Amit Chilka, who spent over two decades in HR leadership roles at companies including Wipro, Cognizant and Synechron, said the move was not about escaping work altogether but redesigning his life around work he actually wanted to do.
“I retired from a corporate job and rebuilt an income from work I chose,” he told
Born in Mumbai and raised in Nashik and Pune, Chilka, 46, studied engineering before moving into HR. “I spent 22 years in HR leadership… Alongside the corporate career, I ran Synergist, my HR consulting practice, for seven years,” he revealed.
He later became an ICF-certified coach and now runs leadership retreats in Dehradun. “The exit in late 2022 was from my last full-time corporate role. By then the consulting practice was already running. The change was more in the pace and the geography than in the work itself,” said Chilka.
Retiring with ₹1 crore
In his now-viral LinkedIn post, Chilka wrote: “I retired at 45 with ₹1 crore. Not ₹5 crore. Not ₹10 crore.”
He explained that the corpus was spread across “mutual funds, PPF, NPS, and a child education fund”. He also owns a flat in Pune which generates passive income for him through rent.
“That was the whole structure. That was enough,” he wrote. But Chilka repeatedly stressed that he is not living off the ₹1 crore corpus itself, and that is just a safety net.
“I do not draw from the corpus. The mutual funds, PPF, and NPS are compounding, and I intend to leave them alone. The child education fund is earmarked and separate,” he explained to Hindustantimes.com.
Not living off passive income
“My monthly living expenses of approximately ₹50,000 are covered by my consulting, coaching, and retreat income. The investment portfolio serves as the safety net and the long-term asset, not the monthly operating mechanism,” Chilka said.
He clarified that he has only retired from a corporate job, but hasn’t given up work altogether. He has a consulting and coaching business that generates income.
“This is an important point I want to be clear about: I did not retire and live off passive income. I retired from a corporate job and rebuilt an income from work I chose. The ₹1 crore corpus is the foundation that made it safe to take that step—not the tap I am drawing from every month.
“Today the consulting and coaching income is fairly stable and growing. The retreat work — I run a four-day leadership retreat called Viram in Dehradun — adds to the income. But I will not pretend that stability arrived on day one. It arrived over about eighteen months of building,” Chilka said.
Living rent-free in Dehradun
Chilka says that moving from Pune to Dehradun in 2025 was a major reason that he could retire at the age of 45.
Asked if he owns the house where he currently lives in Dehradun, he answered in the negative — but added that he is living virtually rent-free.
“We are staying at my wife’s uncle’s property. It had been unoccupied for 15 years. We paid for the renovation and contribute a very small amount toward upkeep. Effectively, we are rent-free,” explained the former HR professional, who has also penned several essays on his retirement journey.
Chilka acknowledges that living rent-free puts him in a position of privilege.
“I know what most people say when they hear this: you were lucky. It was easy for you because of this. And I do not disagree. That arrangement is an advantage, and I am not going to pretend otherwise,” he said.
However, he also wants to “push back, gently, on the conclusion people draw from it” — pointing out that “almost everyone has something to leverage”, whether it is a family property, a monetizable skill, a partner with an income source or something else.
Cutting down expenses
Hindustantimes.com asked Amit Chilka how he managed to cut down his expenses to “roughly 30% of what they were in Pune,” as he claimed in his LinkedIn post.
“This is probably the most practical question, and I am happy to be specific,” he replied.
Chilka revealed that his monthly expenses in Pune were in the range of ₹1.2–1.5 lakh. In Dehradun they are around ₹45,000–50,000.
“First, all loans were paid off before I moved. I am completely debt-free. That single decision — clearing every EMI before making the transition — removed a significant recurring obligation and, more importantly, lifted the psychological weight of obligation entirely,” he said.
“Second, as I mentioned, we are staying in my wife’s uncle’s property with no rent. That is a meaningful contribution to the number.
Third was a significant reduction in their daughter’s school fee.
“Third, my daughter’s school fees came down from approximately ₹32,000 a month in Pune to ₹7,000 a month here. The extra classes dropped from ₹12,000–15,000 to around ₹4,000. Together that is a saving of over ₹30,000 a month on education alone—without any compromise on the quality of schooling she is receiving,” said Chilka.
The family has also reduced lifestyle expenses like eating out. “The remaining reduction—roughly ₹20,000—came from life itself. The eating out that filled the social calendar in Pune. The weekend commitments. The subscriptions and services that had accumulated because I was too busy to examine them,” said Chilka.
“I simply do not miss any of it. What I value now — morning walks, time to read, evenings with my wife, the mountains outside the window — costs almost nothing.”
