Of getting old and feeling old

One of my chithappa was working on AIR as a music director. It was at a time when Doordarshan was the only channel. Very rarely he would be called to conduct some music orchestra on that channel, especially during festival times, when the channel would invite individual performers/artists for some special day event. All he would do was to wave his hand in front of the troupe and in a space of 20 minutes, he might hardly be seen for a minute or two. But he used to say that, when he walked on the streets, people used to greet him like a celebrity. He was (and FELT) very famous during those times. With the popularity of satellite channels, this setup that Doordarshan popularized, waned and you no longer get to see such kind of shows. Orchestra definitely is mentioned on music reality shows. But I’ve rarely seen a conductor being involved. It was his view as well that, role of such people had become irrelevant in this new setup and with the new generation of folks, people like him, who once were used to being very popular with public, just because catching a glimpse of media people used to be a rarity at that time, are now common place and many doesn’t even know about his generation of technicians. He find that off late anyone with a bit of money and a good network (internet and people wise) are able to start their own channel (YouTube) and some even achieve viral fame. I used to feel that this is due to generation gap and he is unable to grasp the fact that youngsters have a steep success rate to start with, sustenance being a different topic. He might have spent decades to achieve even those short span of fame and might feel shorted now considering how easily people get into the limelight.

Cut to circa at present. The luck or the idiocy that I carry to every company that I move is not checking the grade at which I am being recruited. Almost always, I get tagged for a wrong grade much below what I aspire and deserve only to find about it after spending a couple of months in that company. It never used to bother me this much before, for I never felt the repercussions of such wrong decisions. But with each passing year in the career, I realize that, lateral hires just like me and even those who are long timers within same company often respect others only by their grades. Nothing to fault them, for they are of the opinion that grades are decided based on qualification, be it years wise or expertise. But for cases like mine who are downright lazy to check what they are getting into and focus only on the responsibilities, it does become a thorny thing at best while dealing with those peers or higher graded folks. Maybe it is age or mindset, that expects people to respect us for who we are rather than what we are, while refusing to accept that we don’t carry a copy of resume on our face. While at hindsight it is easy to realize the thought process on the other side, in reality and in practical sense, it is very difficult to accept being treated with anything less than respect. Which again is a definition of what I consider as respect that is not available to the other side. All said and done, I realize the folly of this thought process for there will always be someone or other who would be younger and probably be on fast track at every level. There would definitely be some brashness and over-confidence/arrogance of recognized success along with them, that may not go well with people like me, who on the outside are eager to have our hands dirty in doing the work but at the inside wish others recognize and reward us for what we do and what we deserve. Such kind of characters sound outdated even for a movie character from the 60’s when I post this as a thought. But there are an army of such people abound specifically and possibly from my batch which is at an age that is neither here nor there in their careers. Acceptance rather than repentance is probably the only way out I guess.