had a major eye-opener from one of the so-called aam junta. my dad’s office car usually comes to drop&pick me up from work. and somehow the grade four employees had also got me, as a person, associated with the kind of car that came for me. the main security guard normally gives me a call as soon as he spots my car and saves my drivers some time and chats with them till i come down. today the car pool was unusally crowded and i got a relic from the old days- an AMBY. the security guard called up all incredulous and reported that the office had sent an ambassador for me. there was derision dripping from his tone. he even asked me to confirm whether it really was for me or not? finally when i came down, he told me very sotto voce that he hadnt entertained this new guy in that tiny little guard’s room that’s been allocated to him as he did the other regulars. the reason being they come in cars which fit into his mould of the kind of people he would want to give those salutes to. my poor substitute driver was quite puzzled and kept asking me if anything was wrong as the guard was treating him like he had a bhayanak case of clap!
this isnt the first case of reverse snobbery that i’ve come across but it had me quite captured. at some point, either financially or otherwise, my office guard is at par with my driver but look at the positions people assume just by association with some status symbols. i was narrating this to my dad when he burst out laughing a a full 10 minutes after the story had ended. on being asked what was so funny, he told me he was looking forward to seeing the guard’s face the day when i stepped out of an auto or a bus. he probably would ask me to use the service entrance from that day onwards!!! difficult to get ahead in life or hold onto a “respectable” position if the office guards are going to become the watchdogs of what the white-collars ought to be like!
Random. Structured. Haphazard. All Me. 