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Pain to be a victim. It can only be experienced and cannot be explained in simple words. But for all those who plan to execute tragedies of our time, these victimization of people are not important. And that is why many failed to gauge the pain that went to a large number of people when the Gujarat mayhem was in progress.
When I go through the books that documents ethnic cleansing or pogroms in the world and see the horrifying pictures of history, I cannot estimate the pains those people who suffered have gone through. That is simply because the paragraphs and the books cannot bring the agony to life. But what agonizes me are the reasons. In a majority of cases, there are no reasons at all. Whimsical minds worked overtime to create hatred and the lust for power eliminated those who would have never been harmful to any of these powerhouses.
The result : millions and millions died for reasons they nor their near and dear ones cannot answer for generations. Neither can their killers do. Reasons actually don’t exist at all.
I am no international expert on war crimes to explain in details of why and when the deaths occurred and whether those responsible should be tried for war crimes. What I understand is a limited world view. A window of humanity and compassion. A mission for relative peace. In our endeavor to earn and have a decent living, we became journalists.
Among a community that cherished government jobs, a change in track was a little difficult. More so, if you already have a government job and you quit it for some silly freelancing. What about the pension? – A common question that doodled like a noodle all along, everywhere.
But I was sure that I had to leave. All my ten years in the government job went into thinking about quitting the job. Deadlines after deadlines expired but I did not quit. It was only after ten years that I took the bold- by my standards – to quit. And I really don’t see logical reasons for behind it. I just see what my career would have been had I remained with the department. I would have been yet another retired government employee with a little house and a car with children being married off. I didn’t want that life because I wanted to broaden my world view.
There are several reasons that I am unfit for any government job. My wavelength never matched with anyone in the department or vice versa. The first and the foremost is patience that I hardly possess. The second most important is the ability to gauge where money can be generated. The third and the most horrible to tolerate useless and the world’s biggest fools called bureaucrats. This is what irked me throughout my tenure and I could hardly match the endurance that some of my colleagues had embraced and compromised. The net result is that no officer liked me. There were exceptions but barring a few, everyone thought that I was exceeding my limits.
I used to get reports from friends about the murmur people had about me. The most common was that I was arrogant and care little for even my superiors. But none had the courage to tell it on my face not because they feared me but because they knew that no body would pass this ‘compliment’ on them even if they replace me.
By the sheer strength of the department and also taking the hierarchy into account I was nobody in the department. A simple Tax Assistant who had to take the help of friends to file his own return. A very simple complaint from some lower level staff was sufficient to transfer me or to take any action against me. But thankfully I never gave such an opportunity because I was not interested in bribes.
Since I was never interested in bribes, I never worked in field and hence I had no knowledge of the nitty gritties of the tax calculation. There were several occasion that I still remember when I had to hang my face down when confronted with some simple questions related to taxation.
My interest in the department continued to fade day by day and I started thinking of how soon I can leave the department. My problem was peculiar. I was never interested to join the mainstream media and waste my whole life covering some beat in either the corridors of the state assembly or the stinking board meetings of municipalities. I had different ideas but it was difficult for me to venture out without any proper
and alternate income.
But I enjoyed in whatever I did during my tenure and many of those experiences prompts me to write much more than a mere nostalgic paragraph. The most farce and the memorable journey is the visiting of Public Accounts Committee.
Committee on restructuring, committee on audit, committee on one or the other thing propped up almost every month to the typically non-functional but auto-run government department. So hardly had the officers and the staff finished reporting lengthy reports and fudged figures to one committee, another committee resurfaced. All consisting of MPs whose names were as alien to the department officials as they were to their own constituency.
Bureaucrats drawing whopping salaries, borrowed from World Bank and IMF since taxpayers money had already been drained to feed and protect politicians, had no other job to do than pleasing this committees. Their accommodation, food, logistics, welcoming and sending them off were all handled by these bureaucrats. I sometimes wondered when they get time for assessment of the tax returns, their primary job.
Here I learnt that it is very difficult to remain straight especially when you reach to a certain level. Ask any poor bureaucrat and he will tell you how remaining non corrupt in a government department is a very difficult exercise to practice. If you want to feed your three-member family, you have to be in the gang. Otherwise, the salary government gives cannot make both ends meet. Then why do these people work for a meager sum? This is the question many people ask when confronted with complaints of low salary. There cannot be two answers to this. And the only answer is that they are not even fit in the government jobs, where else they can enter.
The system of recruiting people to jobs is outdated now. But it is still followed. People who answer from four options given as to where Sabarmati is located or 2x3x5 enters the corridors of the government department. Without any technical skills and without any type of training, they train themselves in one natural gift god has bestowed on them - bargain for themselves and their family. What is wrong in that?
Not that I came with a silver spoon and had enough to withstand the onslaught. But I enjoyed writing and more I enjoyed earning from that. So I lived a life style that was equivalent to the most corrupt person in my category. I did realize that many had questions as to how I survived without taking anything for ten long years. More when the annual increment was Rs 10 when I joined in 1993 and Rs 100 when I left in 2002. This was not even enough for my daily petrol bills. So I was confident of earning from my writing double or triple the salary that I draw from the department. But I was not confident enough to put my papers so easily.
So I stayed put and in the meantime major eyewash called ‘Restructuring’ took place. The only people who benefited from it were again the bureaucrats. From two Chief Commissioners, there were several chief commissioners. From a handful of commissioners, there were more commissioners than peons. The two Chief Commissioners had no jobs to do and therefore some of them passed their time visiting moffusil charges and some of them had women to fiddle with. With the arrival of more Chief Commissioners, the visits increased and the installments that some of these moffusil charges have to hand it over to these visiting dignitaries multiplied thereby putting more pressure on the tax evaders to fund more.
In the meantime, this restructuring got me transferred to Mehsana, some 90 kilometers from my house. I decided to go rather than begging to be retained for some time since I was already in a mood to quit. I thought I would also see some moffusil charges.
Mehsana was a mess. Nothing was proper except the routine under the table dealings. No staff, no computers, no stationary and the most non-cooperative staff ready to stab you on your back. Here I also decided to become corrupt. Corruption need not be always in the form of cash or kind. You can easily use freely available time to bribe. I bribed ‘time’ and began coming at 11.30 and leaving at 3.30. So I bribed one hour each during morning and evening which was not liked by any of my superiors and colleagues. I had a very silly and unfounded reason that none of my work is pending and so I should be allowed to maintain my timings, which actually was against the government rules. But I could not compromise with my writing and so I had to decide my next step and it was during a chilly December day that I tendered my resignation.
Days after I put in my papers that I realized how free I am in this world. There is no one to boss me around and I had my liberty to study, read and also to decide which stories to do and which one to avoid.
The decision to resign did not come overnight. There were strong grounds for me and it was some sort of financial stability. I was lucky enough to get a break in a medium which I never thought was my cup of tea. Radio always fascinated me and working for this medium was something dream come true. So I accepted the challenge and started working immediately.
I had to improve a lot for working in the Radio segment. The first and the foremost was to cut down my pace of talking which was rather very fast. I realized it in Manila when I spoke for a minimum 20 minutes and at the end; I realized that none of the 19 participants in the seminar got an iota of what I had said. I asked them to be very frank to say whether they understood what I said or not. One of the brave souls said he didn’t and then I slowed down and gradually slowed down so that I can adjust to my listeners as well.
The second was to change a slight south Indian accent that I had. I have had no problems with this accent in print segment. So I began searching for some radio crash course, which can also teach me the right voice for radio. But the editors at California told me that they had no problem in my reworked voice and was perfectly alright for a newscast. But I continue to learn from people whom I admire as good speakers. One of them is Nick Gowing of BBC and the other is the FSRN newscast reader Deepa Fernandez.
From a bonded government laborer, it is a different world as a person who is at his liberty to decide his own schedules. But unlike some of my friends from the Western countries, we are bound by social commitments, which consume a large chunk of the time. Commitments towards parents, spouse, children. It is a duty one can’t ignore. One should never.
When I go through the books that documents ethnic cleansing or pogroms in the world and see the horrifying pictures of history, I cannot estimate the pains those people who suffered have gone through. That is simply because the paragraphs and the books cannot bring the agony to life. But what agonizes me are the reasons. In a majority of cases, there are no reasons at all. Whimsical minds worked overtime to create hatred and the lust for power eliminated those who would have never been harmful to any of these powerhouses.
The result : millions and millions died for reasons they nor their near and dear ones cannot answer for generations. Neither can their killers do. Reasons actually don’t exist at all.
I am no international expert on war crimes to explain in details of why and when the deaths occurred and whether those responsible should be tried for war crimes. What I understand is a limited world view. A window of humanity and compassion. A mission for relative peace. In our endeavor to earn and have a decent living, we became journalists.
Among a community that cherished government jobs, a change in track was a little difficult. More so, if you already have a government job and you quit it for some silly freelancing. What about the pension? – A common question that doodled like a noodle all along, everywhere.
But I was sure that I had to leave. All my ten years in the government job went into thinking about quitting the job. Deadlines after deadlines expired but I did not quit. It was only after ten years that I took the bold- by my standards – to quit. And I really don’t see logical reasons for behind it. I just see what my career would have been had I remained with the department. I would have been yet another retired government employee with a little house and a car with children being married off. I didn’t want that life because I wanted to broaden my world view.
There are several reasons that I am unfit for any government job. My wavelength never matched with anyone in the department or vice versa. The first and the foremost is patience that I hardly possess. The second most important is the ability to gauge where money can be generated. The third and the most horrible to tolerate useless and the world’s biggest fools called bureaucrats. This is what irked me throughout my tenure and I could hardly match the endurance that some of my colleagues had embraced and compromised. The net result is that no officer liked me. There were exceptions but barring a few, everyone thought that I was exceeding my limits.
I used to get reports from friends about the murmur people had about me. The most common was that I was arrogant and care little for even my superiors. But none had the courage to tell it on my face not because they feared me but because they knew that no body would pass this ‘compliment’ on them even if they replace me.
By the sheer strength of the department and also taking the hierarchy into account I was nobody in the department. A simple Tax Assistant who had to take the help of friends to file his own return. A very simple complaint from some lower level staff was sufficient to transfer me or to take any action against me. But thankfully I never gave such an opportunity because I was not interested in bribes.
Since I was never interested in bribes, I never worked in field and hence I had no knowledge of the nitty gritties of the tax calculation. There were several occasion that I still remember when I had to hang my face down when confronted with some simple questions related to taxation.
My interest in the department continued to fade day by day and I started thinking of how soon I can leave the department. My problem was peculiar. I was never interested to join the mainstream media and waste my whole life covering some beat in either the corridors of the state assembly or the stinking board meetings of municipalities. I had different ideas but it was difficult for me to venture out without any proper
and alternate income.But I enjoyed in whatever I did during my tenure and many of those experiences prompts me to write much more than a mere nostalgic paragraph. The most farce and the memorable journey is the visiting of Public Accounts Committee.
Committee on restructuring, committee on audit, committee on one or the other thing propped up almost every month to the typically non-functional but auto-run government department. So hardly had the officers and the staff finished reporting lengthy reports and fudged figures to one committee, another committee resurfaced. All consisting of MPs whose names were as alien to the department officials as they were to their own constituency.
Bureaucrats drawing whopping salaries, borrowed from World Bank and IMF since taxpayers money had already been drained to feed and protect politicians, had no other job to do than pleasing this committees. Their accommodation, food, logistics, welcoming and sending them off were all handled by these bureaucrats. I sometimes wondered when they get time for assessment of the tax returns, their primary job.
Here I learnt that it is very difficult to remain straight especially when you reach to a certain level. Ask any poor bureaucrat and he will tell you how remaining non corrupt in a government department is a very difficult exercise to practice. If you want to feed your three-member family, you have to be in the gang. Otherwise, the salary government gives cannot make both ends meet. Then why do these people work for a meager sum? This is the question many people ask when confronted with complaints of low salary. There cannot be two answers to this. And the only answer is that they are not even fit in the government jobs, where else they can enter.
The system of recruiting people to jobs is outdated now. But it is still followed. People who answer from four options given as to where Sabarmati is located or 2x3x5 enters the corridors of the government department. Without any technical skills and without any type of training, they train themselves in one natural gift god has bestowed on them - bargain for themselves and their family. What is wrong in that?
Not that I came with a silver spoon and had enough to withstand the onslaught. But I enjoyed writing and more I enjoyed earning from that. So I lived a life style that was equivalent to the most corrupt person in my category. I did realize that many had questions as to how I survived without taking anything for ten long years. More when the annual increment was Rs 10 when I joined in 1993 and Rs 100 when I left in 2002. This was not even enough for my daily petrol bills. So I was confident of earning from my writing double or triple the salary that I draw from the department. But I was not confident enough to put my papers so easily.
So I stayed put and in the meantime major eyewash called ‘Restructuring’ took place. The only people who benefited from it were again the bureaucrats. From two Chief Commissioners, there were several chief commissioners. From a handful of commissioners, there were more commissioners than peons. The two Chief Commissioners had no jobs to do and therefore some of them passed their time visiting moffusil charges and some of them had women to fiddle with. With the arrival of more Chief Commissioners, the visits increased and the installments that some of these moffusil charges have to hand it over to these visiting dignitaries multiplied thereby putting more pressure on the tax evaders to fund more.
In the meantime, this restructuring got me transferred to Mehsana, some 90 kilometers from my house. I decided to go rather than begging to be retained for some time since I was already in a mood to quit. I thought I would also see some moffusil charges.
Mehsana was a mess. Nothing was proper except the routine under the table dealings. No staff, no computers, no stationary and the most non-cooperative staff ready to stab you on your back. Here I also decided to become corrupt. Corruption need not be always in the form of cash or kind. You can easily use freely available time to bribe. I bribed ‘time’ and began coming at 11.30 and leaving at 3.30. So I bribed one hour each during morning and evening which was not liked by any of my superiors and colleagues. I had a very silly and unfounded reason that none of my work is pending and so I should be allowed to maintain my timings, which actually was against the government rules. But I could not compromise with my writing and so I had to decide my next step and it was during a chilly December day that I tendered my resignation.
Days after I put in my papers that I realized how free I am in this world. There is no one to boss me around and I had my liberty to study, read and also to decide which stories to do and which one to avoid.
The decision to resign did not come overnight. There were strong grounds for me and it was some sort of financial stability. I was lucky enough to get a break in a medium which I never thought was my cup of tea. Radio always fascinated me and working for this medium was something dream come true. So I accepted the challenge and started working immediately.
I had to improve a lot for working in the Radio segment. The first and the foremost was to cut down my pace of talking which was rather very fast. I realized it in Manila when I spoke for a minimum 20 minutes and at the end; I realized that none of the 19 participants in the seminar got an iota of what I had said. I asked them to be very frank to say whether they understood what I said or not. One of the brave souls said he didn’t and then I slowed down and gradually slowed down so that I can adjust to my listeners as well.
The second was to change a slight south Indian accent that I had. I have had no problems with this accent in print segment. So I began searching for some radio crash course, which can also teach me the right voice for radio. But the editors at California told me that they had no problem in my reworked voice and was perfectly alright for a newscast. But I continue to learn from people whom I admire as good speakers. One of them is Nick Gowing of BBC and the other is the FSRN newscast reader Deepa Fernandez.
From a bonded government laborer, it is a different world as a person who is at his liberty to decide his own schedules. But unlike some of my friends from the Western countries, we are bound by social commitments, which consume a large chunk of the time. Commitments towards parents, spouse, children. It is a duty one can’t ignore. One should never.
Pix (c) Binu Alex
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