Scholarship with his A Level Results; and then graduated second in his class with a law degree from the University of Cambridge. After which, he returned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to serve his six-year bond.

In a time when Singaporeans worry about job security, early retirement from the civil service seems ludicrous, especially for someone with as much smarts as Ashish.

No one else but Ashish would dream about being an early retiree if they found themselves in a similar position. Six months into his MFA job, he started having concrete thoughts about how to make early retirement happen.

"But that probably was a reaction to just how gruelling the work there was. It wasn't unusual to be in the office until two or three in the morning," Ashish clarifies.

"My work was meaningful. But in the end, something other than myself determined what time I got up every morning and how I spent the finite hours of this one and only life I have."

'Happily free' is Ashish's LinkedIn tagline. It's almost as if he's proclaiming to the world that, as a retiree, he has finally escaped the matrix—and with more than enough time to spare.

Ashish Kumar sips on an iced coffee at a hawker centre. Oh, the joys of early retirement. Unbothered. Moisturised. Flourishing.
"I think it's terrifying to wait until you're 60 to give yourself permission to be free. By that time, already looking backwards, not forwards. A lot of life to remember; not that much left to live."

Work is the furthest thing from Ashish's mind these days. He leans back in his chair and sips his iced latte, unconcerned. After all, he doesn't have anywhere to be or anywhere to go for the day.

He simply has to be.



Guy on reddit AMA now:


https://www.reddit.com/r/singapore/comments/1bqjfi0/ashish_kumar_was_a_top_psle_scorer_now_hes_a/kx2zl1b/?utm_source=embedv2&utm_medium=comment_embed&utm_content=action_bar?utm_source=embedv2&utm_medium=comment_embed&utm_content=action_bar


Cambridge law grad, but chose to retire
Basically this guy is 躺平 at age 31 or achieved financial freedom

[Arctic]

Lie flat or retired? Got diff leh

[No guessing game]

Lie flat or retired? Got diff leh

Dunno ley he never say i take it as lie flat but such qualification should be easy to find employment la even if he 50

[nyvrem]

err.. this one more like lie flat la

he dont own house, dont wanna buy one, means just live with parents and waiting nia.

ok la. too each his own. his found happiness

[No guessing game]

err.. this one more like lie flat la

he dont own house, dont wanna buy one, means just live with parents and waiting nia.

ok la. too each his own. his found happiness

Not judging him but happy to see even so elite in qualification also lie flat

[nyvrem]

Not judging him but happy to see even so elite in qualification also lie flat

after some time, that fancy 'elite' qualification becomes just another piece of paper

my penn begree used as a mousepad now

    

[encourageSome1]

Not judging him but happy to see even so elite in qualification also lie flat

Quite sad n speaks a lot abt the kinda mindset n society we r in 🤔

[default]

i also want leech on lao peh

[No guessing game]

Quite sad n speaks a lot abt the kinda mindset n society we r in 🤔

Its trending in China now

[No guessing game]

i also want leech on lao peh

next life swim faster

[Keeptrucking]

Either rich parents or he chose to lead a simpler life.

He has same thinking as me but much bigger balls.

[No guessing game]

Either rich parents or he chose to lead a simpler life.

He has same thinking as me but much bigger balls.

He say his family not rich but he got work a few years as senior manager before in glc so savings should be alot since single no commitments

[default]

next life swim faster

wrong wor, is either dont swim or swim to the best

anyway i dont believe in reincarnation

[default]

He say his family not rich but he got work a few years as senior manager before in glc so savings should be alot since single no commitments

actually senior manager dont make a lot tbh. 6k-ish

[default]

he looks either hippie or gay or both