The Hindu Business Line : A dismal tale unfolds

I MET Mr Nair on November 2, the day Mr George W. Bush got re-elected for a second term in office. He seemed keen to know the outcome of the elections and turned despondent on being informed about it. Having known him to be rather insensitive to global politics, especially the US fight against global terrorism, I was intrigued by this newfound interest, but decided to bide time.

A quick recap of what is known about this self-made man. For a matriculate pass, who boarded a train out of a sleepy Kerala town in the mid-1970s, he had indeed done very well. He had begun his professional life as a typist with a textile company in Ahmedabad and, later, opted to join the Gujarat government in the secretarial pool. The ensuing three decades saw him climb the departmental ladder, from a mere typist to a junior stenographer before becoming an integral cog in the bureaucratic machinery in his adopted State.

As the common refrain went, a number of IAS officers made way for their successors but there was no replacing Mr Nair. Somewhere along the way, he married a lady typist from back home, who was then tipped to be a bright prospect in the State Finance Department.

During the last decade, Mr Nair had got entrenched in the Chief Secretary's office and it was widely believed that he would eventually retire from that office. What is more, he had built a big bungalow back home in Kerala and was labelled as among those who had well and truly arrived.

Therefore, one was struck by his demeanour that appeared anything but tranquil. It needed only a bit of coaxing before his dismal tale unfolded. Mr Nair's son, who was groomed from his schooldays to become a doctor but went on to become an engineer with the aid of a paid seat at Manipal, was refusing to play ball and join as a trainee engineer with a local construction company.

Apparently, the lad had a `walk-in' with US-based call centre that had recently opened office near his house and seemed only glad to change his vocation. Sure, the pay was nothing to complain about with the monthly take home a cool 20 K.

What was also true was that the son now refused to return to his original vocation at a reduced salary. Despair was writ large on his face as he cursed the outcome of the US elections, saying, "That man Kerry should never have been defeated. He had some sound notions about outsourcing work to India. At least, it would have saved the new generation from turning into a secretarial pool for the West."

That was only half the story as his daughter, only a few weeks short of joining MBA classes, now seemed set to follow her brother.

The only saving grace was this call centre had dangled the carrot of having tied up with a business school for those who still missed studies. The likelihood of his daughter doing the MBA course appeared distinctly bleak.

Life seemed to have frozen in a time warp for his family as one generation of backroom office staff was about to pass on the baton to the next. In that sense, life had not moved one inch, he said, as India seemed to be getting bogged down by a wave of "generation next secretaries" whose only progress was in having replaced the type-written word with the spoken one over the telephone.

Clearly, Mr Nair could not be blamed for wanting Mr John Kerry in the White House.