Your job, your God?

I grew up in an environment where it was ingrained in us that a man can be a man only if he is productive. He has been sent to Earth on a mission and that purpose is to do his age-appropriate duties.

Amma used to remind us to keep a keen eye on the task at hand and not to be swayed by idle banter and purposeless chats. Her favourite Tamil proverb drove home her point - 'A talking dog is no use for hunting'! Appa, being the non-verbal one, asserted his teaching through his actions. In his 42 years' career, he never once called in sick, barring the times our family were stuck in floods when we were stuck in a relative's house when we visited them on a Sunday and the time he was admitted for diabetes.

So, these thoughts came to my mind as I was passing through Singapore airport. If one had been to Singapore, he would not fail to notice the high numbers of members of the geriatric population still engaged in economic activities namely the service industry. In a food court, I could not keep my eyes off a severely kyphotic uniformed lady in her late sixties, probably, with a weak left upper limb dragging herself religiously clearing up the utensils and crumbs left by the patrons. She was working with such dexterity that would put an average adult to shame. When a looked around, I saw that everybody was working individually, focused on the job at hand. Nobody had time for small talks. It was just performance and the aim to have their tasks done. They were not robotic in that sense as they were just as forthcoming with pleasantries to the customer when warranted. The Japanese work ethics that our ex-Prime Minister was coaxing our population to emulate must have spilt over to our neighbours, never actually embraced by Malaysians. The river had flown leaving the source dry.

A one-kilometre channel that separates these two countries seem to demarcate them worlds apart. A one-hour flight later at the luggage collection belt, what do I witness? Three able-bodied adults assigned to supervise the placing of luggage on the belt; one to adjust the placing, another to supervise him and yet another to supervise the other but more engaged in talking grandmother stories!