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Bio data in Short

by Vimala Ramu
(Bangalore, India)

World has always been diverse with its many languages, many cultures and geographic variety. But now this multiplicity has come into academic courses and jobs also. So much so, while we had Science and Arts as the only two streams, colleges are offering multiple disciplines today.

Even in the job front, it used to be so easy to explain one’s job as tinker, tailor, soldier etc. Now it is very difficult to do so.

One young man who was a graduate of IIT and IIM, the most prestigious courses in India as of now, had recently taken up a job in ITC_ Indian Tobacco Company as a trainee in sales department. A grandmother of one of his friends asked him,’Tum kya karte ho bête?” (What do you do(for living), Son?). He said, ‘Main cigarette bechta hun’ (I sell cigarettes). Belonging to an earlier generation, the poor lady must have visualized him as a vendor on the railway platform with a wooden tray hung from his neck, a tray on which different brands of cigarettes had been displayed along with Paan-beeda (envelopes of betel leaves stuffed with scented betel nuts and gulkand- syrup of rose petals prepared with sun’s heat and sealed with cloves) and bidis ( a cheaper version where tobacco is wrapped in tendu leaves and smoked by a lesser strata in society) shouting ‘paan beeda beedi cigarette’!

A gentleman who had served as a Vice President in a prestigious Software firm had resigned from his job and had started his own business with another partner. His old shopkeeper after making enquiries about him from the gentleman’s mother simplified the whole thing “Aah.., so now he has his own computer” proud of his knowledge of a computer. He must have visualized the ex VP as somebody in a small room running a computer like a Xerox machine or a ‘job typing’joint.

I had once heard a proud mother–in law of an Air force Armament officer telling while cuddling her little granddaughter, “This baby is the daughter of a SQUADRON LEADER! Do you know her pappa is the one who loads the bombs on to the aeroplanes to be dropped on the enemies?” Talk of simplifying.

On the other hand there are people who try to boost the simple jobs they have to impress people for their own selfish ends. I have come across a couple of airmen who have conned brides and their parents by saying they are ‘Ground Engineers’ to make it sound grand and officer-like, while no such designations exist in Air Force.

Each job carries its own dignity. There is no necessity to boost it or demean it though explaining some jobs to ‘aam aadmi’(common man) may pose some problems.