Would you work at a restaurant as Smriti once did?

Would you work at a job like what Smriti Malhotra once did to earn a living, when you start off in life, rather than ask your parents for financial help?

Do you think you would lose your self-respect if you cleaned tables at a restaurant or worked in a mall, as you worked your way upwards in your career?

Gurudas Kamat, a former MP, reportedly made in-very-bad-taste remarks about HRD Minister Smriti Irani last week.

Kamat is reported to have alluded to the then Smriti Malhotra coming to Mumbai and working in a restaurant, cleaning tables among other things to make a living, to make his point that the now Smriti Irani is not qualified to be India's education minister.

Kamat has now taken the politician's usual route out, claiming he was misquoted by the media.

Smriti Malhotra did come to Mumbai and said to be the fiercely independent spirit she is, decided to work at the local McDonalds for a bit to earn some money while she navigated her way in the rough and tumble world of show business.

There is no loss of dignity at all in a young person working at a McDonalds or anywhere else for that matter as one embarks on the long and hard road that is the rat race in life.

It is time Indian politicians like Kamat -- who as a native of Mumbai, the city where anyone-can-realise-one's-dreams-if-one-works-hard should have known better -- to dump such outdated thinking and accept that in the New India there is no job that does not have dignity.

Tell us: Would you work at a job like what Smriti Malhotra once did to earn a living, when you start off in life, rather than ask your parents for financial help?

Do you think you would lose your self-respect if you cleaned tables at a restaurant or worked in a mall, as you worked your way upwards in your career?

What would your advice be to the millions of Indian youngsters starting off in life?