When my “second-rate skills” got a premium

Luck plays the most important role in how much you earn. In 1991 I, along with a handful of other fellows, suddenly found our luck changing. In my case the reversal of fortune was especially startling. I had finished my Masters degree in economics in 1972 and started applying for jobs. For three long years I was rejected serially by the State Bank of India, the Reserve Bank of India, Air India and of course the UPSC, which ruled that my knowledge of British political and constitutional history was more comprehensive than of economics. No matter that I had an advanced degree in the latter and had learnt the former from those kunjis as made-easies were called in Hindi.

Eventually, a few months before I turned 25, I got a job in a leading British publishing house as their economics editor. That was the first slice of luck that came my way. The pay was double of what I would have received in one of the public sector/government jobs that refused to recognise my worth. But I got bored after five years of it and decided to switch to journalism. The pay was reduced by a third, from ₹1,800 per month — in 1980 that was a small fortune — to ₹1,200. But I didn’t mind. The work was also less by three hours a day. In a sense I bought more leisure. It was an expensive purchase but well worth it as I could now spend more time with my wife and later my sons.

The marginal utility of work to the worker is less than the its marginal revenue. My sons call it Baba’s First and Only Law.

Print journalism has always been a low-paying profession and between 1980 and 1990 my salary went up to just ₹4,000, an increase of ₹2,800 in ten years. Yes, that’s how it was because the thrill of seeing your name on the editorial page or the front page more than made up for the poor pay.

But, as I said, into every life some money must fall and in 1993 with the coming of TV news there was a sudden demand for journalists. So TV poached on print and the laws of market economics quickly kicked in. Salaries suddenly increased for everyone. It was like the price of whiskey during a lockdown — you want, you pay. Or, as the saying goes, a rising tide lifts all boats. Mule or racehorse, it didn’t matter. We all became quite a bit richer.

I wasn’t quite a mule, I wasn’t a racehorse either. I not merely had a strong preference for leisure, I was also — still am, actually — very lazy. I justified this approach to people who criticised me by pulling some faux economics on them. “The marginal utility of work to the worker is less than  its  marginal revenue.” My sons, who have taken after me, call it Baba’s First and Only Law. Fortunately for us, my wife is a hardworking professional and has never made a fuss. She always earned enough for us to live in reasonable comfort. Even now, as a full professor, she earns three times as much and works six times harder than I do.

But getting back to pay, TV and luck, those of us who could not move to TV because we were neither good looking nor young, suddenly found our salaries soaring. Between 1990 and 2000 my income went up by almost 15 times. The icing on the cake was that I was working only a little bit harder now.

We were taken completely by surprise by this increase, till one day the proprietor’s right hand man explained it to us. “Guys like you are rare. You know some economics, just enough. You know some English, just enough. But self-respecting economists don’t want to become journalists. Nor do the serious literature types. That puts a premium on your otherwise second- rate skills.”

Now if that isn’t luck, excellencies, what is? To be in the right place at the right time and with the right skills?