Inas completes her training in a week's time

For those out of the loop, Inas is my older daughter; she is 18 and a half years old, and is doing a course in Hotel Management. At present, she is in her 2nd year of the three-year degree course, and as part of her education, she is posted as an Industrial Trainee (I.T.) at a famous 5-star hotel in Mumbai, since 1st May 2009. The I.T. training takes 6 months, and these six months will be over for her at the end of this month, i.e. after 9 days.

From all the conversations I have had with her, I have learnt that:

1. Trainees are paid a pittance as "stipend" (Inas gets Rs. 1200 per month, which is the best from among all the hotels that train students in Mumbai; by the way, that translates to under $ 40/= per month).
2. Compared to the measly stipend that they get paid, they are made to work like dogs ... at least 10-12 hours a day.
3. Standards of food and general hygiene are as poor as at lesser prestigious hotels once you peek behind the glamorous and ostentatious exteriors; Inas tells me about this and has pledged never to eat at the hotel. She says she has actually seen the cooks cutting coriander without washing them, dicing vegetables and adding them to the pot without washing them, etc. She also saw a cockroach gaily sauntering among the various pots and pans!
4. Food served to the employees is not even 10% of that which is served to the guests, is often repetitive, and rarely something to look forward to. Internees can expect little more than what is given to the permanent employees.
5. Inas' life was limited to dressing up and going out at about 6 a.m., and returning at 7 p.m. or so, daily. She would take a quick bath, have the one meal at home and go to sleep by 9 p.m.
6. Many of our own day and night time activities and household chores had to be tailored around Inas' schedule and Hannah, my younger daughter, and I, had to do the work that normally would be shared among the three of us. We could not attend night programs, watch night-time movies, or go for last shows to theatres.

There are some more things, but I will leave that to some other post.

Inas starts her college

This is just a short entry to inform all my esteemed readers that my elder daughter has begun her course in hotel management and catering at the institute she registered at in May 2008. Her first day was full of syllabus outlining and the first day's meal was apparently quite distasteful ... oh, didn't you guess: the students get a free meal everyday from the "quantity" kitchen; it is prepared by the students themselves.

Her college timings will be from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. every weekday including Saturdays. Please send your prayers to her for a successful 3-year stint in this course.

Inas' result

nas' H.S.C.E. result was along expected lines! She has, once again, secured just under 79% ...(her S.S.C.E. result was 79.2%), with over 83% in PCMB and nowhere near the ambitious 85-90% that her mother was expecting of her. I won't say I was delighted with the result, but frankly, I wasn't expecting her to score above 80%, so it was in line with my expectations. We wait now for the CET results, which are due in two days' time. If she scores above 85-88% there, she has a chance of at least trying for dentistry or any other appropriate paramedical line. If not, then there's always hotel management. And that is what rankles Nishrin, who doesn't want her to go for that branch of study. She cried and threw temper tantrums that day right into the night ... now she has accepted the result, I think. Let's hope for the best.

A helpful daughter

Over the last few weeks, both Nishrin (my wife) and I have been observing a small but perceptible change in the habits of my elder daughter Inas. She, as some of you know, has completed her pre-professional junior college education and is awaiting results before she goes into a professional college. We have marked that she has become a lot more helpful and a lot less rebellious in the last few weeks. I do not know why this has happened, but it may be that she is simply tired of sitting on the net or before the boob tube all the time and is looking for something new to do. Be that as it may, she went to Nishrin's parlour to help out on Monday and earlier too. For the last two days, she is also attending my evening clinic to help out as my evening receptionist has left (I chucked him for being un-punctual and missing many days on duty.

I only hope and pray that this trend is not a mere flash in the pan and that she will continue to be as helpful in future as she is, today.