Breaking the glass ceiling ….of lahe lahe and hobo dioks
This is a writing sample from Scripted writer Anupam Khaund
For a long time our people led very simple lives with a very contented feeling as regards career, wealth or business. As such the spirit of lahe lahe ruled day to day lives and if someone tried to break the glass ceiling and do something outside of the box, they were run down by the terse "hobo diok". In terms of career the government jobs aka sorkari sakori was the rule, the supposedly classy jobs were the ones of OIL (later BRPL and NRL) and IOC/ONGC. The one's which were a bit sahabi or should I say supposedly "European style" jobs were ones of Tea garden managers. Then in the last 25years things changed: Assamese youth broke the glass ceiling albeit in small numbers. From Seattle to Shanghai our boys and girls travelled mostly on IT and engineering jobs, again huge numbers who had earlier got stuck in positions in oil and gas PSU's, quit and moved to the Middle East, North America and smaller lots to the far-east. Lot more joined engineering/banking /managerial jobs in the metros or within the region…lahe lahe was suddenly not so lahe lahe. Even in media our people have a presence now....be it journalism , creative writing , film-making , singing or arranging sound for the numerous studio's that have sprung up in Mumbai and good old Guwahati. Things are changing …yes there has been a lot of negatives and what went wrong – however we can also take pride in what is going right for our people and this should be the spring board of progress. In Guwahati for example – a typical local business person before would be somebody who couldn't secure a job – "mane sakori/bakori nepale karone business ei korise"…this has suddenly changed: if a person moves around a bit today he or she will come across numerous people – mostly young local assamese people who are making solid efforts to set up business and mind you its first generation….this is the way to go.
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