Realities

realities

Excitement swelled within her as she grasped the paper in her hand. She had worked hard enough, toiled long enough, and spent more than enough of time and money to find a job. Now she had one. Relieved, she slumped on the floor, kicking her bedspread to clear some space.

What a year it’d been. Her education loan piled up faster than she had expected, and the house owner had threatened to raise the rent on the rooftop shack she occupied by the water tank.

She scanned her offer letter for the hundredth time. Undervalued and under appreciated. Yet employed.

Jobseekers

I participated in a job fair a couple of days ago, and learnt so much that I wasn’t prepared to learn. I saw how convoluted our education system is, and how twisted and desperate it’s made our graduates. Also, how difficult it is to find jobs and how the pressure transforms even the respectable into shameless persons.

Let’s take it one at a time. It was my first time attending a job fair as a recruiter, on behalf of my employer. I arrived a little late and the first thing I noticed when I walked in was our stall groaning with a mob clamouring to shove resumes at my colleague. The volume of the crowd stunned me. I had expected a maximum of two hundred people visiting our stall over the course of the day, but in reality, we had two hundred people in the booth at any time during most of the day—from 10 am to 6 pm.

Every person had the same look and the same mentality: to give out their resumes no matter what role we needed. Most of them were fresh graduates, eager (read desperate) to land a job, and it didn’t matter that we needed technical qualifications and experience they don’t possess. Some of the folks I spoke to were blatant and honest: they needed a job, any job they can get. They didn’t mind which city they’d work in, they didn’t mind which role, the compensation we’d offer, the responsibilities they’d undertake, or the amenities they’d receive. I collected over hundred resumes of such fresh graduates. And it amused me—how flexible they are, their eyes screaming a yearning to find a job regardless of all that matters.

That’s when I realised it’s the fate of most graduates in India. We’ve colleges in every other street, with almost every politician chairing a chain of educational institutions. The result is an army of graduates, few qualified but most of them mediocre, unable to find proper jobs that pay what they deserve. And so to make up for lost time and time, these graduates hunt for whatever jobs they can find. From there stems the desperation that reeks through their skins.

It’s sad.

But collecting these resumes, promising them I’d forward them to my team knowing well that I wouldn’t, I could only squirm with disgust. I know I shouldn’t blame them for almost-begging for jobs. I know they have no choice, that they have loads of loans to pay off, and parents who moan at their unworthy degree. This system’s been around far too long to change in a heartbeat. I doubt it’ll ever change. Until each of these graduates realises—before they fall into the pit—how futile it is to take up an expensive, once-prestigious, course in a country that’s made education an unaffordable bounty, and replaced quality with cheap textbooks, and campus buildings in disarray.

Creator

Wielding her weapon, Margaret felt immense power surge through her veins. Everything rested on her — she could make or break Larry. She could poke, tease, torture him even, and no one to intervene.

She could control him, discipline him, and boss him. Like a puppeteer she could play with his arms and legs, like a sore partner she could mess with his soul, like a disowning parent she could stare until he withered in shame.

She had created him, and she had every right to destroy him. After all, she wouldn’t be the first author to torment her characters.

Focussed on one, un-focussing all else

This week’s photo challenge is interesting for two reasons. One, David Watkis posted a bokeh, almost out-of-focus, photo of the New York skyline, asking for something that represents focus to us. I never keep the remains of my disastrous, no-focus photographs. And so my initial reaction was to hold my head in my hands and wonder what to do.

Later, though, I looked at my archives and I realised that I indeed have a bunch of then-embarrassing photos. That’s the second reason this challenge is interesting. When I looked at that photograph, I relived the moment: It was couple of years ago in Pondicherry, a city I’d love to  return to any weekend of the year. It’s close by and offers a lot more than affordable alcohol and glorious gelato.

It was around five o’clock in the morning when I looked through our hotel window. The street was deserted except for a few early-morning health walkers and yoga enthusiasts. I was so focussed on capturing the emptiness in the street that only later did I realise  how the objects in the photo came out un-focssed. For some weird reason I hadn’t deleted the photo, and I’m glad I didn’t.

Focus