Driving his life to meet ends

This man drives a TAXI for his living!

So what’s wrong with it?And why are you making a big issue out of it, you may ask.

This man is no ordinary man. He is a PHD holder from Stanford University and has a solid 16 years of proven track record of scientific accomplishments.Now, Am I drawing you closer to your screen?

Well. I am not surprised. For, this situation somehow resembles our bollywood storyline, quite like that of Rajesh Khanna classics in which Mr. Khanna walks office to office, factory to factory under that intolerable sun accompanied by his pet mongrel and manages to get into that “Owners cabin” ignoring “No Vacancy” board written in chalk all over that black piece of iron plate hung right at the entrance gate and still manages to show his super envious gold medal certificates and a fantastic track record to seek “that dream Job” that invariably stood between him and his love and sometimes his ailing mother.

No. Don’t go so far and strain your brain. This is not inspired from any of Mr. Khanna’s antics; this is not even in India or the late 80s. I assure I am not talking movie stuff here. It is for real. It is today’s stuff and is set in vibrant, multicultural Singapore where this man truly struggled to meet his ends. He is one of the millions who got affected by recession.

Shocked? Read on…

Meet Mr. CAI Mingjie, who blogs and wrote in his blog introduction “I have been forced out of my research job at the height of my scientific career, and unable to find another one, for reasons I can only describe as something ‘uniquely Singapore’. As a result, I am driving taxi to make a living and writing these real life stories just to make the dull job a little more interesting. I hope that these stories are interesting to you too.”

Mingjie started blogging from 6th April 2009, early this year. In his first blog entry, he wrote about his employment at the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (IMCB) at ASTAR, Singapore, where he had put in 16 years as Principal Investigator. He mentions that he was a victim to influx of foreign talents that he got retrenched from his job. Although he was informed of the retrenchment in 2007, he was unable to secure another job even till his termination in May 2008. By November 2008, he decided to become a taxi driver.

His writing makes an interesting read and reads like a collection of short stories, about a scientist-turned-taxi-driver, diligently documenting quirky observations he makes while driving on the road – the passengers that he meets, the various changes that is happening to society etc.
One can only feel for his plight though. Don’t you think it is a waste of human capital when skill sets and academic qualification do not match with the job a person is holding? Definitely not a healthy trend if we see more and more such highly qualified individuals in such a predicament – be it in “Uniquely Singapore” or “Incredible India” or anywhere else.