Bacchu Babu

Bacchu Babu was an unremarkable Bengali Babu to look at. Not one who would warrant a second glance.

 

Short-Medium height, medium built, mostly silver white hair with streaks of black, fair, uneven and missing teeth with clear evidence of an addiction to “Paan”, really thick glasses in a common brown frame, always dressed in a crisp cotton half shirt and white cotton trousers with strapped Bata sandals on his feet. And yes, you could not miss the briefcase that he always carried wherever he went.

 

He was of an indeterminate age - he could be forty five or he could be seventy, it was impossible to tell!

 

If one were to see him in a crowd or in the street, one would never remember him a second later. There were thousands of Bengali Babus in Calcutta, as it was known then, who could fit the same description. This was before the average middle aged Indian moved on to Jeans and Tee Shirts. Most middle aged Indian males wore the standard Terry Cotton trousers and check shirts, but in Calcutta a handful of them never lost their loyalty for the white Cotton trousers and white Half Shirts - or Bush Shirts, as they called them.

 

The one thing that made Bacchu Babu stand out was his laugh. It was not a gentle, polite laugh of the average person. It would start from the edges of his mouth, spread towards his cheeks, on to the corners of his eyes, ultimately covering his whole face.

 

The sparkle in those eyes!!!! That was something you never forgot. The smile would expose his stained uneven teeth and he would be struggling with a white cotton handkerchief to prevent the paan juice dripping from the corners of his mouth, usually successfully, I may add,  - but then, he did not care much for appearances.

 

The genuine happiness and mirth in the laughter was so infectious that it was impossible to not join in. The laugh made him appear beautiful and attractive, and I use these two words because I lack alternatives to really describe what it was and these come the closest. Even his smile was so nice, welcoming and devoid of any guile - it reflected the absence of any ill feeling and also his ingenuous nature.

 

When I first met him, I paid no attention to him. In my office room, which I shared with four of my colleagues, I was going about my business and he had come to meet one of my colleagues. I paid no attention, but a bit later he walked over to say hello since he noticed an unknown person. He was that sort of a person. Most people would come to an office for whatever work they had and then walk out oblivious to everyone else.

 

He came and looked askance at the person he had come to meet and it was clear that he wanted an introduction since that would make it easier to break the ice. So we were introduced but at the time I was polite but did not make anything out of it. One thing I noticed, though, was that most people seemed to know him well and he was very friendly with everyone- be it my boss or the guy who came to serve tea.

 

Another thing I noticed was that he gave a couple of pens or ball-pens to everyone and they accepted it as a matter of fact. This was a bit strange as accepting a gift from an outsider was generally frowned upon in my organization. He probably understood my hesitation and proceeded to explain to me gently that he did not expect any favours from anyone in exchange for this gift. he said that it just made him happy - though I was a little skeptical about his explanation.

 

Sensing my skepticism, for the first time he opened and showed me his briefcase. It was an amazing sight - there must have been at least 200 odd pens, about 20 Cadbury’s chocolates and about 30 odd “paans” in it but no papers or documents! A slim bunch of papers was in a plastic folder that he carried separately. Half the Paans were for him to get through the day and the rest for people who shared his love for Paans. All the pens were for distribution during the day as were the chocolates - though the chocolates would not usually be all distributed in one day. He probably spent about Rs 2500 on this on a daily basis - not a meagre sum by any standard in those days.

 

Over a period of time I understood that he was speaking the truth about all this. He would give away pens to all people he met during the day - that included the MDs of organizations that he visited, the officers, the clerks, the peons, the guards and even the policemen who were doing their traffic duty - all without expectation of anything in return.

 

I also came to know that many people called him Pen Babu and most did not know his formal name. He once told me his formal name, but since I had never had any occasion to use it, it must be safely filed in some corner of my mind because for the love of God I am unable to recall it.

 

He, I later discovered, was an Electrical Contractor, who are generally a much maligned species of people who were always after you for favours and pester you no end for approval for things which they were supposed to do but had not done. 

But not Bacchu Babu! his clients were big industrialists and they employed him for their industrial installations because they knew that he would not cheat them and still get the work done.

 

If you pointed out shortcomings in his work, he would never argue but go back to his client to ensure compliance. Even though it would cost more money, he would still get it done - he was an impossible person to refuse.

 

He did not take up the routine small cases but once in a while he would refer a small case and request us to help out, if we could. These were small cases which some lowly placed employee in some organization that he visited had requested his help.He did not charge them for this service but said he would use his goodwill to help out if he could. He also gave them no assurances because if we told him we could not accede to his request, he would accept our refusal with good grace and apprise his non paying “client” as to why the work could not be done.

 

But, Bacchu babu was also a mutifaceted character. It was not all work with him. He was an avid music lover and never missed the Dover Lane Music Conference since its inception in 1952. For three nights in January, he could be found in the Music festival complete with warm clothes and his briefcase, of course! On these nights the briefcase would not contain so many pens, but would have a bigger collection of Paans, which he shared with those strangers around him who were willing to partake. And there were many who did. These Paans were nothing but Betel leaves, with all sorts of condiments and sometimes with tobacco, nicely wrapped in strips of banana leaf.

 

A gentleman, clearly from Bangladesh because of his diction of Bengali, next to him in the conference saw his stash and asked if he could have one. Bacchu babu was delighted to find a music and paan lover next to him and gladly gave him one. As the conference progressed, he had a couple more, but the Gentleman next to him did not accept his offer for another one. Since he kept on chewing, Bacchu Babu did not find anything amiss, but when he saw the man continued to chew for an inordinately long time, Bacchu Babu was concerned. He hesitantly asked the reason why the paan took so long to finish. The other gentleman admitted that he did not understand the reason but also said that it tasted a little strange. He had said nothing to Bacchu Babu out of politeness. Then the reason hit home. Bacchu Babu quietly asked him whether the Banana Leaf cover had been removed before the Paan was taken. The poor Bangladeshi looked sheepish and admitted that it had not! He had been chewing the Banana Leaf for more than an hour and not the Paan which had long been dissolved! No wonder it tasted weird!

 

Bacchu Babu had never married. But he had a family. He lived with his really old stepmother, an older stepsister and numerous stepbrothers and was the breadwinner for all of them. He was perhaps a more dedicated son and brother to his stepfamily than most are to their own families. And he took his responsibility as a matter of fact - not as a favour or as a burden. They had lived in the same house for years and had no plans to move anywhere else. money was not the problem, attachment to the locality was.

 

He was also a compulsive and accomplished Bridge player and reader. Every evening, he spent at least a couple of hours playing Bridge at a local Club. Since his eyesight was not great, his driver would drive him down in his car and later bring him back. His Driver had been in his employ for longer than either of them could remember and was more of a family member than an employee.

 

Once when his car had gone for repairs and painting, Bacchu Babu had hired a Rickshaw for a week to take him to the Bridge Club and back. This routine continued even after the car came back all renewed. Bacchu Babu would go to the Club in the Car, The empty Rickshaw would follow, wait there while he played bridge, and then return to his home after he returned in his car. Bacchu Babu would continue to pay him, even when there was no need.Neither the Rickshawallah stopped coming, nor did Bacchu Babu stop paying him.

 

I remembered him today without any reason. Probably in this selfish world, such people are a fast diminishing species. They have a quality is is at a premium but which makes them invaluable and worth keeping in our memory. It is a quality which reinforces the belief in humanity. These people overcome greed, exploitation, insults hurled on them by the world but do not take notice and go about their life in a manner which makes these negatives feel insignificant.

 

They have goodness of heart!

Training for an Epidemic

Any organization has a three step process - recruit, train and then deploy.

 

The Government also follows this, but their training process is a little different. Some of these unique training processes have been adopted by many private organizations, too but the efficacy of the government process is on a different scale altogether.

 

In addition to the other standard training processes the specialized ones are those of selective hearing, selective eyesight and selective actions. To an extent, all these are supplemented by a specialized communication system.

 

Before you jump to conclusions, this is not just about politicians but about the entire administrative mechanism which includes the bureaucracy- right from the lowest ranked staff to the head of organizations, the law enforcement agencies, the Judiciary and the quasi judicial bodies. It is also valid irrespective of political ideology, political leanings, or the manifestos of different parties - without exception.

 

The first lesson that they are taught is to identify who needs to be served, and who does not. Lets call is selective vision. This is fairly easy to do. Anyone who hopes to gain access has to possess at least one of the valuable assets - money (quite a lot of it), proximity to a person of importance (either directly or indirectly) or ability to create a significant nuisance for persons of importance. The rest do not stand a chance! And the rest is a very large majority but unfortunately not important enough. This rest of the population is faceless though not necessarily poor. This rest has also been taught to hope endlessly and yo keep lowering expectations with every passing day.

 

Once the government recruit has mastered this initial art - which is fairly elementary, the next lesson is dissociation and delegation.This skill is a little more sophisticated and complex. No government member worth his salt will ever be caught not taking action on any problem that was brought to him.Irrespective of whether the problem is simple or complex, it will either be marked up or down to someone else, who might be so impressed by this that he might replicate the same action. This might go on endlessly so that people can see that some action is being taken, but also ensures that the problem is never solved.

 

Try this with any government organization - the municipality, the ministry, the courts...... the process is still the same, irrespective of political colour, position, control.

 

The people in question value time greatly - theirs, not ours!Talk to anyone there - he is so busy, that he has, of course, no time to do everything himself, but talk to the petitioner, did he get the problem solved - the answer is nearly always the same - no! The people in the government have also mastered the art of using time - so that either time solves the problem (rarely) or till the petitioner gives it up as a lost cause. Time is the friend of the government, but an enemy of the common man. No one knows this better than the courts - for them the time is the best thing that nature gave them. This is certainly true, after the filter of selective vision has been applied.

 

These people have also mastered the skill of selective deafness. You present a problem, and see how they perceive the same problem. their understanding may or may not have any link to your problem, therefore the solution offered will certainly not address it.This has no bearing on their intelligence - since they come from the same stock as we do. It is directly linked to the way they have been trained. Listening and understanding is a problem - it creates a burden on their conscience (I don’t know if that has also been marked down to a subordinate), it might, God forbid,push them to act, it might cause health issues - which will not do at all! Best way to avoid all these hassles is use selective deafness, which is simple and elegant at the same time. No listen, no pain! Great strategy!

 

A clear example of this is when you listen to any of the speeches that they give - either in official functions, or in social gatherings - it is all about what they did (really!?!?) and never about what they have to do. In their mind, they have had a glorious past and collectively if you believe them, common regular folks should be thanking their stars to have them as the administrators. Surprisingly, the views of those that had been apparently served is absolutely contrary. This tendency also increases with time spent in the government and peaks in the years after retirement. just listen to any retired civil servant (in the most general sense of the term which includes anyone at any level who is paid by the government for his employment) at any gathering and it will make you wonder whether your experience of government interactions are an illusion.

 

This training has been so good and so uniform that it bolsters your belief that the government is capable of achieving wonders if they put their minds to anything. Exceptions, though they do exist, are almost impossible to find - and usually you will see that these exceptions are a lot who have not had it easy. They are the pariahs who refused to conform - it certainly takes great courage and strength to swim against the tide. It is due to these minuscule tribe that people have not lost complete faith in the administration.

 

However, coming back to our Goliath, the epidemic has reached levels that it seems impossible to breach. But certainly it can be broken - with simple acts.

 

The first act has to be to limit time and place a different measure for success.

 

Step 1

 

Any problem placed before the administration has to be underlined with a sign off within just two days between the petitioner and the official so that the understanding of the problem is common. trying to pluck and orange from a banana tree is impossible and has to be avoided at all cost. If the understanding is not signed off within two days, it has to be escalated within a day and signed off. If even that cannot be achieved, the administration has to put its understanding on paper and along with the petition send an acknowledgement to the petitioner that it failed to understand the actual problem. This document becomes the basis of court intervention which needs to appoint a standing committee on perpetual basis to dispose off this matter on the same day that it is brought to them by the petitioner. This committee will have one junior judge and two people from the common population (on rotation basis for a month) to decide if the official understanding is in line with the actual complaint or not. In either case their decision will be binding on both sides. If there is a wide divergence in understanding the real issue by the administration, the concerned official has to pay 10% of his monthly salary for each such case. If more than three such cases are decided in favour of the petitioner with wide difference in understanding the official should be either demoted or terminated on grounds of incompetence. This will not only force the official to be more in sync with the real issues, but will also create a common man with hope in the system. As a byproduct, this may also result in reduction of avoidable litigation in the courts.

 

Step 2

 

Once the common sign off of the problem has been done the administration will have to identify the source of the problem and the corrective measures to address it within three days. If there is understanding of the complaint a prima-facie verification and chalking out the course of action can certainly be done in three working days. If the administration does not find the prima-facie grounds for proceeding with the case it has to inform the petitioner in writing the reasons for not doing so. This written admission, signed by the head of the organization can serve as a means of scrutiny by the courts about its correctness and if negligence or collusion is found by the administration it should result in fine, termination and jail for the concerned official. This will serve as a strong deterrent.

 

if prima-facie grounds for action are accepted by the administration, the steps for addressing should be clearly defined along with realistic timelines for each step and conveyed to the petitioner. The actual steps may take longer to implement but the responsibility for followup has to still lie with the department and failure to do so will also result in daily penalties, which have to be paid by the department by deducting salaries proportionately from the officials concerned, including the Head of the organization.

 

If other Departments are involved in the correction process it will be the responsibility of the initial department to follow the same action as the petitioner along with the same timelines as defined in Step 1.

 

Step 3

 

If a problem is identified as a general malaise a blanket order for implementation of solution has to be issued covering the same class of disputes. This will effectively ease the pressure on the Department in tackling multiple complaints of the same nature over a period of time.

 

Ideally the legislature, either at the state level or at the Central level should every quarter assess the prevalence of the malaise and enact common laws to prevent it. This will curtail replication of the virus and ease the pressure on the administration.

 

The epidemic of corruption and inaction cannot be treated with minor actions. It needs surgery and that surgery involves pain and at times amputation. Left untreated, it has the potential to kill ordered society and create a lawless state. god forbid, it may result in widespread chaos which can result in great harm to everyone - as has happened many times in history.

 

Step 4

 

The courts have to especially vigilant, empathetic and in touch with the value of work alloted to them to retain and increase their relevance. Firstly, they will have to stop taking up activities which are in the domain of the executive and if they find that the executive has been lagging in performance, they have to keep an arms length correction.

 

Courts have to also consciously refrain from being selective in taking up cases depending on the persons involved - which can invite irreverence from the common man.

 

The courts have to get rid of the feeling of superiority because they deliver judgment. Each professional does it daily and repeatedly in his domain and under severe time constrains in their own domains. The courts do so in the domain of interpretation of law, which is more structured and they face virtually no time constraint. Hence, they are performing a job as per the skills that they have been trained in, every professional does the same thing, nothing special about that.

 

Most importantly, they will have to value time of the petitioners and the respondents, otherwise they are not upholding the law, which by constitution has been allocated to them. What is the reason for giving unlimited deferments for a variety of reasons. The decision has to be taken on the basis of facts presented before the courts at the allocated time and deferments do not serve any purpose. If there are unavoidable genuine reasons, one deferment for each side may be allowed at the limit but the next hearing should be held at the latest within 15 days, where is the problem with that? A decision after years serves no purpose. And if the courts believe that taking early decisions may lead to wrong judgments, that is not an argument. Even after taking a long time, courts do make mistakes as any human is likely to do. What is important to see that the decision has been taken within reasonable tome and properly based on the facts of the case.

 

The courts also have to receive briefs, not epics in the form of briefs which hide more than they reveal. Each petition must mandatorily start with a brief points which form the basis of the arguments. the main petition may be detailed, but there must be no dissonance between the summary and the main petition, that will be treated as misrepresentation and the petition should be summarily dismissed with strictures and penalty for the lawyer doing so. To protect the petitioner, the lawyer shold be directed to pay a fine to the client and the client be permitted to file the petition again.

 

The courts should have a preliminary hearing level and frivolous cases should be rejected outright to give the courts time to concentrate on real issues. People filing cases which are primarily frivolous should be heavily penalized as a deterrent. The lawyers filing the cases should act as officers of the court and before filing any such cases should do a primary assessment. Even after this if they file such frivolous cases strict penal actions, including suspension and disbarment should be initiated against them.

 

Lastly, why does the court need hard paper filing in this day and age? are they still living in the stone age? Wastage of paper, difficulties of storage space constraints are completely avoidable indulgences which the nation can hardly afford.

 

This will, in my view not only help enhance the trust of the common man on the system, leave the system more time to perform its allocated duties and therefore reduce stress all around. This will also help get rid of the feeling of lack of fear and respect in the offenders for the rule of law.

 

But, I am afraid, this might all be wishful thinking, because we seem to have lost the one thing essential to make all this a reality - a genuine intent!

 

 

Amoral Times

 Hello!

 

I am Amit and this is my story - or at least part of it.

 

I am a property developer - to the world, but actually I am a scammer and, a highly accomplished psychologist. I know how people think and I am a good judge of their price. In all ages, people had their price and today the price has gone down. The values had vanished long ago, now the prices are falling too.

 

When I advertise my wares, I sell dreams - not big ones, but small dreams, which appear  big to  these people. A very large number of them are pining for dreams, which appear far away. Give them a small portion of it and they are trapped. Even when I dont give them the rest, they will crib about it, but that is all. No one has the guts, the risk taking ability or the time to take me on.

 

If by chance some of them do get together, it is easy to break it up by buying off a tiny bit from the group.

 

Let me tell you a story. I sold a dream to a large number of people to provide them residential flats with amenities like high quality security and maintenance, clubs, gyms, sports facilities, greenery, walking areas, pools.....you name it.

 

I did deliver some of these units initially - just to attract more of these fools. Then, I carried out a small test. I sold off the ground level guest parking spaces which were actually part of the undivided common areas, prohibited from sale. The buyers were happy - do not really know why because there were enough units in the authorized basement parking.

 

How could I sell these off when they were not allowed to be sold? Easy! You just needed to assess and pay the price of the registrar and the development authority. Some cash here, a flat there, a holiday, a watch, a cellphone.....So everyone was happy. No hue and cry, not even a whimper.

 

Next, I completed a few flats and gave possession to some people. I also took the money for registering the flats, but did not get it registered. I had also defaulted on the payments to be made to the Area Development Authority for the land on which I was doing the construction.

 

Why did they allow me to continue? As I said, the price was paid. Each notice for payment was delayed, no follow up was done when i did not respond, hearings were delayed or deferred..... After all, those in positions of power also were part of the same society and therefore had similar dreams which needed to be realized.

 

When the Authority was under pressure to realize the outstanding amounts, they invoked what as per them was the last resort - they stopped registering the flats which had been sold! Just as I had planned! I had the money of the buyers, I did not need to spend the same on the registration charges - an all round win for me.

 

In fact, I had the Authority direct me to stop further construction, which was great! The only losers were the people who had paid for buying these flats. They had taken loans, they had paid from their savings, they had to continue paying their rents and EMIs, and had no idea if they would get their flats, ever. So what?

 

I had their money, I had nothing to pay off immediately, I could start other projects and continue the scam, and nobody was willing to act so that they could hurt me - after all I was fulfilling their dreams. great times!

 

I then embarked on assuring my income to meed my day to day expenses. Those who stayed in the flats had to pay in advance for the electricity that the complex consumed as well as for carrying out maintenance activities and security services.

 

They had to pay in advance, but I certainly did not. In fact I could delay all this a fair bit so that I only paid in part when things came to a head.A great way to meet running expenses for my family - both the principal amount and the interest or returns on the principal as a tidy sum. Some would call it thievery - but that is ok, you cannot live by what people call you. To each his own I say!

 

I had taken this to a level that was so big that I could now say no to all the demands that the residents asked me to meet. I could say no without doubt, fear or shame. I had left them no option - or so they thought!

 

After all making all those in position of power look the other way is no mean feat. One has to be aware of what each wants. money, of course! but that is not all. It is surprising to see the amount of depravity that some of these government officials can have.

 

After all, not many understand the nature and character of the Government - and I am not just referring to the ministers and their secretariats but also to the large hydra like government machinery - the local bodies, the MPs the MLAs, the Corporators, the Govenment employees in the Authority, the District Magistrate, the Police, the various other bodies and finally the judiciary and the quasi judicial bodies like the regulators.

 

Each has its own price - money, proximity, little favours, cars, holidays, medical and school admissions, household appliances, mobiles, sometimes revenge...... I deal with all of these, no discrimination for me.

 

I understand that there are so many factors that will not allow these people to come together against me - ego, personality clashes, self doubt, indifference and sometimes a little favour here, a little cash there. If all else fails, there is always fear of personal safety - perceived or otherwise for the residents.

 

For those in authority the reasons are a little different. Usually the tendency to be indifferent, a contempt for the middle class (to which they also belong), the tendency to ingratiate those that they perceive as being “big people”, cash or equivalent, sometimes a hint of blackmail ...... all work together to keep me safe.

 

And lets now talk about the victims. The people who hope and pray for help and justice - my clients. The people who buy my houses, the people who are directly or indirectly employed by me, the people who enter into contracts. They are willing to suffer lack of services, unpaid wages, unfulfilled contractual payments with nothing more than a whimper. When they make feeble attempts to rally around - all I have to do is either bribe a select few to break up the consolidation or remind them of the loss that they may be facing in unpaid dues. The administration, police and judiciary play their part well to help me reinforce this perception. After all they have been frustrating these people for ages. The leaders, when approached, are masters of this game - they have played it far longer than i have.

 

I have to be careful though - not to push them over the edge. I have to just give enough leeway to keep the hope alive but not enough to push them for drastic action - which has the capability to destroy all that we have built. As long as these people have hope that their so called protectors - the politicians, the judges, the administration- will help them, we are safe. If we push just a little bit harder - our whole super structure will come crumbling down.

 

This carefully built up perception is fragile - it needs careful handling History has taught us this. The balance is critical and if disturbed it has the potential to destroy all of us.

 

Lets hope this ignorance of their strength sustains forever.

 

All that is required is a set of basic questions to be asked loudly and repeatedly so that it can no longer be ignored. The questions are - are you doing your job fairly and diligently? Why should you continue to enjoy our support? Why should you not be punished for corruption or indifference? Why should you not pay for years of corruption or indifference?

 

Fortunately for me, there is no one around yet who has asked these loudly enough or repeatedly enough.

 

This is not my story. It is a story of two nations which exist in the same land. One is a nation of oppressors and the other is a nation of the oppressed. The members of these two groups are individually interchangeable. A member of the oppressed group in one situation can be a member of the other in a different situation.

 

Hence the act has to be questioned, not the person. If the act is questioned and the perpetrator is punished irrespective of who it is - I become obsolete.

 

I, therefore, pray all the time that this does not happen, but I fear that it may!

Illusions

The organization was typically traditional and the way things were done had to be “propah”! 

The way people spoke, the ideas that were put forth, the practices that were followed or incorporated had to be tested on the anvil of correctness. Anything that was recent or untested with rigour was deemed radical.

 

In this environment, it was seldom that the people were exposed to fast moving, loud presentation by anyone and even the criticism of such action had to be subdued.

 

The change, however, was unavoidable and soon a multinational conglomerate was contracted to train a small group of officers about some new work practices. Ten of us were chosen to attend the first phase of the program in Bombay - as Mumbai was then known- for a week.

 

The first day is always either very boring or very interesting. The multinational trainers were obviously putting in all efforts to not have a boring start and to open proceedings they started with a presentation by a very interesting character. An elderly Parsi gentleman, straight out of a Hollywood movie. Short height, extremely fair - almost reddish complexion, bright twinkling eyes, quivering pink lips, and a thick bushy moustache with pointy ends which moved as he spoke.

 

He looked like a man full of energy, and all his remarks were followed by a bright smile and sometimes by a naughty wink. He was instantly surrounded by the people present there and it seemed everyone wanted to have a word or two with him. He seemed to be used to this attention and for a senior person to be so open to mixing with everyone was something that we were not used to.

 

Shortly, things quietened down and the serious business of the week started. apparently, this Parsi gentleman was not part of the training per se, but was present there to start off and set the tone of the programme with an introductory speech.

 

What a start it was! He started with a flourish and the energy that he brought in was infectious. Moving all over the stage, speaking in clear precise tone, animatedly using his hands, his eyes and of course his moustache... he kept everyone captivated. There were comical parts some bordering on the lewd, and there were parts which appeared serious and to the point.

 

He spoke for about fifteen minutes and at the end of it all received a standing ovation - which he seemed to expect and enjoy. Only later did i realize that his entire speech was not even remotely connected to the subject at hand. The content of his speech was obscured by the brilliance of his presentation.

 

We wanted to know more about him and his role in the organization. We gathered that he was in a senior position but there was little clarity about what he was responsible for or what his area of expertise was. in fact, his colleagues seemed to know very little about him, though they all seemed to know him well.

 

However, the rest of the course was not remarkable but the top level of our management appeared sold on it. Being the traditional organization that we were, before committing fully, they wanted a summary presentation by the trainers to our top management team.

 

This was easily arranged and a week later the core group of trainers led by the Parsi gentleman arrived for the presentation.Our select group was also invited to be present and on the morning of the presentation, we saw a replay of the same scenes that we had witnessed in Bombay. The centre of attraction was once again the Parsi gentleman and everyone wanted a word with him. After the usual tea and introductions were over, people settled down.

 

The Parsi gentleman took the stage and started with his usual flourish. The audience was quickly captivated, but i was puzzled! It was as if I had been transported back in time to a few weeks earlier in Bombay. It was an exact replay of the act there. Not an inch of deviation, the sentences and the jokes were the same, the order was the same, even his movements were the same!

 

It was apparent that it was a well rehearsed act that he must have repeated hundreds of times. It was mechanical, boring and shallow. Not impressive at all and certainly not linked to the subject at hand.

 

It became apparent why everyone knew him, but knew very little about him. He was the court jester with one fixed act which he had performed over and over again. There was no connect, no relevance and certainly no spontaneity.

His appearance and his gift of the gab had been used by his organization again and again as a attention grabbing strategy.

 

His presence was an illusion that his company presented repeatedly to divert scrutiny from the content, but they made the mistake of presenting it to the same audience.....twice!

 

I rather felt sorry for him and the image that I hold of him is not one of an erudite, impressive speaker but that of one of the clockwork spring toys that starts beating its drums as soon as it is wound up.

 

Pity!

In the Image of a Father

It had taken a long time to fulfil the promise. To be precise, twenty six years!

Sometime after I got married, I had promised my wife that I would take her to the college which had transformed me from a hesitant, lanky young man into a confident professional, from a bungling student into a reasonably competent professional and from a boy to a man.

But one thing always led to another and months turned into years, years into decades before I actually did. And even this opportunity had not been planned in advance, but happened virtually on the spur of a moment.

After having spent nearly five decades in Bengal, and most of the last decade outside it, my wife and I had to undertake one of our infrequent trips to Kolkata due to some family obligations. It was quite a packed schedule but destiny had other plans. One of the planned tasks had to be cancelled at the last moment and this left us with a free day in between engagements.

We initially planned to spend the day in leisurely meeting friends and relatives, but then it struck my wife that we could also spend the day in making a quick tour to my college campus in Kharagpur, some 120 kilometres from Kolkata. We could have taken a train, but I thought a drive would not only give us flexibility with the timings, but would also allow us to pass through the Bengal countryside. So quick surf on the internet, and a self drive car was hired by evening and we were off the next morning for a day long trip to a place which had been my home away from home for five years of my life.

The drive to the outskirts of Kolkata was as maddening as ever, what with narrow, congested roads, traffic signals every couple of hundred meters, and yellow dilapidated cabs driving in a completely crazy manner. Anybody, who has not driven in Kolkata is extremely likely to suffer severe trauma after surviving a ride in the peak time traffic. Though I had been used to driving in Kolkata earlier, the last few years had made me complacent. After the initial terror, the old Wild West attitude soon came back, and it seemed as if I had not been away at all!

After a good part of an hour, we were approaching the outskirts with the highway visible in the distance before I let my guard drop. Once on the highway, things were a lot better with wider lanes, less jostling and a clearer view of exactly where we were going.

The Bengal countryside is very different from the countryside of North India. The highway traffic is slightly slower, the surroundings are substantially greener in stark contrast to the dusty countryside of north India. The air is a lot cleaner in the countryside compared to that of the cities and the drive is much more enjoyable. After sometime, though we were not really tired, we stopped for some tea just to savour the sights and sounds of the Bengal countryside.

Having tea in a small roadside tea shop in Bengal is an experience in itself. Within a span of some fifteen minutes, the shop owner will not only serve you hot, flavourful tea, he will also want to know everything about you and also update you on everything that had been happening locally.

Stay any longer and you are likely to become part of a heated debate on any topic under the sun, which can also be quite political and quite partisan. The other customers will also join in and suddenly there will be two or more groups, with a person or two who would be passively disagreeing with both sides and shaking their heads in contempt. This contempt would not be directed to people for engaging in a pointless debate but towards both active points of views being professed. The shopkeeper will make it a point to offer refilling the tea cups and other meagre offerings that would be available, to ensure that the debate did not break up.

Oh! How the Bengalis love to argue! No pretence of a stiff upper lip here.

I was quite familiar with this and after finishing our tea, we quickly settled the bill – which is surprisingly low compared to Delhi, and started off.

It was a fairly enjoyable ride and we absorbed the familiar sights and sounds once again. The once familiar names hidden away in the depths of our memory again came to the fore though the order of places was quite mixed up. The roads had substantially improved during the time that I had been away and this was a welcome change.

Soon we entered Kharagpur and it was only with the help of GPS guidance that we were able to make our way towards the campus. The town had changed a lot becoming more densely populated with even familiar areas looking unfamiliar. There used to be an open land through which we used to take a shortcut between the railway station and the campus gate which had been jostled out by new construction. Though I kept a lookout for Waldorf (our Chinese food joint run by John, and for Anarkali (our favourite Punjabi food joint run by a jolly Sardar), somehow I missed Waldy’s. Even the open undulating tract of road between the two branches of Railway tracks just before the so called campus boundary had vanished to be replaced by a series of houses and shops. The wide open spaces which separated the town from the campus had given way to hordes of humanity and this was somehow disappointing. The mind was having difficulty absorbing and accepting the change which probably was inevitable.

The last straw was the new flyover across the Puri Gate railway crossing, or so I thought!

After crossing the monstrosity, two things were immediately evident – Chedis, our first and most dear 24X7 food joint was past its glorious days and that the campus now had a formidable entrance gate, manned by uniformed guards and protected by barricades. We always had a loosely demarcated campus boundary with the entrance being represented by the Puri Gate railway crossing and there was nothing guarding or monitoring the movement of people through the campus.

I made the register entry for my car, took the visitors card and just to drive home the point to the Security guard that I had been there before him, I informed him that I was an ex student of the Institute. This was not necessary, but it did help me overcome my indignation – how dare they try and control my entry into my campus!

I was driving slowly through the campus eagerly trying to reconnect with every tree, every wall, and every blade of grass like a kid who had returned to the home where he had spent his childhood. Old memories of times I had spent here with friends kept rushing back. As I swung into the main campus through the imposing gates, I stopped the car for a brief moment in front of the main building. “Dedicated to the Service of the Nation” was the logo which was lit up in neon at night, but for a very long time the neon lights on “Ser” had gone kaput and the logo read “Dedicated to the vice of the Nation” at night. Perhaps as an ode to some of the more adventurous characters that inhabited the campus at night during our times!

My wife was aware of most of the stories and she acknowledged my brief halt there with a smile.

Unfortunately, the main Institute canteen was shut for some reason of perhaps it had been moved elsewhere, I never did find out, but there were stories attached to that place too! As students we were always short of cash, which lasted precisely three days after it arrived via money order, and tabs accumulated in all places, except the institute canteen which operated on a strictly cash only basis. Here, the girls of the class were saviours, God bless them, but the number of customers were always far more than the cash available. As a result we would order weird amounts like six teas divided in seventeen cups and never had a whole cup ever. The proportions and division was so cumbersome and the canteen manager was so familiar with the ploy, that mostly we had nearly full cups irrespective of how much we paid! It was only on our last day at the institute that we all gathered at the canteen for a final meeting, and went to order tea before we bid farewell to each other, perhaps never to meet with some. But the canteen manager refused to take our order. He sternly looked at us and said- “You shall not fool me anymore! Today, you will order a full cup each and I will pay for the entire lot. Nobody should be able to say that you never had a full cup of tea in this establishment.” There was a lot of laugher and back slapping after this rebuke, but such were the times.

There were many other tales, but all that for some other time!

Entering the Department was like going back in time. Virtually nothing had changed in all these years. The rooms were the same, the stairs were the same, and I must admit, as I walked through the corridors aimlessly, there was also the familiar feeling that any time we may need to duck into the nearest classroom or toilet to avoid coming face to face with Professor Rajagopalan, or Professor D V S Murthy coming down the corridor. The old man in me was struggling to overcome the young student who had magically reappeared!

After spending an hour or so with a couple of friends who had opted to become professors in the institute, I was eager to go to the place I felt most attached to – my hostel- Radhakrishnan Hall of Residence! I had been my home many years ago, but still felt like home. It was home to nearly four hundred students at any given point of time and we had stayed there for five long years which now is not more than a blur, a small wrinkle in time. It was a place one identified with, it was a place for which one would not accept any insults, it was a place for which one worked tirelessly to see it at the top of any of the events of the institute, a place to rejoice, to cry, to make lifelong friends, to fight for, to love, to give vent to madness, to share secret desires and fears, and ultimately to belong, to return to!

But before I went there, I took my wife for a Campus tour. The Old campus, the Old building of the institute, the Old Tower which used to be part of the historical Hijli Jail, the Tech Market, The Gymkhana, Gyan Ghosh Stadium.  There were many new buildings, and many more hostels now. Driving a car in the campus for the first and only time in my life made the distances shrink and soon we were in front of the gate of my hostel – R K Hall.

I sat there in the car. Everything had a memory attached to it. And they all came rushing back. It was as if the intervening time did not exist. As I got down from the car, I noticed that my wife did not. Seeing my surprise, she asked me if it was all right for her to go in. I laughed. The stories that she had heard about girls in boys hostels in KGP were the reason. I assured her, that in all probability her apprehensions were still true, but she was not a girl any more, she was an Auntie, so it should be OK.

As I walked towards the gate with the cow trap I noticed that there was a new food and juice joint bang across the road. This was probably one of the culprits that killed the popularity of Chedis. And it had so much variety to offer. In our ties, people were innovative. They would offer infinite combinations of bread, eggs and potatoes with a dash of tomatoes thrown in every now and again for glamour. The first thing I noticed was that there was a security room as soon as one entered the gate. This was different from when we were there. Our Security man appeared only at night and the poor fellow would grab a chair from the common room to promptly go off to sleep. One of the primary and mandatory qualifications that he had to have was to be able to sleep through anything short of an asteroid hitting the earth, and to be able to wake up twice during the night to respond to the whistle of his mobile supervisor. Failure to do that would result in a lot of grief for him.

As we entered the man building, it seemed that not much had changed. It appeared that the toilets had been renovated, and the stalls of the smaller vendors had been removed, the barber shop was gone and a new block had been added. It also seemed that while we all had single occupancy rooms, now most rooms were occupied by two people, which left very little space for someone to walk in. After a tour of the hall, it was time to visit my old wing – B First East. As I climbed the stairs, each step seemed to be reminding me of a story, an incident – some funny, some sad, some intimate, and some which cannot be repeated in genteel company.

As we had planned, we had arrived at the Hall during lunchtime, which would create more possibilities for the rooms to be unlocked and people to be present. And we were not disappointed. We met three or four guys, who were the present occupants and got chatting, getting to know more and more about the place which was mine yet now it was theirs too. The old familiar relaxed style of interaction came back, though some of the lingo had changed. The present occupant of my erstwhile room was fortunately there and the room appeared to be unchanged, though I must admit, it appeared cleaner! These guys appeared to be as interested in knowing about my times as I was in theirs, and the conversation came easy.

As we were chatting, another guy appeared from the room next to my old room right at the end of the corridor. He had apparently woken up just now disturbed by the sound of our discussion. We shook hands, and got to know his name. I casually asked where he was from. Before he could reply, one of the other guys says “Sir, he is fro Bihar, but his parents are now in Vizag. Since I am also from Bihar, I enquired which part of Bihar he belonged to.  He said Ara, and this got an immediate reaction from my wife, who had been busy clicking pictures and who also hailed from Ara. She turned and looked at him closely and suddenly asked – “Are you Gudda Bhaiya’s son?”

The guy was so stunned he was rendered speechless, he just nodded. Imagine the probability of waking up in the afternoon, and suddenly being confronted by your Aunt, who you have never met and do not have the foggiest notion of what she was doing there. She had seen the uncanny resemblance with her cousin, and joined the dots in a flash. She hugged him but the guy was so shocked he could barely speak for some time. I remembered her cousin telling us that his son was in my college but we never expected to meet like this. His friends were rolling in laughter at the poor guy’s plight and I could share his feelings. It was the same situation as when my father had surprised me by paying one of his two visits to my college completely unannounced.

Anyway, soon he was at ease having discovered that his Aunt was not one to reveal his secrets to his Dad, and while I chatted with the others Aunt and her Nephew spent some time bringing each other up to date. Soon it was time to bid farewell to our newfound friends and we climbed down the steps for our final stop – the Hall Mess.

The Mess did not hold particularly fond food memories, since the food there had been notoriously bad. But that was the only negative side of the place. It held fond memories – some that make you laugh, some that bring on a wave of nostalgia.

Two Freshers standing on the tables singing different songs, while another went round and round like a gramophone turntable and yet another standing erect with his arm outstretched with his finger on the “turntable’s head – in an elaborate setup of the Stereo system – was a common sight during the month long ragging period.

Those of us who were not planning to go abroad for studies after the Final year played a rather dirty trick on those that were planning to do so. Three of us would mug up a few rather uncommon words and as we were having dinner, we would casually start a conversation which would always end in a challenge – one guy would throw one of these words and the accomplices would blurt out the meaning and usage, and this would be repeated over and over till the aspirants were really psyched about their lack of preparation and would hurriedly finish their dinner and rush back to their rooms to start preparing all over again!

The night long bridge competition, the endless debates, the crazy, impromptu jokes of Ajay Anand, the General Body Meeting for plans to oust one of the wardens (which actually never happened), the rehearsal for the plays – they all were part of the mess scene.

But the most vivid memories of the mess involved the Mess workers. They had to take the cribbing about the terrible food, the delay in serving the Rotis, the unchewable mutton, and the inter table politics in their stride in their own way. And each had a different personality and usually catered to a particular table only. Apanna –the flamboyant man about town, Thamaiyya – the quiet one, Khitish – the man who also supplied milk on the side…. each was different.  The running joke was that R Kites did not draw sustenance from cow milk but from Khitish’s milk!

But the man who served our table was for me the best of all. Kondaiya was a middle aged person, quiet, with smiling, kindly eyes and an average built. Not remarkable in any way! But Kondaiya was special.  He was always the first to welcome a fresher even before the college officially opened every year. He was a support for the new entrants most of who arrived not with great dreams but in apprehension of the torments of the ragging period. Most would be accompanied by their parents, but that protection would only last a day or two.  Kondaiya would often go to their rooms and talk to them to help them tide over the perceived horrors of ragging. This would also put the parents at ease in this unfamiliar place and the tales of ragging usually had also reached them.

But I was one of the few who arrived unaccompanied by a parent or a friend, tugging along a suitcase and a hold-all (for those who are unfamiliar with the hold-all, it is somewhat like a knapsack which was used to carry the blankets, maybe a thin mattress, pillows, and everything else that could be crammed in and then rolled up into a bulky bundle for ease of carriage) lost and making a valiant effort to put up a brave face. Kondaiya helped me carry my luggage to my allotted room and seeing that I was alone, he said in his broken Hindi – “Chinta nai karne ka, Saab! Ladka log accha hai, kuch nahi hoga!” (Don’t worry, the kids are basically good guys, nothing will happen to you!).

From that day onward, I was always greeted by a wonderful smile when I met him. I also made it a point to sit at the table where he served and I noticed that he would bring the hottest Rotis to me during dinner or lunch. He also used to dust off the extra flour that stuck to the Rotis in large quantities before he served me. It was a small gesture of care but significant for me. And I was not the only one. While he served all those who sat at that particular table, he had his special ones, as is natural.

As time went on, the bonds became stronger. There were many small instances that reflected the attitude of Kondaiya. He looked on all the regulars at his table as his children. He would not usually comment on the drug users but we could sense the disapproval even on his impassive face. If someone was making an attempt to get rid of drug abuse, or alcoholism he was supportive in his own small ways. A special smile and sometimes even a pat on the head!

During our First year, we decided to do out for dinner one evening.  After a jolly good time when we returned to the Hall at about 10:30 in the night, we saw from a distance, a lonely figure squatting outside the mess with a few covered plates of food. Kondaiya had not seen the three of us at Dinner, and as the Mess closed down for the day, he filled three plates and had been waiting for us for the good part of two hours. We apprehensively approached the man and the look of worry was very obvious for us to see.

He asked in a gruff voice – “Khana khaya?” We could only nod!

“Bol ke jaana tha! Mera itna deri ho gaya, khana bhi thanda ho gaya. Hum socha padhai kar raha hoga. Kamra me bhi dekha, nahi tha.” (You all should have informed me. It is so late now; even the food has gone cold. I thought you were busy studying, I checked your rooms too, and you were not there). He had not raised his voice but the worry and anger in his voice was plain to see.

Like children who had been caught in the act of some mischief, we kept standing with our heads bowed, muttering sorry. Once we heard the magic words “Abhi jao!(Now, go!)” we were off like arrows. Never, never again, would we dare go out for dinner or lunch or to Calcutta without informing him.

He would remember all the previous residents of the Hall who would come for a visit from time to time and the closeness that he shared with many of them was obvious. He updated us on a rather strange and intimidating person who had suddenly appeared one day. This person, was our senior of many years, and had unfortunately developed schizophrenia during his student years. We were advised by Kondaiya to steer clear of him if possible as he could turn violent and often did. But Kondaiya treated him like a son, arranged food from the mess, talked to him at times and we could see that he treated Kondaiya with all the respect that is due to a parent till one day his family members came to take him away.

A friend of mine, who had actually joined a year earlier but had been admitted to a branch which offered little job prospects, had taken the entrance exam once again with better results which got him admitted to a more sought after branch. Kondaiya was not aware of these developments and when his earlier batch mates were graduating and there was discussion around the mess tables about new jobs, new scholarships he once casually enquired as to where my friend was moving. When he was informed that this guy would graduate next year, Kondaiya was really sympathetic and encouraging. “Koi baat nahin, Saheb, ho jaata hai. Mehnat karega to agla saal aur accha hi hoga (Don’t worry, these things happen, work hard, and next year you will get an even better job!). Kondaiya has assumed that this guy had failed to clear his exams and we did not have the heart to correct him!

One day, I was not feeling well. I had fever and when the other wing mates were going down for dinner, I told them that I did not feel like eating. They offered to get me something when they returned but I was not just up to any food.

Sometime later, there was a knock on the door, and there stood Kondaiya! Angry, because I had not been to the mess and I had also not informed him. But as soon as he saw me and the condition I was in, he understood and his eyes softened. He touched my forehead, turned back and went down without a word. Ten minutes later, he was back with what was referred to as a “sick diet” – four slices of bread and a glass of milk. He had also brought a bottle of warm water. He waited. I also waited for him to leave. But he did not. Said nothing, just stood there waiting.  I just had to eat and finish the milk, before he left. He was back the next day and the next.

There were so many instances! But the one that remains with me is when we were finally leaving. The mess had been closed for nearly three weeks now and all the under graduate students except us final years had left the campus. Kondaiya would come by every day, and enquire about us. One by one people were leaving every day. The day I was planning to leave sometime in the afternoon, Kondaiya was there since morning. Not saying much but checking the small room, again and again to ensure that nothing was left behind. Most of the things I had already given away and I knew that it was just an excuse to spend the last few hours with us, to say farewell, knowing that we would probably never meet again.

He must have gone through this every year, year after year. I could empathize with the sadness, but there was also pride in those eyes. Pride that his wards had successfully completed their course and were off to find the goals of their own life. I was too young and too much full of my own dreams and plans to be very expressive then, but the poignancy of the moment when I looked back from the departing rickshaw for one last look at my home for five years and to wave to the receding figure of Kondaiya was not lost.

As we got into the car, and started on our return journey, the scene in the Mess in the last fifteen minutes played in the mind. The mess hall had not changed much but there were a few minor differences in the way the mess worked. We stood there absorbing the familiar sounds and scenes of students walking in, leaving after their lunch, some just hanging around chatting with friends, and some were giving us curious looks – after all, middle aged couples aimlessly walking into a students’ mess was not a very common sight! We asked around, but it appeared that Kondaiya was a forgotten entity. Finally, we were able to locate one mess worker who had heard of him and informed us that his son was around working somewhere in the campus, though he could not be more precise.

On our return journey, I was full of regret at not having done anything worthwhile to have made his life a little better. A person who deserved some meaningful consideration for the selfless care that he showered on us while we were there and I am sure that his blessings played some part in making us what we are today. In a selfish manner of making something of my life, I had been callous and unthinking enough to erase him from our memory for many years. A bit of money, maybe a communication once in a while may have made him a litter happier, his life a bit easy.  That is a regret that will remain with me for the rest of my days.

This story is an attempt to pay a tribute to a soul who had come into my life to help me grow as a person and who treated me like a father treats his children.

I hope that, wherever he is, the thought that he still exists in someone’s heart brings a smile to his face and a twinkle in his eyes!