I don’t know whether I should be amused, disappointed or flattered.
A young man from Chennai came to visit me last week, on a courtesy call as directed by his father who is a friend of mine. This young man had come to Pune to attend an interview for a job opening in a Logistics firm here. The young man is an alumnus of the same Business School of which I am an alumnus too.
This young lad spent a couple of hours with me and scooted off to attend his interview and return to Chennai.
I received a phone call from my friend yesterday, that when the young man was informed that I am alumnus of the same Business School as he was from, he was zapped and told his father that he was under the impression that I was a philosopher / retired Tambrahm school teacher! My friend in turn was zapped and wanted to know why I had not mentioned my qualifications to the young man. I simply responded that an occasion did not rise on the subject.
This led me to ask a few of my friends who are also alumni here as to whether they would have recognised me as an alumnus had they not met me under the aegis of the alumni association and without exception they responded that they would not have. When I shared what the my friend had conveyed about my being a philosopher / Tambrahm school teacher, one of them went so far as to say that it was stereotyping me!
In case you are wondering, the image of the pundit on the top is that of Chanakya.