Disastrous assumptions

A couple of days ago, in a webinar I was invited, I came across a question which really bothered me. In fact, it is still bothering me. Someone wanted advice on post-retirement income. That is, on generating income from savings after retirement. Except for the lucky few who have an adequate inflation-linked pension, this is a problem that every one of us has to solve at some point. This person had just retired and had savings of about Rs 50 lakh. He said that his lifestyle was modest and all he wanted was a steady Rs 40,000 a month. He just needed some guidance as to what was the best way to generate that income. His query was almost exactly the same as that of a relative of mine who had asked me about generating an income of Rs 1 lakh a month fr