Of Bhubaneswar & Preparing to be an Airhostess!

When I passed out of school in March’ 2007, I was not sure about what I wanted to do with my life. I had decided to join hotel management but I had missed the national entrance exam for the same, so I had a year free. While many of my classmates were preparing for IIT or Medical entrance tests, I was positive that those career options were not suitable for me. I did eventually join hotel management and by the time I passed out of college, I did not want to join the hotel industry. This article is not about that. You can read my article ‘Why I Didn't Pursue a Career in Hotels...’ to know about that story. This article is about that one year I spent in Bhubaneswar, the capital city of my home state Odisha. 

Sometime during the period between the board exams and the announcement of results, one of my uncle’s acquaintances suggested that I could be a pilot. I had the height for it, standing at 185 centimeters at that point in time and great eyesight. Moreover, when I explored the requisites for the Commercial Pilot’s License, I realized my family would not have the funds to give me that training. Soon after, someone else suggested I could do a flight steward’s course. The Frankfinn Institute of Airhostess Training was a very popular institute at that time and they had a branch in Bhubaneswar. My grandfather had them send us brochures of the course and while it seemed like an expensive vocation, with tuition fees ranging at around 1.10 lacs for a yearlong part-time course, the brochure made it seem like they were guaranteeing employment after the training. They used terms like “100% Placement Assistance” which is just a fancy term for providing information on job openings.

Anyway, I found myself in Bhubaneswar soon after my twelfth standard results were out. I was an average student who spoke relatively well for his IQ bracket. I used to read a lot and had a panache for recalling and quoting information that I had consumed, which made people think I was smart. Funny thing – this works only when you are young. You do that as an adult and people label you a know-it-all or you come across someone who finds fault in your information and makes you look stupid. The day I went for my induction into the new course, I met the people who were going to be my batch mates. I simultaneously felt the following two things: 

1) An ego boost because I was decidedly smarter than most of the boys and girls who had signed up.

2) A sinking feeling about the credibility of that course.

Funnily, the ego boost was useless but it would persist. Later that year, I appeared for the state-level hotel management entrance course and aced it. I swear I am not joking. They had even printed my name in the local newspapers. I was bright, compared to the people in that course with me, and while I had my soft skills to my advantage, I lacked what it takes to get a job as a flight steward – the lean body and the fair skin. I was always a little overweight and they have seriously stringent body measurement standards for flight stewards. Moreover, most Indian airlines do not even hire men as their in-flight crew. Therefore, that was that for my flying dreams.

Coming to second feeling I had, the course in itself was not bad but it was rather redundant. Somewhere through it, I realized that I could have appeared for the airline interviews even without the course. You see the job of a flight steward or an airhostess takes no special skill except a presentable personality and decent communication skills. They train you with everything else. So essentially these curses are frauds, given the lofty fees they charge. They also do not screen people fairly, hiding the fact that most airlines would reject the candidates these institutes enroll in their courses.  This fact is revealed to the students when the placement time rolls in. That is when they realize that airlines only hire the tall, fair and skinny women. Most people, if they are slim, fair and eloquent, find themselves in airport jobs that pay very little as compared to the cabin crew. The majority of students enrolling in these courses end up working for local hotels or BPO often earning lesser than minimum wage, because it is fashioned as training stipend.

I had made the mistake of signing up for this course, which I initially enjoyed because the ratio of women to men was astoundingly but understandable very high and I liked the company of women. Soon I became disillusioned and planned to join a full-time graduation in hotel management, but that was several months away and save for the two hours a day where I used to go to class, I had the day all to myself. I could not tell my grandfather that he had wasted a hundred thousand rupees on a stupid course because I did not want to break his heart and I would often assure him that I would have a job by the end of the year. I used the year to explore the new city, finding things to do within the confines of my limited resources. I flirted with the women at Frankfinn, went to these events where I would get hosting gigs paying me around Rs. 350 to Rs. 500 a day, which I used use to gorge on Bhubaneswar street food. 

I often write off the year 2007-08 as a waste of my time but it was not an uneventful year. I lived away from my family for the first time as a grown up, I got into my first fight that year, I was arrested for that fight, was kicked out from a PG; I got very good at public speaking thanks to those events I spoke at and by the end of it, I had grown another year. Okay, that last part would have happened nonetheless. As luck would have it, the following years in college undid the confidence I had gained in that one year in Bhubaneswar, but it was an experience, which became a part of who I am today. Towards the end of the year, I went for some BPO interviews and managed to get a couple of jobs with Satyam & Wipro, which was a big relief for my grandfather and while the pay was not as lavish, it restored my confidence on my own employability. I was even selected for a regional movie role I auditioned for, but I did not mention that to my folks because they would not have been thrilled about it.

I took the NCHMCT’s entrance for Hotel Management at the end of the year and I ranked nineteenth in the country, which further stroked my ego. I was humbled later in life, when things came into perspective. Yet, I am still grateful about that year in Bhubaneswar because it was a part of my journey. It was my first foray into a “bigger city” and while it never overwhelmed me, it added to my bragging rights to myself. It earned a great compliment from my uncle and it lives with me today, when everything is different. I pass through Bhubaneswar every now and then when I travel to Odisha but the place looks very different now than it did fourteen years ago. There are way lesser trees now and the roads are wider. The street food tastes somewhat generic these days but it is still a city that serves great seafood and one of my closest friends lives there.