The Perfect Job

I recently attended a Strings concert; first things first: Wooooh!!! It was brilliant, notwithstanding the fact that though I had a VIP pass I had to be content with imagining Bilal and Faisal and their magic for the first half-hour. Things got better soon; in fact I was able to squeeze my way to the front and for the rest of the concert I was in the first row: the V-VIP row.

And that is when the voices in my head started competing with the acoustic love-making.

As I sat there, the wet grass ensuring that my favourite pair of jeans would forever remember Strings, my ear-drums trying to retreat into my head, a beefy, pan-chewing member of the security came and planted his trouser seat between Faisal and me. This set me thinking: there are some jobs which are best suited to those who would hate the job. Consider, for instance, the security at concerts. It has to comprise of tone deaf people who are intellectually and morally opposed to music. Only then can they successfully glower murderously at the performer and his audience alike. Only then can their mere presence attract magically the weapons of would-be assassins and other silencers of music. Only then can they, when the singer, oblivious to danger, and in the throes of applause, tries to throw himself into the arms of his audience, keep him glued firmly on to the stage. It is only when every member of the security, in harmony, hates music; and consequently, his job, can a singer tour the world, wooing audience after audience and then proceed, each night, to sink into safe slumber. It is the ideal arrangement.

Imagine the disaster that would follow if the managers of concerts had not the good sense to steer clear of music-loving muscle-men to ensure the safety of the singers. Were this to happen, this is what I envision: The concert is on in full swing; the audience is in a trance; the star is the hypnotist; the security sways as a body to the music - eyes closed, mouths gently agape, puddles of drool at their feet - suddenly shots ring out: the drummers are shot and masked men emerge from the audience, leap on to the stage and drag the lead singer away even as the hands of each member of the security move, as one, to grope drunkenly at their respective holsters for their guns. This makes the headlines in the country's newspapers the next morning, completely overshadowing routine political upheavals. The tearful why-was-I-so-lazy-about-filing-my-divorce-papers wife now has to run to the stunned insurance company which will have to come up with schemes to evade payment ("We told you not to employ a music-loveing security, you should have made them plants in the audience instead.", "We told you not to tour in such an uncivilized place as India."). The next thing you know, the ransom has been coughed up and the singer emerges, gaunt and humble: filled with new respect for life, all set to write a heart-rending account of his stay with the kind-hearted barbarians of a third-world country and grammarians across the world wait with bated breath for another sock in the jaw for the language.

And all for the want of a music-loathing security.

This is not the only profession in which a job-hating victim would make for a better employee than a willing drone.

Take surgeons, for example. A surgeon who is a little squeamish about blood would be vastly more desirable than a bloodthirsty one. Think of the massacre that a surgeon with a case of the blood-lust can unleash!

Writers, too, are better when they are miserable about everything in general, and about life in particular. Byron, even as he was being hounded by most European nations, churned out beautiful poetry. Indian writers too uphold the literary tradition of 'the more suicidal, the better' works of fiction.

In conclusion, what any young person about to begin the very serious life-work of earning his living has to decide at the very outset is: does he want to enjoy what he does or does he want to be good at what he does? For, as we have just established, in most noble professions excellence and passion are incompatible.