From the memoir: Industrialist Subroto Bagchi examines India's attitude towards blue-collar jobs

Scroll.in

a day ago

Where El Camino Real, 'The Royal Road' in Spanish, crosses Lawrence Expressway in Santa Clara, California, there used to be an $18 a night, EZ-8 Motel. Back in 1990, the Indian economy was at the brink, the country had very little foreign exchange and for people like me who used to travel to the Silicon Valley to solicit software projects, EZ-8 was a godsend. Back then, I did not know the difference between a motel and a hotel. A motel is a cheap place for a motorist to just spend a night along the highway before moving on the next morning. You got a no-frills room with a clean toilet, free coffee at the reception and nothing else. But motels are always near eateries, sometimes the typical American 'diner' where you could get a sumptuous breakfast that held you up until dinner.
During my maiden stay there, I found the bathroom's faucet leaking, with water all over the floor. I called the front desk and a man told me not to worry, someone will be up there soon. In a few minutes, the doorbell rang and as I opened the door, I saw this big man, better clothed and perhaps even better fed than me, standing there with a big smile on his face. 'Good morning, buddy,' he bellowed, 'I am here to fix your faucet.' I greeted him and gratefully let him in.
He was whistling a tune I couldn't place as he came in. He had his entire gadgetry, tools of all kinds, perhaps two dozen of them, neatly hanging from his belt. He had everything from a screwdriver to a flashlight. I had never seen such accessories, so systematically arranged, ever before. He went into the bathroom, called and asked me to explain how the problem occurred. As I explained, he listened with the air of a surgeon about to get into the operation theatre to perform brain surgery. When he had understood the issue, he told me that he would fix it and I stepped out.
After perhaps half an hour, he called me back and showed me all was good. He asked me to try things out while he stood overlooking so that I was truly satisfied. Then, waving his hand, he said, 'Have a nice day!' and was gone. I was amazed at his professional approach, his upkeep, but most importantly his body language. He was a plumber; I was a hotel guest. But the equation was between equals. I had a problem. He knew how to fix it. He was led by expertise, with no air of subservience. I was his buddy.
Years later, we lived for some time on the East Coast of the United States, this time in New Jersey. Our two daughters were in college, and it wasn't easy to support that as a single-income household. Susmita decided to work in the local PNC Bank as a teller. It was an entry-level position that did not pay a whole lot but it helped. She liked her work. But now, she had to go to work six days a week. Along the way, she became very good at her work and the bank started sending her to other branches, often an hour or two away, to train staff there or fill in when someone was on long leave. All this meant, we now needed help for the upkeep of the home that, despite the weekend vacuuming I was good at, wasn't quite working out.
That is when we decided to try out the services of a house cleaning agency called Molly Maid. We called them and set up the appointment. On the promised day and time, a Toyota car pulled up with the Molly Maid sign on it, two young women got off, smartly dressed, pulled out all their professional equipment including a heavy-duty vacuum, their cleaning supplies et al, took over the house and went about their work. After they were done, we offered them coffee and cookies and sat chatting. As we conversed, we learnt one of them was a college student. She, like our two daughters, was studying at Rutgers University. Coffee over, they reloaded their stuff and off they went in their Molly Maid car to their next appointment.
Back now in Bhubaneswar, Susmita and I had moved in with our in-laws for a few weeks in their Sahid Nagar home until the government quarters allocated to me was ready. During this time, I met Upendra, the local barber who made a home visit for his regular customers. I needed a haircut. So, on a particular Sunday morning, he appeared with a pair of scissors and a comb wrapped in a cloth towel and asked for a mirror, a wooden chair and a mug of water. The chair was duly installed on the small veranda, he wrapped me in the cloth and got to his work.
The difficulty of giving me a haircut is in finding the hair on my head to begin with. I am quite hair disadvantaged and contrary to it being a short job for a good barber, they actually take longer, going after each hair with excessive care just to make me feel good. This stretches the time, but I generally make use of the occasion to have a conversation. Barbers quite like that. Now that I was in the skill development business, all conversation veered around that subject. This once, I wanted to understand how he learnt his trade and how his capabilities could be replicated. After all, everyone needs grooming.
Upendra was a man in his late fifties, he could even be in his mid-sixties, there was no knowing for sure. He had three daughters, all of them married. That was really nice to know because that was a huge financial burden for a man like him. 'What were they doing?' I asked him. They were all homemakers, tending to the husband and the children, of course. 'Why didn't he teach them his skills?' Upendra's snippers stopped in mid-air and he didn't know how to answer that question. He thought for a second and then said that wouldn't have been nice.
It was a stupid question at two levels. First, if a barber has to teach his children his skill and induct them into his trade, it means he has failed to raise them right. Success is in vacating your parents' vocation and doing something that is socially more aspirational. It is okay for them to go to high school, maybe even the so-called local college, and do nothing afterwards, to buy a bike and a mobile phone with their father's money and roam around unproductively. But to be seen as a barber like the father was a demotion.
At the second level, it was a stupid question because I was asking about the man's daughters. They were meant to be married off by the time they were 17 or 18 with whatever small dowry was possible. They could not cut other people's hair.
But Upendra's skill was hugely valuable even in a place like Bhubaneswar. Each time Susmita needed her hair done, she sought an appointment with Kelsang Chonzom Bhuita, a young lady from the North-east at the Mayfair Hotel. There are other hair stylists there but for Susmita, it had to be Kelsang each time because she understood her, before she understood her hair. If Kelsang was busy that weekend, Susmita would wait for her next free slot.
Kelsang was an important part of the very upmarket Mayfair Hotel. Her clients respected her for her expertise. Between the salary and the tips, she made more money than many so-called white-collar workers in the city. Just the same way, in Bengaluru's posh hair salon, Blown on the Vittal Mallya Road, a sophisticated young man named Yogesh worked as a hair designer. Whenever our daughters came to India, visiting him to get their hair done was on top of their to-do list. And for that, they usually took an appointment even before leaving the United States. Yogesh did not cut hair. He knew hair.
But Upendra would not entertain the idea that his three daughters could be like Kelsang and Yogesh. Unlike Kelsang and Yogesh who probably went to a training school to learn hair styling by paying good money, Upendra could have personally given his daughters the head start. But cutting hair and that too in a 'beauty parlour' wasn't a welcome idea to him; it simply wasn't socially acceptable.
After the haircut was done and I was dusted, my father-in-law appeared with the money in hand. At this time, Upendra got out of his rubber slippers, kept the comb and the scissors aside, bowed respectfully and took the money in both hands. His palms cupped together, he did his namaskar and went his way.
In the ensuing few weeks, at my in-laws' place, I saw plumbers, carpenters and electricians come and go for fixing this thing or that. So did the maid who had regular timings and tasks. None of these people brought their footwear in. None of them had the confidence and the body language of the plumber of Santa Clara or the Molly Maids of New Jersey. In my in-laws' home, these people were treated affectionately but not respectfully. Sometimes, they were offered a cup of tea or a snack but these were in separate utensils kept separately for 'such' people. In most other households, they would be treated with disdain, forget about being offered a cup of tea.
In India, a maid is a maid servant. A construction worker is a site labourer. They are not respected by society and hence, lack agency. Marry the skill they have with a caste system that is still doing well after eight decades of independence, and you get a dreadful combination that tells every Upendra to look at their vocation as a burden, sometimes a curse. Not a source of professional pride.