I started looking for jobs while in college as a way to supplement my meager pocket money. It was 1993 and the Indian scenario for part-time flexi hour earning was pretty much dry and barren pickings. We, by which I mean Yuppie urbanized westernized Indian kids in their late teens were brought up on stories of American kids who raised college tuition by flipping burgers or waiting in restaurants. So, we took pride in being resourceful and seeking financial autonomy. However, a large part of affluent upper-middle-class India still looked down on their children taking on part-time work while studying, especially menial ones, as a social comedown. In the same way, many Indian men, keep highly educated wives out of the workforce, as one’s women working, somehow signifies need, and proclaim that their men are incapable as breadwinners. Similarly, many well-educated well-off kids were amused at my need to “make my own money”; I mean why not just ask Papa for an increase in pocket money?
We were, I realized in hindsight, progressive in our thinking, and brave to thumb convention.
So, by the time I completed my master’s, I had worked many a two-week stint, as a product demonstrator at a BPL Sanyo Showroom, travel coordinator for Europcar during the CII conference at a five-star hotel, promoting products for Castrol oil at trade fairs for long hours and selling direct automobile loans from banks. We were often asked to don Indian formal wear, a sari and I suspect our interviews, were more of a viewing, of whether we could attract enough eyes towards their stalls. For explaining bank loans, a bit of intellectual acumen was requisite, but only a bare amount. I remember boys being chosen for vivacity, charm, and lucidity, and pretty girls who were reluctant speakers, (The Indian inhibition of women making hard sells as somehow acting undignified), still being taken on as possible show horses.
My first full-time paid position was with a five-star hotel as a health club receptionist. Graduation wasn’t a requirement; at that time, I had completed my BA honours in English. I was keen on earning money while awaiting results, before going on for a master’s degree. The gentleman who interviewed me was frankly puzzled, he clearly saw I wasn’t a glam doll, or showpiece material but young and bright and intelligent enough to hire, especially because I was brimming with keen ambition. He told me I was overqualified for my job, but if I wanted it that much, it was mine. I think that I lucked out in meeting a kind and decent gentleman at that time.
A five-star hotel is a blessed place for a novice to start. It incorporates higher standards of ethics in the treatment of women at the workplace, and in fact, has a high workforce of confident well-groomed women who won’t take male chauvinist nonsense. Couple that with the fact we were dealing with a lot of foreign industrialists and high-level dignitaries and there couldn’t be any apparent shoddy treatment of women, whether in tones, sexual overtures let alone physical advances. The “Guest is God” philosophy drilled into us made male staff very chivalrous addressing their female colleagues as “ma’am”. I recall being called Miss Amrita by a nervous young man repeatedly till I told him impatiently to drop the miss!
Was there no differential treatment of women? Funnily enough except for choosing a female workforce by looks and grooming rather than knowledge and acumen, not so much, in the hospitality industry, at this level. I couldn’t fault them for this, it’s a people-pleasing service industry after all.
But, let me backtrack a bit to make a point. In between my completion of the basic two-year BA pass course, while waiting to start on the final honour’s year, a friend of mine and I had approached an up-and-coming trendy newspaper, for positions as copywriters, space sellers, proofreaders, sub-editors, whatever was available. The owner of the paper was in town that day and my gorgeous friend and I were interviewed simultaneously. She hardly spoke, I piped up, confident because of my repertoire of various part-time jobs. He had eyes only for her, spoke languorously, with a teasing glint in his eyes, and I soon piped down. As we waited outside, I found another old college mate of mine, already employed, proofreading. Hoping to impress, I knelt down to correct a couple of tiny errors, she thanked me but explained she would have come to them eventually. She was again a very beautiful young lady, with perfect manners and impressive brains. I am not even implying that dumb belles were routinely hired by Indian media, whereas a way with words should have been the guiding prerequisite, but there was certainly a male gaze involved in the choice of female candidates. My co-interviewee that day was hired on the spot, I was swiftly rejected. As we walked out, she vociferously commented, “Amrita, this is so unfair, you stood first in the entire English department for our part 1 BA examination, I don’t know how I got chosen over you.”
I secretly agreed since this was proofreading or copywriting, not marketing, but I shrugged and said with a sporting smile, “You were more impressive I guess?”
But the question, “How?” niggled mentally. By staying quiet, passive, demure, and ladylike?
Incidentally, this gentleman was outed in the Indian Hash Tag Me Too movement that raged on social media in 2018 and had to resign from an eminent position as minister of external affairs, as his numerous other “affairs” came to light.
I have one thing to thank him for though, he broadened my sphere of professional interaction.
By influencing me to ignore my writing skills, in pursuit of a more glamorous profession in the hospitality industry as a backlash. As if I had to prove to myself, that I was marketable, placeable in the job market by my looks as well as my other qualifications. I was only 21, impressionable, and eager to learn the ropes to survive and excel. The commodification of a woman thus begins with such innocuous rejections from powerful role models. It took me away from my natural world of words but showed me another one, of kind confident strong women who use beauty as a mere stepping stone to bigger things: A little charm in the arsenal never hurts. At the health club, where I wrestled with trial and balance sheets, budget deficits, and profit and loss, beyond my call of duty at her encouragement, (I was really supposed to handle petty cash and bill the customers at the beauty parlour and health club) and was frequently asked by the lady manager of the health club to stay back, I regained my confidence. She took me out with her on lunches and made it clear to me that she was grooming me for her position when she moved higher up.
