By the time this piece appears in print, Inder Kumar Gujral's tilt at the windmills of power may have turned out to be as ephemeral as Don Quixote's. And the elected arm of the current government may be out of a job.

There won't be any shortage of company, at least. At last count (February 1997 was the latest I could get stats for), the numbers of India's registered educated unemployed stood at 376 lakh.

But the possible addition of current United Front ministers to that number need not cause anyone to panic. Looking at the numbers, the Unemployment Problem (in solemn capitals) appears to be not insurmountable. Statistically speaking, that is.

From February 1996, to February 1997, the number of jobseekers grew by seven lakh. Given the scale of things in this country, one might even be emboldened to say a mere seven lakh. A mere bagatelle compared to the growth of population. An annual growth rate of a piffling 1.8 per cent. With the economy booming at (an expected) nine per cent growth, it stands to reason that it's only a matter of time before the curve's rise is not only stopped, but actually reversed. No More Waiting For Jobs!

Since I'm a devout worshipper at the temple of statistics, I buy that argument. By the same logic (in fact, the events can even be co-terminous), I expect `waiting lists' to vanish in several other fields as well. Like getting telephones. Or gas connections. Or reserved berths on the Tamil Nadu Express in May. Or individual membership to the local Gymkhana... You get the picture.

Jokes apart, one must admit that over the past few years, some pretty serious effort has been put into licking most of these problems. The wait for telephones is getting shorter, albeit still almost eternal by international standards. Ditto for gas connections, with some noble help from the Supreme Court. The Gym's still tough, but one at least has the option to say sucks boo and hare of to some `country club'. Reform is here. And hath changed the face of the nation.

Not when it comes to employment though. It would be interesting to tot up all the jobs allegedly created through all the schemes run with such fanfare by all the governments (state and central) in the country over the years. I have a feeling the figure'd give the land area of Bangladesh as claimed to have been left behind by my bangaal friends!

In the new world (at least for us) of freemarket competition, market forces are supposed to invisibly bring suppliers and consumers together and match them at the most efficient price possible.

In this neo-Darwinistic job market, the fittest - those with the best skills for the job - survive. A tad ruthless, but the unstated assumption which removes the sting from it is that there will be some skill level at which one would be competitive, and therefore get employed.

This may be economically rational, but the plunge can be traumatic for the individuals concerned. I once met a bus driver in East Berlin (the day before it lost its directional prefix) who had, till the other day, been a professor of economics at an institute for study of socialist economics. He lost his job for a very logical reason. No socialist republic, no socialist economics to study. But East or West, dons are dons and their skill levels have a value only within their own environment.

In India, such tales are dime a dozen. Which is why we can joke about unemployment. For those waiting, its not even remotely funny.

A few weeks ago, Hongkong Bank advertised that it would be hiring an undisclosed number of assistants (clerical grade staff, one presumes). The ad was interesting - application forms could be collected only in person, only from the bank's Chennai office and only over a few days. If you happened to live outside Chennai, why you just took a trip!

Unless you are lucky enough to know somebody living there, who could do it for you and is rash enough to agree without checking first. Like myself, for instance.

The queue came as a shock. It snaked out of the bank's side exit, past its majestic colonial frontage, on towards the equally baroque post office building...it was enormous. Literally, thousands and thousands of people.As I stood in line for the next couple of hours, I saw and chatted to a cross-section of people - anxious parents, out-of-towners straight off the bus, serious students, blase students, worried lots of students who had stopped being students a long time ago, eternal hopefuls, eternal unemployables. Each one with their own fears.

A woman kept running up and down the queue asking: "Will they give the form if I ask in Tamil? I can't speak English but my son's got an MCom. He's really bright you know. Will he stand a chance? Can you ask them please?"I didn't, because it is an unfair question to ask of poor Hongkong Bank. What can they do, except pick a few and drop the rest? But unless somebody ensures that at worst, an economist can get a bus to drive, `growth' will always remain a concept.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.