Why I left the Indian Administrative Service?

The present rage on the OTT platform is the movie ‘12th Fail’ that documents the struggles of Manoj Kumar Sharma in becoming an IPS officer. Lives of everyone may not have been as dramatic as that of Manoj, but most of us who gave UPSC Civil service exams certainly lived some part. The lanes of Rajendra Nagar with its bookstalls and tea shops, or the small pigeon hole rooms in Mukherjee Nagar/Jiasarai are all too familiar to any aspirant. All of us also remember pile of books that filled entire room and neatly pasted information posters on the wall.

The gruelling exam cycle went on for more than a year starting from filling the prelims form, then giving long subjective Mains exam and finally the terror of the interview board. I still remember that eternal struggle to clock 12-14 hours of study time and looking at pictures of toppers who cleared the exam. Their folklores survived in those Delhi bylanes while they moved on to the LBSNAA Mussoorie. Any successful or unfortunately not so aspirant can talk about these struggles on and on.

I felt like destiny's child when I cleared the exam in my first attempt and entered the hallowed Indian Administrative Service (IAS). I wonder if anything else can match the sudden orbit shift in an ordinary student's life when you turn from an aspirant to a small time celeb and newspapers and aspirants cannot have enough of your wisdom words. It touches not only you but your entire clan. I remember distant relatives distributing sweets in their neighbourhoods when someone with whom they hardly ever spoke cleared this exam.

So how does one reconcile with leaving something that one struggled for so hard? After reliving a part of that struggle watching 12th fail with family, my son incredulously asks me, "Why did you leave the indian administrative service?”. It was difficult to explain to my toddler what IAS officers did and it is even more difficult to explain why I left.

I owe this answer to many who have been a part of my life. Whatever it is, it was certainly not an easy choice. After 16 years in service, it doesn't remain a service but becomes a way of life, a sort of alter ego or identity that one cannot even imagine to leave. Many still ask what did your parents say? How could your family let you do that?

I do not say that the service did not offer what I was looking for. The kind of diversity, respect and exposure that IAS provides can rarely be matched by anything else. And IAS officers also serve. The exam selects brilliant people and despite challenges in everyone’s professional life, they contribute in different manners. Yes there are aberrations amongst IAS officers, but they exist in all walks of life.

Having been there and done that, I can say for sure that it is easier to enter the service than to leave. While one is preparing, you just need to work hard and everything is black and white, you either get selected or you do not. The decision to leave is mired with ifs and buts and everything appears grey. There is the persistent thought of this being a one way street, with no chance of coming back to this comfort zone of respect and assured career path. I could live what the poet Kunwar Narayan meant in his poem ‘Antim Unchai’:

कितना स्पष्ट होता आगे बढ़ते जाने का मतलब

अगर दसों दिशाएँ हमारे सामने होतीं,

हमारे चारों ओर नहीं।

कितना आसान होता चलते चले जाना

यदि केवल हम चलते होते

बाक़ी सब रुका होता।

शुरू-शुरू में सब यही चाहते हैं

कि सब कुछ शुरू से शुरू हो,

लेकिन अंत तक पहुँचते-पहुँचते हिम्मत हार जाते हैं।

हमें कोई दिलचस्पी नहीं रहती

कि वह सब कैसे समाप्त होता है

जो इतनी धूमधाम से शुरू हुआ था

हमारे चाहने पर।

It was difficult but I could also hear a clear voice inside my heart that it was time to move on. There are no rights and wrongs in life, but what matters is if we can hear our inner voice. In the end everything remains a personal choice based on what one is seeking in life. All the reasons I have can be argued equally against, but I present them in all humility to my friends and well wishers, who have often tried to understand my thought process.

The first reason was that I felt too comfortable in life. It is difficult to express that, but seeing the next twenty years of my professional life was unnerving in a sense. I had seen a good part of what service had to offer, and the chances of getting surprised were getting narrowed down. A sign of youth is that one is full of possibilities in life. You can be an entrepreneur or you can travel and explore the world. You can also think of joining the elite IAS. There is a thrill in finding new challenges in life, and continuing here was sort of accepting old age, metaphorically at least.

The next  important reason was that I feel India is going to change in the coming decades. I remember how we waited for months to get a landline, and how the world changed with the advent of mobiles. Today's smartphone users cannot even imagine that time. I believe emerging changes would be far greater in the coming decades. I also believe that while the Government would continue to be a regulator and a facilitator, the private sector would be the real leader in this change. Indian per capita income has doubled in the last seven years, and we can only imagine how the next few decades are going to be like. While I had just begun to toy with this idea, I met a founder of a Unicorn. Realising that he could create a wealth of billions of dollars in such a short span of time was an attractive thought. The creativity, the pace and the horizon to achieve myriad things thrilled me beyond words.

Also, when we think of life in IAS, we often think about life in the field or in the districts. There one is closer to real India and creating an impact, however small, gives satisfaction. As one rises up the hierarchy, the canvas becomes large. It is difficult to conduct small experiments and see them succeed owing to the scale of impact. Working in the secretariat, be it in a department or any government corporation is somewhat closer to the work in the private sector.

A lingering thought also was that we have only one life. I had seen IAS for sixteen years and I felt excited with the idea of reinventing myself. Modern world is complex and people not only change jobs but their area of work.

I also felt that we called IAS to be the steel frame of the country but as democracy matures, real representatives of people i.e. elected politicians take charge. In today’s competitive electoral politics where the electorate are impatient for results, politicians love to work with a committed rather than a neutral bureaucracy. There can not be two power centres and thus there is nothing called ‘strong bureaucracy’ in modern times.

In most developed countries, bureaucrats are relegated to the background and civil services are rarely the first career choice. I believe in developing countries like ourselves where rule of law is still not perfect, being in the services makes certain basic services guaranteed. One is saved from unlawful harassment from the State or can be assured of finding a hospital bed in crisis times like Covid. As markets mature and a country progresses, these become less attractive. This may also be seen in career choices of children of serving bureaucrats, with very few opting for civil services.

It may also be said that a person needs to be self driven in services like IAS. Government jobs do not offer incentives to innovate and often officials fall in the mediocrity trap. The ecosystem makes it challenging to continuously upgrade oneself. There are other reasons like that of generating wealth and earning like my other IIT batchmates or having exposure of different kinds but I will not say they really mattered when I decided to move on.

It is not that I am not scared, I had more sleepless nights than I had while preparing for the UPSC exams. This was the most difficult decision of my life and I still get nightmares with thoughts like this isn't some आई मौज फ़क़ीर को, दिया झोपड़ा फूँक moment. May be this deserves a separate blog and one day I would pen that.

But I am happy and proud I could do this. It wasn't easy and it will not be easy but I am excited. Once again in my life I feel the sky's the limit and I again have a reason to dream. It has already been more than two months and everyday I have butterflies in my stomach. I asked GenAI to generate an image for me entering the unknown and it is the one you see at the top. Wish me luck on this ride!

जल गयी है शमा, आ गए हैं परवाने

आगाज़ तो अच्छा है, अंजाम ख़ुदा जाने

How (not) to Learn Swimming in Three Days Straight!

You dreamt about being Jack of all trades but you are already in mid-thirties and bereft of any skill in life. Being good in studies was your alibi for quite some time and now you have a strong urge to learn something but you happen to be shy; you also happen to be District Magistrate of the place where you reside. 

You think about exotic hobbies like scuba diving, or something refined like learning Urdu but then you notice your ascending waistline. You zero on Swimming and casually mention it to someone in the town. He tells you how he totally approves it, where one can begin and why swimming is important for one’s overall well-being in life. He tells all those he meets why you have made the right choice. You feel happy inside and promise yourself that once you are done with swimming, you will continue to learn new skills in life.

Next day a group of professional swimmers come for a friendly chat. They explain how joining them may be better and there is logic in their argument. Same day three other groups come and demonstrate their teaching abilities. You choose a pool which belongs to the government and by virtue of being District Magistrate, you also happen to be the President of its Swimming Society.

As you reach the pool, members of managing committee along with their family members (and some distant cousins/neighbours) are there to make you comfortable. They warmly take you inside and as you come out from the changing room in your swimming tracks, you feel their piercing eyes scanning your not so perfectly chiselled body. You are suddenly conscious of the long hairs emanating from various corners of your body and rush to get inside the pool.

The coach is extremely warm and tells you how simple it is to learn this art and shows you simple water exercises. You imitate them fast and he profusely praises your spontaneity. He prophesises you will learn swimming in three days straight. You dream about your sculpted body after days of swimming and toy with the idea of an Olympic gold but for the moment, keep it on hold.  

Next day you are chief guest in a public program and are suddenly woken up from your slumber by generous praise that speaker has unleashed about your swimming capabilities. He repeats the prophecy that you will perfect swimming in three days straight and now you can feel the weight of expectations of entire town. You sheepishly smile and wonder if anyone is still left to learn about your new endeavour in life.

Being diligent learner, you reach the swimming pool again on time and again a horde is there to welcome you inside. You enter the pool and find the coach smiling warmly. He today ups the swimming lessons and you find them difficult. You also realise that breathing water is not something that lungs like and your eyes complain that water of the pool has chlorine inside. Your performance today was not that you dreamt but you still have a day to master this art.

Next day, there is pain in muscles you never knew existed in your body. You still go to the swimming pool and the coach is there to teach some new tricks but you find them completely impossible. You feel that only thing that loves you in this world is gravity of swimming pool calling you inside. In your naivete, you share this thought with the coach who tasks you with touching the swimming pool floor with your hands. You try and try and try and fail at that. The coach murmurs words of motivation and ask you to continue but you have missed the three-day target.

You take a break for couple of days and decide to compromise Olympic dreams. You internalise that you enter the water to rejoice and learning to swim is incidental. You are back with full enthusiasm and the coach smiles at you but you feel he has chuckled. You behave with him like estranged couple and ignore him rest of the time. You keep punishing water by your slaps and you also try to slap it by your feet but gravity still wants you inside.

You go to the pool off and on but avoid looking coach in the eye. You find others who tell what you have been doing wrong and they make perfect sense every time. You discuss with them politics, climate change and career choice of their niece and rejoice. Soon you have discovered 10001 ways in which one cannot swim and feel like writing a book about that.  

Winter comes to your rescue and the pool shuts down. You blame it for not being able to learn this new trade but now you confident that your actual interest was in Badminton. You still wonder if you should mention it to someone in your town. Meanwhile members of the Swimming pool management committee (and other swimming clubs) visit you every alternate day and remind that pool would reopen next month.

Intimate Impressions of the People and the Place: Bengal/Burdwan

When I was a child, books were my window to the world outside. Books take you to places you have never been and show them in different perspectives through the eyes of the writer. The same happened to me about Bengal. I was always fond of reading and soon I took liking for the novels of Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay. I devoured his books fast, albeit their Hindi translated versions. I found his stories intriguing, most of which were about love and loss, and I was deeply moved with human emotions woven around. His portrayal of relationships was unmatched and his characters, especially women in the plot stood out that you found in any other novels. They were selfless and often deeply in love, and yet they had a strong sense of independence and self-respect. All these stories were set up in villages and towns of Bengal which provided a perfect background setting to the plot.

            This was my first impression of Bengal, the Bengal of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century when it was still a pioneer in India and Kolkata was still the capital of the British Raj. I was born and brought up in Uttar Pradesh and stayed there during initial years but I was always fascinated by the mystic land of Bengal.As I grew up, I learned about other icons of Bengal, about the freedom fighters and revolutionaries, about Tagore and his influence on overall culture of this land and many other great things about this land.

            Of places in Bengal, I knew only about Kolkata. The image of Howrah Bridge, Victoria Memorial and Maidan represented this metropolitan. A good number of Bengalis stayed in our town and I often went to visit Durga Puja in Bengali habitations which were celebrated with full enthusiasm. Despite these impressions, I did not get an opportunity to see this place with my own eyes.

            A dream is a dream and when I entered IIT Kanpur from where I did my engineering, the image of this place was not so perfect in my mind. I had started following national affairs with keen interest and the outside world was not very kind toWest Bengal. The place had earned a bad name due to bandhs/strikes when all life came to standstill. There were horror stories of how trains were kept standing at the same place for hours and hours and there were kids playing cricket on otherwise busy Howrah Bridge and Kolkata by lanes. The globalisation was taking States of India on road to development and it appeared that West Bengal was not moving with the same pace as rest of India was. It was known as a place where development had come to a grinding halt. Kolkata had long lost its place to Bombay in being the economical capital of India. As a person who was in a way infatuated with the past image of Bengal, I felt sad.

            After passing out from IIT Kanpur I started working at a multinational firm. The pay package was fine but soon I got disenchanted with lack of motivation to excel in private sector. I wanted to create a difference, howsoever small and soon it was clear that private sector is not a place for that. I decided to take Indian Administrative Service (IAS) exam.    I worked very hard and finally got selected in this exam.Officers in IAS are allocated states (cadres) where they are supposed towork for rest of their lives. In a way, the cadres allocated become their actual homeswhere most of the officers end up spending rest of their lives. As fate would have it, I was allocated West Bengal cadre!

            West Bengal had a pretty bad name as a cadre and our colleagues made fun of us for being allocated to West Bengal. There were hundreds of stories of gloom and West Bengal was a place where officers were not allowed to do any work. It also had a name for having the worst work culture, where drivers threw key on your face at 5’o clock in the evening and no one listened to you or worked. There was fear of impending gloom in our lives.

            I started my training at Administrative Training Institute Kolkata. Infrastructure here needed improvement, Ambassador Taxis gave an impression of an era gone by but, somehow, I did not feel bad. All this had a kind of old world charm, a world where many things other than money also mattered in life. This place had a flavour of its own and I went along. Of the various things told about West Bengal, I still remember what was told to us about the uniqueness of Bengal. India is primarily a landmass that stretch from Himalayas range in North till the sea in South and only West Bengal had distinction of having both,the Himalayas and the sea.

            My district training was at Bankura and this was my first interaction with Bengal. Bankura stint is personally dear to me as I got married here and also, we set up our first independent house at Raipur block when I held the charge of BDO for four months. The place was Maoist infested, underdeveloped and no one spoke a word that was not in Bengali. I picked up Bengali faster than my batch mates because there was no other alternative to survive in this place. In this place, I learnt the indispensability of mosquito net. Our private joke was that without a mosquito net, if you do not fall prey to malaria, you can be sure of anaemia at least. Snakes were another common feature of this place that came and went by. They had more claim on that compound than we had.And then, there was these millions and millions of ants who appeared unannounced, made large black patters on the wall and vanished as fast as they had arrived.

Life was different but people there ensured that we had no discomfort. They took extra effort to get whatever we needed. When I got my farewell there, I found people crying, and there was a lump in my throat, something that I have not been able to avoid in all subsequent farewells. This was the place that turned me into an officer from a young inexperienced trainee.

            After that, my first posting as an SDO was at Alipurduar. North Bengal is beautiful beyond words and I had to  travel to Jalpaigudi that was the then district headquarter from Alipurduar and in that three-hour road journey, lovely mountain ranges of Bhutan  accompanied me on the highway. Some days, we could spot wild elephants on the road and they would disappear as discreetly as they had arrived. SDO Alipurduar had a beautiful bungalow with a lovely balcony. When it rained, it poured for days on and on and we just sat there and watched the incessant rains. During nights, the entire garden was lit up by thousands of fireflies and one has to witness it to believe how majestic it looks.

            My next five years were spent in Kolkata in three different stints and I totally fell in love with that city. Kolkata grows upon you and once have stayed there for long enough, you find it hard to adjust to any other place. Now, I can appreciate why Kolkatans find it hard to work in any other city. Kolkata was also the place where I started enjoying the cultural life of Bengal. I got introduced to plays that took place in different auditoriums of Kolkata. I watched the likes of Naseeruddin Shah, Paresh Raval and Anupam Kher perform. The majestic beauty of listening to Hariprasad Chaurasia and Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma on the banks of Hoogly at Princep Ghat is a memory that we will cherish for a lifetime. I also witnessed cricket matches at the famed Eden Gardens. Eating out on Park street and visiting the Oxford book store were always our favourite past times.

            In IAS, the most prominent job that one gets is that of a District Magistrate and I got my first posting at Darjeeling.It is and has always been a complicated place but not many hill stations in our country can claim to be as beautiful as Darjeeling. I had stayed at Mussoorie before during our IAS training but I found Darjeeling much more beautiful that it. All our weekends, we had an option to stay out at any exotic location and each place turned out to be more beautiful that all that we had previously seen. I was fortunate that Darjeeling remained peaceful during my tenure and we could enjoy the place and its beauty. Some of the tea garden bungalows we stayed at turned out to be more beautiful places that the best five-star hotels I had seen.

During my stint, Kalimpong district was carved out of Darjeeling and after nearly two years, I was posted as District Magistrate of Burdwan district. Again, I had to bifurcate Burdwan, into Purba Bardhaman and Paschim Bardhaman and till date I hold the distinction of being the only District Magistrate to have bifurcated two districts.

My posting is Burdwan was sort of my coming back to the real Bengal. Burdwan always had a prominent place in West Bengal. This place has lush green fields spread across the district. Three major rivers, Damodar, Bhagirathi and Ajoy flow across it and keep the land fertile. The place has excellent rail connectivity and is a prominent town on Grand Trunk Road. It has everything that any perfect human habitation needed; fertile land, water source, moderate climate and good connectivity. It has rich culture and history and this place was the perfect rural setting of Bengal that I had read about in the novels of Sarat Chandra and Tagore.

            After bifurcation of Burdwan, Purba Bardhaman became primarily an agricultural district with a rich cultural heritage. This place still is the rice bowl of West Bengal and out of the total paddy procurement of the state, Purba Bardhaman supplies major share. Farmers of Burdwan owing to the fertility of land, unlike that of many other places are comparatively well to do. Burdwan town is big enough to have all modern amenities yet it has a flavour of small countryside towns. Burdwan Raj, ruled by efficient Mahtabs, had a major contribution in the development of this place and their insignia and other symbols are still present all over the place. Till today, Curzon Gate built by the Mahtab’s is the most recognised symbol of Burdwan town. Burdwan Raj also took special interest in education and Raj college is one of the oldest colleges of Burdwan. Burdwan University has been set up on the buildings and land donated by them.

Another distinct feature of this place is fame of its sweets. People all across India know about sweets of Burdwan and this time when I went back to my hometown Kanpur, everyone demanded sweets from this place. Mihidana of Burdwan has already acquired Geographical Indiactor(GI) tag and soon Sitabhog and Langchawhich are other specialities of this place should acquire the same. In UP, there are some wonderful sweets but back here, sweets are less heavy, have less sugar and yet they taste better. This is probably the speciality of sweets of this place. I have stopped consuming ‘Chena’ back home as my standards have been significantly enhanced.

After a long time, I stayed over at Durga Pujo and I witnessed the festivities closely for the first time. It would be injustice to this place if I do not describe it. DurgaPujo or let me be correct technically, Pujo is an event that Bengalis wait for entire year. A year can be divided in two parts, ten-twelve days of Pujo and other days which lead to it. All events are described if they happened before Pujo or after. If you realise that crowds have multiplied many times in the market, it is taking infinitely long time for the tailor to stich your suit and queue at the hairdresser has increased, Pujo is at doorsteps. 

 Human creativity can be seen at best during Pujo. Every year you get amazed by the creativity of Pujo pandals and the world they capture in it, and again next time year you find pandals have surpassed what they achieved a year ago. Somewhere there are Angkorvat temples, at other place kingdom of Mahismati from Bahubali movie has been created and at another pandal you are inside an aquarium with beautiful aquatic animals surrounding you.

More than the pandal, you get impressed by the Durga idol, or Thakur. One has to love goddess from all heart to imagine her in various moods/colours. The innovativeness of Thakur has to be seen by one’s own eyes to be believed. People wait in queue for hours to visit these pandals and the city comes to life for the whole night. 

The uniqueness of the Pujo also lies in the fact that it is festival that you celebrate with community. Lakhs of small neighbourhood Pujos are celebrated and you see the spirit of community in it. For days, everyone eats together from a common kitchen. For many it may come as a surprise that fish and meat often form a part of the Bhog, which is a complete meal in itself and occasional boozing is not frowned upon. Women of the family manage Kitchen and organise events/competitions and kids have a blast. Men sit together chit chatting, watching and coordinating and there is dance and music all around. Bengalis are also rich culturally and Pujo festivities is a reminder to that. Everyone can either sing, dance or recite. People of all religion staying in the neighbourhood participate in the Pujo and join hands in organising it.

If you still find it difficult to get a feel of it, imagine a wedding of your close relative where all of your friends and family gather. You meet people with whom you grew up and catch up with everything that happened during this time. Women of the house dress in their best clothes and jewellery and kids run riot with distant cousins. Entire neighbourhood becomes a big family during that time and those three four days are complete bliss to be remembered for a lifetime. Now swallow it, Bengalis get to celebrate that same wedding every single year. 

Bengali women are more liberated than their counterparts in many other parts of the country and you can sense it with their involvement in Pujo. They look stunning in their sarees which they drape with élan and elegance. Everyone is in their best dresses and people get different new attires for different days. After Pujos, it is an uphill task for many to back to their mundane lives, something of the sort that we felt when schools opened after summer holidays. I never thought that Pujas of this magnitude would take place in Burdwan town and I fortunate that I was here during Puja festivities.

Various other developmental activities have been planned in and around Burdwan. A new Rail Over Bridge is coming up near Railway station that will significantly reduce the congestion of Burdwan town.Many road widening projects are being taken up out of which GT road widening in the town is worth mentioning.Mati Tirtha has been developed at Mati Mela ground by the government and every year and aseven-day long Mati Mela is organisedat this place. During this period, award winning farmers from entire state are felicitated from this place. To promote unique sweets, a Misti Hub has been constructed.

Government is also giving a lot of thrust on development of Tourism. This place is full of historical importance and various historical buildings are being renovated and made accessible to the tourists. Watching birds in country boats at ‘Chupi’ lake at Purbastahali would compete even with Dal Lake of Kashmir. This place has immense potential for religious tourism as Chaitanya Mahaprabhu had strong connection with this place and temples relating to this sect are spread all across.

Such developmental activities are being taken up not only in Burdwan but across West Bengal. The plan expenditure of the State Government has multiplied by almost four times during the last six years. Various new schemes like Kanyashree, SaboojSaathi, Shiksha Sree etc have bene launched by the Government. All this has resulted in significant socio-economic development and West Bengal has again found its feet back on development. In almost all centrally sponsored government schemes, West Bengal is doing much better that most other states.

Having been in this place for last ten years, I not repented being here for a single day. There is something in the people; there is something in this land which I still find mesmerising. In fact, I now feel more at home in West Bengal than in my home state UP. I feel both Burdwan and West Bengal are places where a lot of potential still exists and once it is utilized, these places will be no less than any other place in the world. Well begun is half done and last six years have proved it.

 I might not have been born in this place but whenever I think about this land, I am reminded of these lines by Dwijendralal Ray:

ধন ধান্য পুষ্প ভরা, আমাদের এই বসুন্ধরা,
তাহার মাঝে আছে দেশ এক সকল দেশের সেরা,
ওসে স্বপ্ন দিয়ে তৈরী সেদেশ স্মৃতি দিয়ে ঘেরা।
এমন দেশটি কোথাও খুঁজে পাবে নাকো তুমি,
সকল দেশের রানী সেযে আমার জন্মভূমি,

Fields of golden grains, meadows of fragrant flowers,

Two delights from earth of her many natural treasures,

Nestled within is a place divine set far above all measures,

Created from dreams anchored by memories,

Nowhere else a place of such luminous glories,

This the Queen of all lands on earth,

This the land of my birth, the hallowed land of my birth,

Of Being Important and being the Main Man!

You always wanted to be an important man. You prayed to God and as luck would have it, God agreed to that. Ok, almost did that!

So here you were, in a profession where you became the locally available, affordable, approachable and still reasonably acceptable Chief Guest for various occasions. You were invited as Chief Guest in local book festivals, you were called to preside over at cultural events and then you were cutting ribbons at Puja pandals.

The people who invite you are humble, respectful and they make your life miserable to ensure there is Chief Guest at their event. They forward Good morning messages along with hoaxes on whatsapp, send Facebook requests and ask when they meet next why you were yet to accept that and call thrice a day to verify that you haven’t yet changed your mind. You get nightmares of being K..K..K..K Kiran from movie Darr being stalked by Shahrukh Khan.

You want the event to get over quickly and commit the mistake of reaching on time. Even organisers are surprised/disappointed to see that. They have been wrongfully denied the opportunity to call you couple of more times.

You are given a warm welcome by showering flowers as it befits a worthy Chief Guest. Slowly the soft flowers give way to Marigold petals and showering get converted to throwing them with force on your poor self. Some kids relish at hitting bulls eye and soon there is a barrage of hitting petals on your eyes, neck and your head. You feel the pointed petals sticking on your sweating self and finding way to strange corners of your body and you rush towards the dais to save yourself.

There you realise that the organisers did not trust you all this time. There is a horde of back up Chief Guests occupying the dais. The number of people on your side exceed those sitting in front as spectators and you feel like volunteering to sit in front but hold on. You also wonder how round table inaugurations would be perfectly workable in such scenarios and would also save the cost of a dais.  

You want this ordeal to end but there is one co-chief guest yet to arrive and you wait on and on and curse yourself for arriving on time.  You make small talk with person sitting next and share their concern about weather, politics and academic future of their child. You stretch your cheeks to portray how privileged you are to sit on this side of the dais.

To the relief of all, program finally begins and the announcer starts by eulogising about their organisation, its history and importance of this event. You now know that in the history of mankind, there never was or will be an event more important. Then the announcer turns her attention on your kind self. You discover virtues you never had and learn about your accomplishments in life. If you happen to share your name with a person who topped IAS exactly fifteen years back (Anurag Srivastava, IAS, 1992), you always got credited for that. You feel like you are betraying them as Chief Guest.

You are dying to finish this fast and rush along with others to light the auspicious lamp to ceremonially inaugurate the event. They have put a nicely decorated beautiful lamp stand but nobody thought they may need a matchstick to light that. A kind soul discreetly brings out a cigarette lighter but the lamp has a mind of its own and takes its time to comply. It is followed by a cultural performance which is not bad but you stare at the back of the performer as she was facing the crowd.

The speeches begin and go on and on and since you are the chief guest, you get the privilege to speak at last. In the meantime, you have thought about this article’s draft, checked your social media messages myriads of time and you also found yourself napping a couple of times. Suddenly your name is announced and you rush towards the podium. As you hold the mike, you have forgotten the name of this event but you vaguely remember what it is all about. Also, you were haunted by their calls but now you do not recall name of any organiser. You mumble few words about how great this event was, how great were its organisers and basically how great all of us are. You thank them for considering you worthy of this job but you only see yawning faces in front, as bored as you are.

The organisers still diligently clap when you end. You want to run away but they are profusely thankful that you could make it to the event and hold you on for a cup of tea. There you are made to swallow a plate full of desserts (read calories) and you promise to yourself that you will not commit this mistake ever again in your life.

Next day you commit yourself to another event.

PS: This is an exaggerated version of all what actually goes around. The writer, who incidentally is a District Magistrate, is profusely thankful to all the organisers who ever thought him to be worthy of being Chief Guest at their event :) 

The Failed Talisman

You do not know me.

You do not know me because I never wanted that. I do not boast about my work, nor do I ever list my achievements on Facebook/twitter profile. You also do not see my picture in newspapers inspecting schools, hospitals because when I do that, I never tag reporters along. You do not know me because I never aimed for that.

I am the nameless, faceless bureaucrat who is present all around. I believe in impersonality, hierarchy and work ethics and I represent the honest bureaucratic tribe. Believe you me, our percentage is much more than what it is made out.

My daily routine often involves fighting with politicians but the fight isn’t something you see on television channels. It is much more refined and nuanced, an art that I slowly picked up in all these years. I let them have their way when they are right, convince/cajole or force them alter things when they aren’t and I also occasionally need to put my foot down. Often politicians respect me for that and at times we part on amicable terms. Agreed there are bureaucrats not like that, but I can speak only for my tribe.

You do not know all this because I do not call news channels and tell them how everything is wrong in this world yet my dissent is taken seriously and often decisions are changed due to that. I also work very hard and enjoy my work. I doubt if any other profession can give satisfaction that I derive from my job.

I was brilliant in academics and I come from a place where reputation mattered more than anything else. I got goosebumps when national anthem is played and there was lump in my throat whenever I saw a hungry child. My parents said there was no other place better than Civil Services and I followed that. I was on the top of this world when I joined and my friends and family thought that I will change this country and so did I.

Things were more complex that I had thought; there was white, there was black and then there was a large zone that was undefined. Decision on black and white were the easiest but there was no norm for grey areas. I did many things in my job, there were many things I could not but at the end of the day when I lied down at night, I slept a satisfied man. There was this common man who looked at me with hope and trust and I was happy if I could protect his interest.  The talisman given to us was to do our work honestly with a clean conscience, and one would be respected for that. In hindsight, most of my decisions were right; some were probably not.

You do not know but I never felt worried as to why I took any decision on grey areas.  I never wanted the system to come to a grinding halt. My reputation traveled fast and I beamed with pride when I was appreciated for that. I knew I was honest and felt that would take care of everything else.

Then came a day when our country was angry at the corrupt. There were reports of scam after scam and all of us were aghast. I was as angry as anyone else, and wanted punishment for those who were responsible for that. There was loss and there was presumptive loss and lot of anger around that. Everyone wanted to fix it immediately and Courts were too willing to do that. They took upon themselves the burden of administering speedy justice and punish guilty for all that.

The jolt came when the first one to be convicted in this conundrum was Mr HC Gupta for Coalgate scam. They did not find politicians, they did not find any big businessman but conviction was awarded to a ‘bureaucrat’. He was an IAS officer, retired almost a decade back and was leading an obscure life before courts found him responsible for all that. This is not the first conviction of any bureaucrat but the problem comes when all agree that he is an honest man yet responsible for this ‘presumptive’ loss. There were people who put up the cases for coal block allocation, there were people who approved and then there were those who actually reaped benefit from all that. Being the Chairman of the committee that recommended the case, he was found guilty for all mess that went around.

I always thought Mens Rea or Guilty mind was prerequisite to commit any crime. I cannot be convicted for something I did not aim for. But I was told in case of corruption, any loss to public exchequer was enough. No personal favour was required and it did not matter if one did not aim for that loss. A scapegoat is as good as a solution and who better than a bureaucrat.

In all that cacophony, I found judiciary, press and many others bayed for the blood of bureaucrats. How could Mr Gupta not know what all was going around? How could he not do more than that? I felt for the first time that working with a clean conscience is not something that suffices. One also has to think how no blame could be attributed to oneself. I wonder if Judges will be sentenced when their judgement is overturned by higher courts due to any discrepancy, police officers will be charged for a crime if accused is let free for improper investigation and lawmakers would be booked if a law turns out to be wrong in hindsight.  

Today, whenever there is a grey area in decision making, I dread deciding on either side. Protecting myself may also matter equally than protecting interest of common man. Maybe I should just push the files and hide behind committees and committees. My conscience doesn’t agree, and for one person questioning bureaucrats, I see scores of helpless common men who look at us with hopeful eyes. I love my work and my country too much to be affected by Mr Gupta’s fate but it has left a bad taste in my mouth. Maybe I will continue to work as I did all these years and just ask future generations not to opt for this job.

The talisman to be personally honest and do what one believes is right, failed Mr Gupta. In a way, we failed him too. Corrupt always had a motive in doing what they want but for us there is nothing more than reputation. It may not be worth it to spend years of your life fighting in courts for that.

You do not know me but I am sad. Just being honest doesn’t suffice anymore and today there is a threat to our tribe. The irony is it does not come from the corrupt, but from crusaders of honesty who are out to get as many executions as they can!