APPOINTED TO SEARCH

I opened the newspaper and went straight to the ‘Appointments” section. I ticked all the ads that published posts for engineers. Then I realised that I was carrying out a futile task out of sheer habit; a habit that I picked up almost six years ago.
The malady found roots in my psyche soon after the dot-com bubble burst. It was the worst time for most engineering graduates to turn into job-seeking freshers. I was not one of them, but my son was. While he scouted around for a suitable vacancy at Bangalore, I started poring over newspaper ads at my home town. It was anew experience for me. For, being self-employed, I never had occasion to job-hunt soon after my graduation.
There were many doors that knocked at. There was much ego that I forfeited. There were all those gods in the heaven that I tried to appease much against my inherent nature. The outcome, for months, was a zilch. Those were some of the most trying months of my life. Nearly a year after he passed, my son found a post. It was not much. It was a beginning, nevertheless. Over the past six years, he has moved up the ladder and today he is gainfully employed, building up a career. Yet, the routine of scanning the job ads in the newspapers has not deserted me. Just the force habit, to use a cliché.