Diana Hayden of India is the new Miss World. A veritable triumph of packaging, say some. A little dentistry, a little cosmetic surgery, rigorous workouts at a gym, a top-class fashion designer, a choreographer to teach how to sashay plus training in how to speak in clever little soundbites and there is the world at your feet. So, even in a town like Ludhiana, Punjab, every small locality holds a beauty contest awarding a cardboard crown and cheap sash to the winner who ultimately aspires to be in Hayden´s expensive stilettos.
The case is the same with young men looking for the Mr India title and hoping to hop on to the supermodel league. If not through looks then the path to success for India´s young lies through a Master´s Degree in Business Administration, where the starting salaries alone are enough to catapult one into the big league.
If it is to be the Civil Services, then it is not the Administrative or the Foreign Service that attracts the best of talent, but the Revenue Services where they come into contact with top businessmen and industrialists and can earn an income on the side. If it has to be medicine, then the friendly old GP is a thing of the past. There has to be specialisation, a posh clinic and the ability to milk patients dry off cash. Just recently, in one state, young medicos were agitating against a stipulation for compulsory rural service.
The list of favoured professions can go on, but the ultimate goal for the young in each is the lure of lucre. Humanities are, understandably, completely out of fashion. And no one wants to teach anymore, and it is only those who fail everywhere else that join the academe and its meagre earnings. There are hundreds of vacancies for school teachers with no applicants. Similarly, no one wants to join the armed services, not because they are peaceniks, but because the salary is not excitement-generating. For the first time in 50 years, the services are having to advertise to attract recruits.