Become a Table Tennis Player.

Executive Chefs in India lead kitchen brigades ranging from 30 to 150 cooks at 5-star hotel chains (Taj Hotels, ITC Hotels, Oberoi Group, Marriott, Hyatt), standalone fine-dining restaurants, boutique properties, and cloud kitchen networks. The role spans menu engineering, food-cost management (keeping cost-of-goods at 28–35%), procurement, FSSAI compliance (Schedule IV Hygiene Standards), staff training, and the relentless standard-setting that drives guest experiences from biryani buffets to multi-course tasting menus. India's culinary recognition on the global stage — with names like Garima Arora (Asia's 50 Best), Manish Mehrotra (Indian Accent), and Gaggan Anand — has transformed the profession into a legitimate high-prestige career path. Entry typically runs through a 3-year B.Sc. Hospitality (or equivalent) from IHM Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, or Hyderabad — flagship institutes under the National Council for Hotel Management (NCHMCT) — followed by departmental training in kitchens, CDP (Chef de Partie), Sous Chef, and eventually Head Chef or Executive Chef. The NRAI (National Restaurant Association of India) estimates the organised food service industry at ₹5.5 lakh crore, creating strong sustained demand for kitchen leadership talent across every price point.

Flight attendants (cabin crew) in India are the frontline safety professionals and hospitality ambassadors of every scheduled commercial flight. IndiGo, Air India, Vistara (merging with Air India), Akasa Air, and SpiceJet hire heavily from tier-2 and metro India, as do foreign carriers — Emirates, Qatar Airways, Etihad, Lufthansa — which actively recruit Indian applicants via annual open days in Mumbai, Delhi, and Bengaluru. The entry path requires a DGCA Cabin Crew License, obtained after completing a 6-12 week airline-specific type-rating and safety training program; training institutes like Frankfinn, IATA-authorised AHA, and Sushma Industries provide pre-employment grooming. Age at entry is typically 18-27; airlines enforce height (MinIMum arm-reach ~212 cm for most carriers), BMI, and clear-skin requirements at the time of joining. Cabin crew fly 60-90 block hours per month on domestic/international sectors, operate in a strict FDTL (Flight Duty Time Limitations) framework under DGCA CAR Section 7 Series O Part III, and are responsible for passenger safety briefings, in-flight service, emergency procedures, and crew resource management. Senior crew progress to lead cabin crew, pursers, and cabin managers; international carrier pursers can take home INR equivalent of ₹25-55L annually including tax-free allowances.

Hotel Front Office Managers in India are the nerve centre of guest experience at properties ranging from Taj Lake Palace and ITC Grand Chola to Marriott, Hyatt, and Hilton. The role owns the full guest journey — reservations, check-in, concierge, bell services, night audit, and check-out — and operates through Property Management Systems such as Opera, IDS Next, and eZee. A typical 5-star FOM manages 20–60 front-desk staff, drives RevPAR and Average Daily Rate, handles VIP and VVIP protocols (including Bollywood and political arrivals), and ensures C-form filing for foreign guests per the Foreigners Act. The standard entry path is a 3-year B.Sc. Hospitality from an IHM (NCHMCT-affiliated institute in Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, or Hyderabad), followed by a management trainee stint at a Taj or Oberoi property. Bilingual fluency in Hindi-English, and regional languages, is a strong differentiator. FHRAI (Federation of Hotel & Restaurant Associations of India) membership properties follow shared industry standards on room rates, cancellation policies, and statutory compliance. Demand for experienced FOM talent remains strong as India's hotel pipeline adds 50,000–80,000 branded rooms per year.

Animal Trainers for film and TV prepare dogs, horses, birds, and exotic animals to perform on-cue behaviours for Bollywood, regional cinema, OTT productions, and commercial shoots. In India, the trade is anchored by a small network of established trainers — Sundar Bhatti's legendary work training dogs for iconic Bollywood roles (Moti, Tommy) defined the craft's standards for a generation. Every production using live animals requires an AWBI (Animal Welfare Board of India) No-Objection Certificate per shoot, compliance with the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1960 (PCA Act), and a vet on call under AWBI norms. Trainers typically own or co-own their animal stable, negotiate per-day rates through informal CINTAA (Cine & TV Artistes' Association) conventions, and handle welfare logistics that the production unit has neither the knowledge nor the liability appetite for. Entry is entirely through apprenticeship — usually under an established trainer in Mumbai, Hyderabad, Mysuru, or Jaipur.

Track and field athletes in India compete under the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) and World Athletics in disciplines spanning sprints (100m-400m), middle and long distance (800m-10,000m), hurdles, relays, throws (javelin, shot put, discus, hammer), jumps (long jump, triple jump, high jump, pole vault), and combined events (decathlon/heptathlon). The Neeraj Chopra era — Olympic gold at Tokyo 2020 and World Championships gold at Budapest 2023 — fundamentally shifted how India treats track and field: AFI central contracts, Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS) support, and Diamond League appearance fees are now accessible to India's top eight to ten athletes. Training hubs at the National Institute of Sports (NIS) Patiala and the Sports Authority of India (SAI) centres in Bengaluru and Lucknow provide national-level coaching, sports science support, and international competition funding. Below the national elite, athletes navigate state athletics associations, Khelo India University Games, and junior National Championships on self-funded or state-government scholarships.

Archivists in India acquire, appraise, arrange, describe, preserve, and provide access to records of enduring value — from 16th-century Persian manuscripts at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library to born-digital corporate governance records at Tata Central Archives. The statutory backbone is the Public Records Act 1993, which governs the National Archives of India (NAI) in New Delhi and its regional repositories in Bhopal, Jaipur, Puducherry, and Bhubaneswar. State archives (UP State Archives Allahabad, Maharashtra State Archives Mumbai, MP State Archives Bhopal) operate under parallel state-level acts. Private and institutional archives — Aga Khan Trust for Culture, Godrej Archives, TIFR Archives, various university libraries — follow the same international descriptive standards (ISAD(G) General International Standard Archival Description; DACS Describing Archives: A Content Standard) but with greater flexibility. Day to day means accessioning incoming record transfers, constructing finding aids in EAD (Encoded Archival Description) XML, running preservation assessments (monitoring RH 45-55%, temperature 16-21°C, IPM pest trapping), supervising digitization workflows (TIFF master at 400 dpi, JPEG2000 access copy, PDF/A for text records), and handling researcher access and RTI requests under the Public Records Act and the RTI Act 2005.

A professional cricketer in India competes across a pyramid of domestic and international formats: BCCI-contracted Indian team players at the top, state players earning Ranji Trophy retainers and match fees below them, and IPL auction earnings that can outstrip everything else for even fringe first-class players. The career runs on three parallel tracks — technical skill (batting average, bowling economy, fielding standards), physical fitness (BCCI's yo-yo test cutoff at Level 16.1 for senior men, Level 14 for women), and income diversification (BCCI contract, IPL auction, state association retainer, endorsements). Women's cricket has its own full professional track: BCCI Grade A/B/C contracts, WPL franchise deals (₹10L-2Cr auction), and overseas T20 leagues. The median professional cricketer in India is a Ranji Trophy state player earning ₹3-8L per season — IPL crores are the exception, not the baseline.

Senior: N/A

Marine Engineers in the Merchant Navy operate and maintain the propulsion machinery, electrical systems, auxiliary equipment, and fuel systems aboard commercial vessels — bulk carriers, tankers, container ships, and LNG carriers. The Indian entry path is a 4-year B.Tech Marine Engineering from a DG Shipping-approved institute (Tolani Maritime, MERI Kolkata, Vels, IMU Chennai) followed on-board training and the DG Shipping Certificate of Competency (CoC) — which gates every rank from 4th Engineer upward. Work cycles run 4-6 months on / 2-3 months off, with earnings largely tax-free for seafarers maintaining 183+ days at sea under Indian FEMA / Income Tax Act NRI provisions. Chief Engineers at reputed shipmanagement companies (Anglo-Eastern, V.Ships, Maersk, Synergy, Bernhard Schulte, GAC) earn ₹50-90L per year — effectively tax-free — making it one of the highest cash-in-hand careers accessible from a B.Tech.

Senior: N/A

An Indian Coast Guard (ICG) officer holds a commissioned rank in India's maritime law-enforcement and search-and-rescue service under the Ministry of Defence. The ICG guards 7,516 km of coastline, 1,382 islands, and India's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of 2.01 million sq km — the world's seventh largest. Officers enter as Assistant Commandants (AC) via the ICG-conducted CGEPT exam or select UPSC vacancies; branches are General Duty (deck/navigation/command), Pilot (maritime aviation, Dornier and ALH-Dhruv helicopters), and Technical (Engineering and Electrical sub-branches for machinery and avionics). A day in service spans search-and-rescue (SAR) of fishermen in distress, anti-smuggling patrols in the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal, anti-narcotics interdictions in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR), oil-spill containment, and enforcement of maritime zones under the Customs Act, NDPS Act, and Wildlife Protection Act. The ICG is smaller and tighter than the Navy (~18,000 total strength, ~1,200 commissioned officers), which means earlier command and faster seniority for motivated officers.

Senior: ₹25.2L

Tennis professionals compete on the ITF, ATP, or WTA circuits, earning ranking points and prize money across a 30-50 tournament-per-year schedule that spans four Grand Slams, Masters 1000s, ATP 500s, ATP/WTA 250s, Challenger-level events, and ITF Futures. In India the pathway runs from AITA (All India Tennis Association) junior tournaments through the ITF junior circuit to ATP Challengers like the Tata Open Maharashtra (Pune) and ITF $25K-$100K Futures. Icons like Sania Mirza (WTA Top-5 doubles, six Grand Slam titles), Rohan Bopanna (ATP doubles World No. 1 at age 43 in 2024), Sumit Nagal (India's first ATP Top-100 singles player since Leander Paes), and Yuki Bhambri have charted what a full pro career from AITA juniors to the tour looks like. Income is brutally bimodal: most ITF Futures players net under ₹8L after expenses, while Top-100 ATP/WTA players earn ₹2-15Cr/year from prize money alone before endorsements.

Senior: N/A

Find, drill, complete, and produce oil and natural gas safely and economically across Indian onshore basins (Krishna-Godavari, Cauvery, Cambay, Assam, Rajasthan, Vindhyan), offshore fields (Mumbai High, KG offshore), and the smaller acreages awarded under the OALP rounds. The work is split across reservoir engineering (volumetric estimates, decline-curve analysis, reservoir simulation in Eclipse / CMG, well-test interpretation, IOR / EOR studies), drilling engineering (well design, casing and cementing programmes, mud and fluids design, directional and ERD planning, rig operations supervision), completions and production engineering (perforation strategy, artificial lift design with ESPs / gas lift / SRPs, sand control, water and gas handling), and the surface side (separators, compression, pipelines, OISD-led process safety, regulatory liaison with the DGH, MoPNG, and PNGRB). In India the role lives at a small, concentrated set of employers — ONGC and Oil India on the PSU side, Reliance KG-D6 and Reliance E&P, Cairn Oil & Gas (Vedanta), HOEC, Selan Exploration, Adani's joint ventures, the BP-merged former Reliance-BP partnership, and a handful of OFS / oilfield-services majors operating in India (Schlumberger, Halliburton, Baker Hughes, Weatherford, Shell India). The Indian Institute of Mines (IIT-ISM) Dhanbad is the country's premier petroleum-engineering institute, with Pandit Deendayal Energy University (PDEU) Gandhinagar, Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Petroleum Technology (RGIPT) Jais, IIT Madras, and IIT Bombay also feeding the field.

Senior: ₹70.0L