Lost Jobs

Doctor, engineer, investment banker.... That’s it. I can’t think of any other professions. I mean, I can think of them, but they are not the professions that my friend want to have. There is a rare case who wants to be an actor but he is an exception. In fact, people don’t ask me what I’d like to do someday. They ask me (since I am Science student and I take Biology) this question which sounds a lot like one of those True/False questions: “Engineering or Medical?”

As these thoughts clouded over my mind, I started thinking about the professions which we have lost. No, I am not talking about things which don’t pay well or ‘risky’ jobs which don’t ensure a future. I am talking about things which many people did barely a decade ago, services which were once provided to the general public but are now not needed. I am really young and so, it is shocking to know how many types of jobs have just disappeared from the scene since I was born. Here’s a look at some of them.

1.    The Postman

The man had a khaki uniform and bag full of letters. Every neighborhood had its own postman who, to some extent, was a part of its identity. The postman in my neighborhood was a man with a beard and a kind face. I remember talking to him and because I was still practically a baby, he occasionally made a fuss of me. When coming back from pre-school, I would see him on the streets and wave to him. Without him, our neighborhood was incomplete.

And then one day, he was gone.

I don’t know when, but his visits become rarer and rarer and then he just disappeared. He didn't even leave a phone number. At the time, I didn’t mind his absence but now I realize that it was in a way the end of an era. The world was developing. ‘Globalization’ was the word . E-mails defeated letters and so-called ‘trunk calls’ were no longer that expensive.  And now, Facebook is the fashionable thing and we don’t even know how letters are really written (‘are’ has become ‘r’, ‘you’ has become ‘u’, ‘see you’ has become ‘cu’ and so on.) I guess we were all so fascinated with these developments that we forgot about the postman who was dying all this while. Today we only have faceless, less individualistic versions of him, mostly courier guys whose faces never register in our heads. The mail they bring in is often, if not always, important but so impersonal that  we don't exactly wait for them. They don't wear a khaki uniform, they don't know us and we don't know them. Boy, communication sure has changed.

I sometimes wonder what our beloved, bearded Postman Uncle is doing these days.

2. Film Poster Artists

The first film I watched in a theatre was Devdas. It was in an old, unpopular single-screen theatre. There was a huge billboard in front of it and on it was a poster for Devdas. The man on the poster holding a bottle of alcohol was not Shah Rukh Khan but a 2D painting of him. Aishwarya Rai's mouth looked a little out of place and Madhure Dixit's face wasn't like, well, Madhuri Dixit's face. The era of painted film posters still prevailed and then, very suddenly, was gone. Now, Shah Rukh Khan always looks like himself, Aishwarya Rai's infamous beauty isn't hampered by a less-than-perfect brush stroke, Madhuri Dixit's face doesn't look changed. The posters are perfect. Or are they?

It was once, I think in Lajpat Nagar, that I saw a poster for a film starring Amitabh Bachchan. My child's brain didn't register what movie it was, but I still  remember telling my mother, "See, that poster looks so....real", and my mother naming some famous artist who had humble beginnings as a poster artist. Every line, every shade of colour on Amitabh Bachchan's face was absolutely perfect, so much so that I started thinking of poster making as an art. Yes, it's true- we have lost a valuable form of art and the artists too.

[Note: Designing book covers is an art too but whenever a book gets made into a movie, the original design of the book cover gets replaced by the movie poster. I think a torn ribbon on the cover of Eclipse representing Bella cutting ties with her human life (I guess we all knew she would do that and it didn't come as much of a surprise) is a lot more meaningful than Robert Pattinson's face and Talor Lautner's abs. Leave the book covers alone. Let's just not lose another form of art.]

3. Kabuliwala

No, this isn't in reference to Rabindranth Tagore's infamous story about a kabuliwala-turned-convict. Kabuliwalas disappeared by the time I was born, at least in Delhi. My parents tell me about them. They brought nuts and dry fruits from Kabul (really?) and sold them like door-to-door salesmen. I wonder what they looked like. Did they carry a bag? What kind of bag? Were they really from Kabul? I guess I'll never be able to find out for myself. For now, all I can do is go to a sweet shop selling over-priced dry fruits.

4. Telephone Operator

I have never encountered one in my life because by the time I was born, 'trunk' calls, which needed to be booked in advance, had turned into STD calls. You didn't have to scream at the operator to book yourself a two-minute call. You didn't have to wait for hours and hear the operator's voice again and again before actually getting to talk to the one you want. I have to admit I'm glad it's easier to make calls these days (who wants to yell into the receiver and wait endless hours?) but i wish I could meet someone who really was a telephone operator once.

5. Writer

Surprised? I know Chetan Bhagat is there, but think about the scenario many years ago. There used to be a time when there were hundreds of magazines in the market, which means hundreds of writers for every language.  There were beautiful, inspirational stories for all kinds of people which I had the good fortune to read thanks to my father and granfather's archives. Now, all I see in newspapers and magazines in gossip-y chick lit, articles whose only aim seems to be to promote the west, uninspired travel articles which make you think that the writer didn't even have to travel to the place he has written about and merely copied something out of a brochure, magazines which claim to be for 'young adults' but are actually for toddlers and writers who only know what the problem is, not the solution. Where did all the good writers go? Do good writers even exist anymore? Is it because we are losing our patience to read (why do you think Mr. 140 Characters aka Twitter is such a hit?) and don't know how to recognize, let alone encourage budding writers.

For now, that's all I could come up with but given my age, I'm sure I'm missing out on a lot. For example, according to my mother, there were people who went from one house to another selling shawls and offering to make blankets and pillows and I have never seen sch people. My guess is, in the next few years, the so-called kirana stores, that is the stores which don't have aisles and electronic cash counters and the 'shop-keeper' standing behind the counter hands you things from through an invisible wall, will become obsolete in India and will get replaced by super-markets like the ones in Europe and America. If you know about any jobs which have disappeared or will disappear in the coming years, write about them in a comments section.