IAS Chronicles: You know you have become a Pakka Sahib when....

1. You are obsessed with ‘Sir’. The world is divided in two kinds of people, those whom you address as Sir and others by whom you are Sir’ed. You start responding less when called by your name and more when addressed as ‘Sir’. The word ‘yes’ for seniors is replaced by Sir and you are often heard talking to them on mobile Sir.....Sir.....Sir, Sir........Sir.

2. You spend half your time worrying about seniority. There are people who are senior to you and people who aren’t, and till you figure that out you never rest easy. You find different ways to decide seniority amongst different services, jobs and you find it difficult to remember names but you can smell seniority.

3. Your name gets IAS a permanent suffix and people address you as Mr XY, IAS. You start having an identity crisis without this suffix. Officers begin to write so in their wedding cards and this suffix remains loyal even in your obituary.

4. Your attention span reduces to two minutes and anything that takes more is not worth your time. By the end of the day, you have solved thousands of problems with devoting an average of one minute to each.

5. You do a lot of work but find it difficult to explain what your job is. As an IAS officer you are supposed to do anything under the sun and your kids always wonder what keeps you busy all the time.
6. You have seen best and worst of places, you have seen best and worst of people and basically you have seen so much in a short time, you become inert/immune to all around.

7. Your formal persona takes over your normal self and you find it hard to laugh freely or cry aloud. Your officer like qualities becomes your routine behaviour and it is difficult for anyone to spot you laugh or cry.

8. You stop opening the door of your car and wait for the chauffeur to open it all the time. It is unbecoming of an officer when you open the door of the car yourself. You also become incapable of sitting anywhere other than diagonally opposite to the driver and this arrangement can never be compromised.

9. You may do weights in the gym but in office, you can never be seen even carrying a diary. A peon will always accompany carrying your stuff and it is beyond the dignity of an officer to have anything in her/his hands. You also become obsessed about sitting on Chair covered by a towel and no officer worth their place in hierarchy can dare not to have one.

10. When you are alone, you find it difficult to cross even roads. You risk being run over by motor cars because you are in the habit of traffic being stopped by security whenever you cross the road.

11. You find it difficult to make new friends and your haughty demeanour keeps strangers at bay. You are always worried with whom you socialise and your reputation is more fragile than would be bride.

12. You start claiming free passes like your birthright and whenever you go for a play or concert, you spend most of your time in searching who could manage a better pass.

13. Everybody knows all the latest gossips about all around about their personal and professional lives and you have enough real/imaginary material to write a sleazy novel on any officer’s life.

14. In any official parties, right to speak is bestowed as per seniority and pearls of wisdom flow unidirectional towards the juniors. Most of the monologues start like ‘When I was posted at such and such place.....’ and you are doomed to hear this story for the nth time. As you progress in hierarchy, you also find yourself uttering ‘When I was posted at...’

PS: Slowly but steadily, the breed of Pakka Sahibs is becoming endangered but if you spot most these qualities in any person including myself, you know you have seen one ;)

Crossroads

Let the PM wait; let the Bharat Darshan Chronicles wait. And let every agenda on my blog’s list wait. At present I just want to be myself. This is the time when I wish to sit and watch things passing by…… on the lanes of memory.

Before you are more perplexed by my incoherent musings, I must tell you the cause. My stint in Mussoorie is over. It was more that 9 months of LBSNAA, it was more than 9 months of ‘training’; and wasn’t it yesterday that I was preparing to go there.

The life there was good, the life there was life. I never noticed that I liked it, and I never noticed I was attached. But today I miss it all.

I miss you my friends when I loved you. I miss that too when I hated you all. Perhaps I never cared for you; or perhaps I was too shy to admit so. There were lives made, there were lives pined for. And I was honored, every time you shared that small secret with me.

Lest I forget; though I never will; I admit that I loved that coffee machine, I loved that lounge. And lest I forget; though I never will; I loved those two friends too, whom I pierced from my bouts of wise cracks.

There are things that stay there, as we move on in life; the clouds, the cold, the mountains and the ‘exhilarating’ horse riding (pun intended only for one who will get it). And now we will see the heat of the districts.

Coming out from this poetry mode, I must also tell you that I am going to do my district training in Bankura district of West Bengal. So if you see the inactivity on my blog, blame it on poor internet connectivity in interior districts.

Turbulence in life will also increase from the event that’s going to be in July. I know the consequences of using the word turbulence knowing that she will read this sooner or later, but can’t resist my humor though. I am getting married then.

Bharat Darshan Chronicles-III

This is third part of the Bharat Darshan series. If you are a new visitor, you may read the first and second parts by clicking the hyperlinks.

We traveled from Dantewada to Vishakhapatnam by road. The landscape of the region is marvelous spreading across Chattisgarh, Orrisa and Andhra Pradesh. The entire road runs along Eastern Ghats.

The path had ideal setting of sceneries we used to draw as a child. There were beautiful mountains and the river running across them. Then there was that colorful sky at the sunset with various shades and the red ball of fire vanishing in the horizon. There also were small scattered hamlets that dissolved in the landscape as twinkling lights along with sunset.

We reached Vishakhapatnam at around nine at night. Our attachment was with the Eastern Naval Command. A submariner had come to receive us. He introduced himself along with his rank and that’s when we realized that we should have known the hierarchy of the armed forces. Our predicament was to continue for next few days. We were taken to a Navy guest house named ‘Kremlin’, signifying our long defense ties with Russia. Our rooms were in no way less than any good hotel. After dumping our luggage, we rushed to the Mess, to have our dinner. A Mess in armed forces is quite different in many ways.

The atmosphere is formal with a proper dress code. You go there and sit with a stern face and the rest of the job shall be done by the waiters. A plate will appear in front of you along with other items. You try hard not make any noise while eating with the fork and knife. After that you close your plate by putting the fork and spoon parallel and the waiter will ensure he picks it from the right direction. Those three days of ‘formal dining’ were the most stressful part of our attachment.

Next day our Navy attachment officially began with a visit to Maritime Warfare center. There sailors are taught, how to control a ship with the help of computer aided simulations. War games are prepared and trainees learn to use the controls of the ship. After this we went to visit a warship INS Ranjit. The captain of the ship was the only serving Mahavir Chakra winner in Navy. He explained us about defense equipments, materials bought from Russia and the difference from their American counterparts.

Here I have a good news for ladies. Any lady who goes on a warship receives a salute from the officer in command. The reason is that they treat ship as a lady, so it is a token of respect. And then came the visit that we can never forget; the visit to submarine INS Sindhudhwaj.

The difficult life that submariners live has to be seen to be believed. A person cannot stand erect in a submarine. When it ventures out in the sea, the submariners get a ration of one mug water a day to do all their activities. They have no contact with the outer world and no one other than the captain knows where they are, how long the operation shall continue and what is happening in the outside world. Also in case of an accident or attack, the chances of survival are slim.

In the evening we had an interaction with the Chief of the command, a Rear Admiral. He briefed us about the importance of Navy in general and operations of Eastern command in particular. He explained us how Navy is a strategic force which has an important role in the present geopolitical scenario. He also told us about the continuous struggle of Navy to get a bigger share in the defense budget. The official schedule had no plan of taking us out into the sea but we requested him for that and he agreed. The day after was going to be in the sea, on a warship INS Kripan.

Our sea journey started early in the morning. We were welcomed by the captain and the entire crew. There we came to know that in the night at two, they had returned from a military exercise. They had been in the sea for last two months and now they were going to have rest. But then they were asked to take us into the sea. I was really impressed by their cheerfulness in entertaining the forced guests, i.e. IAS probationers.

The weather was good and it was amazing to feel the breeze on the deck Even walking was difficult due to wind but we tried to emulate the Titanic pose. We were treated royally on the ship with juices and shakes being served on the deck After sometime the captain gave a go ahead to the exercises that were simultaneously being planned.

A ship called INS Sukanya came along and then both ships exchanged man and material by rope. They sent us ‘Idlis’ while our ship sent a bag of sweets. Then men were exchanged via rope connecting the two ships. After that an IAF chopper landed on the moving ship and then flew back. Firing on a target was also practiced and there I fired the first machine gun of my life. The day spent on the ship was one of the best experiences of Bharat Darshan.

That day we came back late. In the evening some of us went to the beach. Staring the raw form of nature evokes strange feelings and the philosophical questions come gushing back to me, what is life, what is my aim, and what I want to do. Many times the truth of life is equally simple and complex. When I look back, I feel that everything in life just happens and we are only spectators.

Next day we went to see the ‘Satavahanas’ that was training school for submariners. The training there is more difficult than life in the submarine. And after every three years, everyone has to come back and go through the training again. In the afternoon we had a debriefing session with the Chief of Staff, Admin. It was more of a general ‘Gyan session’. He shared his philosophy of life. Interestingly he criticized the hierarchy of civil services, an element that was more pervasive in armed forces. He told us an interesting story.

A young IAS was newly posted as an SDM in a district. The DM called him for a meeting that was for discussing the arrangements of marriage of his daughter. The young officer had no clue so he took his head clerk along with him for this meeting. The DM asked how many sweets should be present in the wedding. The head clerk prompted the SDM to say that five kinds of sweets will be good.

After the marriage, our SDM received a call from the DM thanking him for the arrangements of sweets. When the SDM inquired from his head clerk how arrangements were made and from which fund the money came, he replied “Sir, didn’t you pass an order for spraying insecticides in the villages. The insecticides have been ‘perfectly’ sprayed and that is where the money came from”.

Well, I sincerely pray that we don’t end up spraying insecticides in such a fashion. Our official Navy attachment ended with this. For most of us, this was the first close interaction with armed forces. I was inspired by the great work they are doing for the nation work and I wish that we, as civil servants are able to emulate it.

Next day we had to move for Rajamundry, and then to Sringarei coalfields for our public sector attachment

LBSNAA TIMES

Today I will tell you the secret of successful blogging, if you do not have anything to write, write anything. In other words I want to say that I have nothing specific to write so I will write LBSNAA times….


Disappointment galores:

The report of Pay commission is out and media got it completely wrong, we have no such desire of jumping from the roof. Do you remember bold headlines, 40% hike for babus, of yes a good 40%. But did anyone forget to mention, hike is only in the basic pay. The real hike may not be more than four thousand rupees a month and the recommendations shall stay for next ten years. There is a feeling that in government, honesty is penalized. Previously we were having peanuts, now the honorable pay commission may enable us to eat groundnuts, indeed a qualitative improvement!

By the way, I just love news channels screaming, Holi bonanza for babus, showing money raining in offices and Newspapers asking SMS’s from their worthy readers if any hike in salary for civil servants justified. For a long time, I was missing a good comedy show.


A Learning Experience:

We are learning horse riding and I must tell you, horse riding is a real learning experience. By just sitting on horseback we learn to worship the person who invented the automobiles. We never even felt before how comfortable it was to enter a car, have a smooth ride and stop it as per our wish. Horses are ‘almost’ the same, just a few probability issues here and there.

And trust me horses are real fun too. It is funny to see, yes see (and not feel) a probationer kissing the ground when horse revolts thinking how can LBSNAA make a donkey ride a horse.


Inservice Jokes:

An auditor from Indian Audit and Accounts Service (IAAS) audits an IAS and tells him that his working style conforms to the full form of his service, IAS= I am Safe. The IAS replies that you too exhibit the traits of your service, IAAS= I am absolutely safe.

What do you call the mess of Intelligence Bureau; An Intelligence Mess.

My Great Discovery:

Serendipity is the effect by which one accidentally discovers something fortunate. During Bharat Darshan we were having a lecture by a private organization. While explaining about Corporate Social Resposibilty, they elaborately told us how much they have done for the differently abled kids and they also added that they have opened many 'mentally retarded schools'. Oh I shouted Eureca!

I discovered the truth why I write such stupid blogs and moreover you read it. All of us studied in mentally retarded schools which told us what is right rather than allowing us to discover the truth. By the way, professional academies are not very different!

Bharat Darshan Chronicles-II

This is in continuation to the first article on Bharat Darshan. If you have not read it, you may see it here.

Early in the morning we started for Kirandool block. It is two hours drive from Dantewada. The BDO of the block had come to pick us up and we were going to stay in the government quarter allotted to the BDO. He himself stayed in another town which was good for the education of his kids.

The schedule for the day was to visit some nearby villages. The BDO decided that first he will take us for lunch which was organized on a Waterfall known as 'Phoolpada'. I was amazed by the beauty of the waterfall and its surroundings. Some years back it used to be a favorite picnic spot for the tourists but today hardly anyone went there as the region was badly naxal infested.

The arrangement of our lunch was done by men from a nearby village. They had carried with them utensils, cooking material, vegetables etc inside that dense forest. Lunch arrangements for four of us had required not less than forty people!

There I interacted with the Sarpanch of the village. He was illiterate, naïve and knew nothing about the government schemes. But he told me about the reasons for rise of Naxals, also called as ‘Andarwale’ in the region. I was also not aware that Dantewada has been declared as the capital of the red corridor by the Naxals.

Incidentally I also discovered an interesting fact there. Tribals still hold their arrows with forefinger and middle finger and they never use their thumbs. Does that remind you of Eklavya’s story?

After having our lunch, we went to visit the village. From a long distance we were welcomed by a Gaur dance party which escorted us into the village dancing and our entry became almost like a procession.

Tribal villages are divided into small ‘Padas’. Not more than six seven houses are clustered in a Pada and the next Pada can be half a kilometer away. This causes a big burden on the administration in providing electricity, water supply and roads.

Also, people live in joint families and they never go for division of agricultural land. They still have big plots of lands registered in names of their ancestors deceased long ago. This causes a big problem in providing them the government benefits as majority of them are designed for small and marginal farmers.

We came to our quarter in the late evening. On TV, news was being flashed that a police station in a nearby district has been attacked by the naxals. The peon staying with us consoled that naxals ‘generally’ do not attack civil servants, only police is their target.

We were slightly worried that night and our worries got magnified by the gunshots we heard in the late night. You might like to know that we were in a house whose front doors even could not be bolted due to misalignment. I forced myself to sleep but I remember having restless dreams. Early in the morning we called the SP who told us that everything was all right. The gunshots were fired by the police itself to check their preparedness.

Next day, we went to visit a local ‘Haat’ or the markets organized weekly which were marked by heavy police presence. There are two things that shall always be present in a Haat. One is the traditional cock fight. Blades are tied on the nails of the cock and the winner cock bleeds its opponent to death. A considerable amount of money is gambled on such fights.

Second is the ‘Sulfi drink’ or the ‘Bastar beer’. This is local booze made from the Sulfi tree found in the region. Enjoyment of life is a major component of tribal society and social drinking is also a part of it. Both men and women consume liquor and in the late afternoon many of them can be seen drunk.

They have many customs which we may not be looked favorably in ‘cultured’ society. During spring season, unmarried boys and girls go in the forest to collect forest produce. In the night they sing, dance and booze in the forest and spend the night there itself. It is also a method of finding one’s spouse.

Tribals live a contended life. They are happy with their lives and many times they do not like the externally enforced ‘development’. They also do not want to work hard for improving their lives. I still wonder what is important in life; to be happy or to be ‘developed’.

We also interacted with other government officials posted in the region. They have their own set of problems. A doctor told us that naxals coerce them to treat their wounded members. After that police harasses them for helping the naxals. Police also at times pressurizes them to issue fake postmortem reports when they have not even seen the dead bodies. And then we wonder sitting in cities why no doctor is ready to serve in interior areas.

Two days passed away safely in the block. We had to see the same ‘Gaur dance’ three times, drink ‘Sulfis’ everywhere and take petitions for electricity, hand pumps and government benefits. The initial enthusiasm was waning away and it was becoming difficult to maintain the same zeal. Next day we came back to the NMDC guest house. A major thing in the area that was left till now was to see a ‘Salwa Judum’ camp.

Literally Salwa Judum means meeting for peace. When Naxalism was deeply entrenched, naxals started targeting innocent villagers in order to force them for joining the naxal movement. They also started imposing heavy levies on the traders. This created resentment among the general public.

In one Haat, people decided to march towards interior villages and convince the villagers to quit naxalism. When a big crowd entered the village, naxals were not able to frighten them away. This became a method and it caused a sharp decline in the cadre strength of naxals.

They retaliated by brutally killing innocent villages whom they suspected to be Judum members. Exodus of villagers started from the villages towards the cities.Thousands came abandoning entire villages and Sulwa Judum camps were set up.

So next day we went to visit Dornapal camp. Its population is more than 17000, which is many times the original Dornapal village. It looks like any other city slum with narrow lanes, bad sewage system and dense population. But I must say that administration is taking good care of them considering their scarce resources.

Government has given support to many for building houses. Ration is provided to every family free of cost. There are Aanganwadis, primary schools and ration shops. And these families keep waiting for the time when they will be able to go back again to their homes.

The strategy of Sulwa Judum has always been controversial. But one thing is certain. The tribal way of life is completely changed in the camps. Many houses have got electricity connection, TV’s and their clothing now is similar to the urbanized people. I doubt if anyone in camps shall ever go back. The question remains that, is changing the way of life of tribals an affordable price in fight against naxalism.

Our official assignments were over and the plan for the day after was to visit the Kanger Valley National Park. The park is famous for the ‘Gandak’ limestone caves. Dripping water causes formation of protruding limestone structures. It is completely dark inside and we had to carry many torches and a horde of guides with us. Then we went to the Tirathgarh waterfalls where steps have been made by the falling water. Chattisgarh has good potential for tourism and this part had considerable presence of tourists as effect of naxalism was less in the region.

In the evening we met the collector, briefed him about our observations and thanked him for making our stay comfortable there. Next day early in the morning we went to the famous ‘Danteshwari Devi’ temple. From there we started our journey to Vishakhapatnam, where we were going to have our Navy Attachment. In the evening when we were reaching Vishakhapatnam, we got the news that Jail has been broken in Dantewada and more than 300 naxals have escaped!

Bharat Darshan Chronicles-I

As promised earlier, I shall share with you all my experiences of Bharat Darshan. They will be long, they may be boring….. but trust me they will tell you about ‘Bharat’; which may be different from your perception of India. To minimise the boredom, I shall keep the chronicles in small episodes.

With the beginning of December, the cold was getting worse in Mussoorrie. Foundation course had just ended and those not into IAS had gone to their respective academies. LBSNAA wore a deserted look and we all who remained here wanted a desperate change. So we were happy to pack our bags and move on to Bharat Darshan.

Bharat Darshan Tour, alternatively known as the Winter Study Tour is an integral part of IAS training. It is an eight week tour of almost entire India starting from first week of December. The course handbook describes its purpose as “to expose officer trainees to a wide range of organizations and situations they are going to run into during their careers and also give them a glimpse of the diversity of our cultural heritage.”

Our journey began on 8rth Dec. The group had 11 members with one lady officer. Our first destination was Dantewada, the heartland of Naxalism where we had our tribal attachment. We started by a bus from the academy to Ambala and from there we took Chattisgrah Express to Raipur.

The entire journey was more than 48 hours long. I chatted with the group, started reading ‘A Suitable Boy’ by Vikram Seth, sat idle, walked in the train and tried to kill the long idle hours. I sat at the window for hours looking outside. Civilizations came and went; lone lights twinkled at the far ends and fields made way for the cities. At times the monotony was broken by the rivers; and also by the the sound of train passing over a steel bridge. Looking outside the window was a serene bliss and when I look back, the path was more beautiful than the destination. Perhaps the same holds for life too.

We reached Raipur station on 10th morning. And that was the place where realization came that we are into a premier service. Five Boleros had come to pick us up, there was a horde of local officials present and a meticulous arrangement was in place to welcome us. From the station we proceeded to the newly built State Transit House.

Raipur is a mid sized city, still very much different from the densely populated cities of north India. Roads do not qualify for being of the capital of a state. Big construction works are visible and the State Guest house was also recently made. A small surprise was waiting for us. Dantewada was still eight hours away and these Boleros were meant to carry us there.

We started within an hour as it was not advisable to get late in reaching Dantewada. The countryside of Chattisgarh is full of forest cover. Teakwood is abundantly present along with other dense vegetation. After half the journey when we passed a district called Jagdalpur, there was a noticeable difference in infrastructure. Roads became narrower, they were in bad shape and the signals of my Reliance mobile went away. There was unfinished work going on at many places and the number of police pickets increased. Incidentally, the naxals heartland had just begun.

It was quite late when we reached Dantewada and we were taken to an NMDC guest house. I was surprised to see a public sector maintaining such a good guest house. The rooms had all the modern facilities and the staff was very cordial. Most of them were Malayalis and the guest house had the entire staff from Indian Coffee House. Next day our tribal attachment had to formally begin by a presentation by the DM and SP.

On the way to collectorate, a small program was arranged for us in a village. We were traditionally welcomed by flowers and garlands and the local villagers presented the traditional ‘Gaur dance’ for us. The dance was performed by more than thirty men and women with all the paraphernalia like big drums and head-gears having Bison horns. We also met some orphan physically handicapped children who were looked after in a nearby ‘Ashram’. The Ashram system in Chattisgarh is a kind of boarding school. Books, dresses and food are provided there and children go to their houses once in a fortnight.

We were touched by the elaborate arrangements done and the respect shown to us. We could not understand why they are taking so much pain for entertaining us. We were just probationers and we could have done nothing for them even if we wanted to. But then we realized, they did not want anything from us. It was due to the respect that IAS still commands. The dancers were elated when we took their drums and headgears and had a photograph with them. Our appreciation of the work that Ashram was doing for the orphans was good enough to bring a smile on their face. There are times when one feels good to be in service, and this was certainly one of them.

The meeting with the DM and SP turned out to be an eye opener. We came to know about the gravity of situation in Dantewada. DM and SP were not using government vehicles due to the frequent landmines. Most of the policemen were in civil dress. The entire district is in a complete war like situation and battle lines are clearly drawn. And the administration is fighting a real war when the region is not even declared as ‘disturbed’.

The big deal about declaring a region as ‘disturbed’ is that special schemes can be adopted there. For e.g. there is 50% lack of administrative staff but no incentives can be provided to those working in the interior areas as it would be against general financial rules. If shoes have to be procured for the policemen, it will take the normal hierarchical chain where a file may have to pass through twenty tables, and a small query at any level may send it downwards tracing the same path.

Before visiting there we all knew that Naxalism is a socio economic problem. The simple solution is, develop the region and Naxalism will vanish. But we were wrong. Reasons of emergence of Naxalism are socio economic, but once it finds its roots, it becomes a law and order problem. Why will Naxals allow development if it can threaten their own existence. Hence in the interior villages, there are no schools, no connectivity, no electricity and in short no government. In case you want to know what is ‘interior’; today also there are police stations where it takes 72 hours for any outside help to reach!

Next day we had to move to interior areas, live there for three days and understand the ground situation. No security cover was given to us as it could have invited trouble. Our drivers told us that naxals must have by now come to know by now that we were going to visit their terrain. To tell you the truth, we were all little scared!

The chronicle shall continue. I have many more things to tell, so keep coming back.

Why I became a Civil Servant?

This article by cosmic voices has prompted me to write my answer to “Why I became a civil servant?” The reasons are very much the same as mentioned there but I could not resist imparting my wisdom on this vital subject.

There are questions like what is truth, what is morality, what is right. And then there is Dholpur House’s (UPSC Office) variant of these, “Why you want to become a civil servant?” Somehow I could escape/fool/convince board members about my reason there and now I can calmly blog the truth.

My answer is, I had nothing else to do.

Not convinced, OK, I shall elaborate. I come from middle, middle class and my parents are in government service. I knew what they knew, what the township in which we lived knew. My license to success in this world was education. And what is the biggest success one can achieve through education. You got it right, civil services. I wanted the biggest TV, smartest car, largest house, the most beautiful girl in the town, and along with all of them, the best job.

Some of you might not be very happy about my platonic reasons. Till now I have given reasons that came in my adolescence. Where was the zeal to do something for the country, where was the motivation from inside to do what I really wanted to do, where were the ‘more mature’ reasons. I shall give them too.

I hated the slow way in which the clerk in a government office did his work. I could never forget the nurse in the government hospital that misbehaved with the patients. I turned my eyes from the horde of beggars on the traffic signal as if they do not even exist. And then, adrenalin gushed in me too when I watched Rang De Basanti.

After all such incidents, I heard a voice inside me, do something about it. The answer available was, become a civil servant. In fact as I grew, I could satisfy all my ambitions by dreaming to become a civil servant. I wanted to have a social status, a secure future and a challenging work. I also wanted to make my parents feel proud. Whenever I had an ambition, I asked myself, “Will it be satisfied if I became a civil servant?” The answer was always yes.

As I grew, it became an obsession and I had to achieve it. No other service could have offered me even half of these. The bug of becoming an IAS entered in the childhood and I had no escape.

The reasons may sound selfish, but in my philosophy of life, everything has to be done in one’s own self interest. I help somebody not because of my kindness, but because I feel good after that. I would like to work for my country not because one should work for his country, but because ‘I’ shall feel happy after doing that. I never believed or unfortunately could not have any 'benevolent' reasons.

I do not know if what I was able to state the truth, or if I even know the truth. That is why I said, this question is a variant of all those philosophical questions which do have ‘right’ answers. Everyone has to seek his/her own definitions. I even doubt if UPSC members are really serious when they ask “Why you want to become a civil servant?”

When all my ‘selfish’ goals are satisfied in this service, and I knew no other alternatives, tell me am I not correct when I say, I had nothing else to do!

Civil Services: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

The charm of civil services has always been an enigma. It is struggling hard to maintain its shine especially after the waves of LPG but still it attract lakhs who ferociously compete for a handful of seats. People predict its doom yet surveys rate it as the most preferred choice of youngsters.

In order to understand why all this happens let us make a balance sheet, outlining its pros and cons. Keeping the pros for the later part, the bad news first.

The foremost disadvantage of civil services is the low salary salary, both in absolute and relative terms. A civil servant may be drawing one fourth salary compared to his peers in the private sector. It may be difficult for an honest civil servant to send his/her kids in a public school, buy a car in the initial years, spend holidays abroad or construct a home. After some years of idealism, reality sets in and then the lack of money pinches hard.

Another thing is the cadre than can be allotted. Suppose one worked hard, invested years, resources; got selected and then got a ‘bad cadre’. There are cadres which may be thousands miles away from his/her home, where a parallel government is running and due to lack of manpower a civil servant will have to work at all levels of hierarchy. Remember, this shall be his/her cadre for life.

Now about tenures, 90% IAS officers spend less than a year on any post. They are shuffled like cards at the slightest of whims of the politicians. This is also an instrument of ‘disciplining’ the civil servants. A DM who is looking after a population of half a crore may be shunted to Archives department having not even an office; and the person may not even know the reason for same.

Then there is the issue of utility of merit. Everyone wants his good work to be appreciated. But Government is like lord Shiva; jo kare uska bhi bhala, jo na kare uska bhi bhala. So irrespective of whether you work or not, system will throw you up.

Adding to all this, a person has to invest a lot to clear the exam. It is highly unpredictable exam with a degree of arbitrariness. A person will never get selected without studying, but even if you study, chances are that you may fail. What is left for a failed thirty year old guy who has wasted four five years in the preparations.

Last but not the least, the powers of civil servants are declining. The commanding heights of the economy are now in the hands of private sector. Bureaucrats no longer enjoy the glory of License Permit Raj. So what shall be the future of services? Will they only a weak image of their former self in the coming times? Is it really worth it to enter the bureaucracy.

Picture is gloomy. But there is a brighter side too, and aspects that make civil services what it is.


It is a career of diversity. Once a CA was asked why he entered IAS when he could have worked for any major company. His answer was he could have worked for ICICI, then could have moved to Deutche Bank, then perhaps to World Bank at much higher pay scales. But till he retires, he would be doing the same work. What if the challenge left in such a job? In civil services every day and every post is a new challenge and a new learning opportunity.

And love it or hate it, stability in civil services is a big plus point. Let me take my own example. I wanted to live life on my own terms, do what I want to do and not because it will increase my ‘market value’. I want to be relaxed from any undue pressure of continuously competing throughout my life in the rat race. I now have an assured career. Competition is good but its excess may take a heavy toll on life.

Any post in civil services may be of much greater value than in private sector. Only a handful may rise to become a CEO in private sector but nearly all IAS will manage a public sector unit in their thirties. In terms of importance of work too, civil services score fairly well. A person may sell the sixth brand of toothpaste much more than his fourth brand, but the satisfaction he gets may not compete with that of a civil servant who has successfully managed relief work during a cyclone.

Another intangible but still a very important thing is the social respect a civil servant commands. In India this may not be matched by any other service. I do not know what future in services have in store for me. But whenever my parents tell anyone that their son is an IAS, they have a glow in their eyes. Leaving other things apart, this alone is a reason sufficient for me to choose civil services as a career.

And then the biggest thing, here one can really work for the people. Most civil servants, at least when they come in service, have the passion of creating a difference; and many succeed in doing that. I once heard an election commissioner who ensured free and fair UP elections. There was a village which had never voted before because of terror of dominant groups and when he ensured that they fearlessly vote in elections, he got all the satisfaction of his life. Hearing him, I realized I had made a right choice.

Anyways emotions apart, both pros and cons are pretty strong. Before deciding to enter civil services, one should be very clear in his/her mind what is he/she going to get. The reality may be pretty different from the perceptions. For seeing more, have a look at this .

It’s a path that demands big sacrifices; and has its own way of giving rewards too!

PS: My Bharat Darshan starts on 8th Dec and will last till mid Feb. So I will be almost offline during the period and my blog may hibernate. But, I will be back :)

In Which I Played the Host

Education teaches you many laws of life and one is the great Murphy’s law; if a thing can go wrong, it certainly will. So in the penultimate week at LBSNAA, the thing dreaded by officer trainees happened to me. I was made the escort officer of a visiting guest faculty.

To brief you a little about that, most of the lectures at LBSNAA are taken by specialist guest faculties who come from all over. One (unfortunate) officer trainee is made his escort officer who has to be his ‘direct host’ for his entire stay.

Apart from general duties of an escort like entertaining the kids of the guest and arranging the flavor of ice cream liked by his wife, a specific one is introduce him to the students and ensure that his lecture goes well. Introduction is a euphemism for eulogizing the guest, and going to the extent of proving that he is the most talented man born on the earth.

As a responsible man, I decided to take the challenge head on. The biggest hurdle for me was to save my guest from apathetic (read hostile) audience in an auditorium that has more than three hundred (yawning, sleeping, murmuring) students, and a challenge greater than that was to give a good impression of the academy to the guest after all this.

All this did not stop there. My guest was a young professor, enthusiastic about his field and was on his first visit to the academy. This meant that he had high hopes from the academic brilliance of civil servants and a desire to have an intellectual discussion with them.

The guest was friendly and during our informal chat before the lecture, I quietly mentioned the hectic schedule of the academy, hard physical training that we had to undergo and general lack of sleep amongst the officer trainees. With a smile I mentioned that he should not be surprised in he finds ‘some’ ( a gross misrepresentation) students sleeping.

The lecture began. Slowly ‘some’ started growing and soon I could hear soft snoring sounds. Before things grew out of hand, I requested my guest to allow switching off some lights so that his presentation becomes visible to the students sitting at the back. This proved fairly successful and after that there was no major issue. People anonymously slept and my guest went on.

When the lecture got finished, my guest invited questions. That is the rarest thing to get from a sleeping, uninterested audience but I had anticipated this. On promise of a treat, some of friends had agreed to ask questions. The guest was fairly happy by the level of their intellect and the interest his lecture had generated.

I gave a brief thanks speech and the session ended. I could not have asked for more. The mission was complete. As a courtesy, I requested my guest to join us for lunch.

I sat on a table having already two officer trainees.

“Sir this is Vaneet, and he is Venkat” : I said
“ Hello Vaneet, hello Venkat” : my guest was very courteous to them

Hellos got exchanged and then it all started. Venkat who was sitting quiet till now started talking.

“AS, is he your friend?”: I prayed that he shuts up his mouth soon.

“Is he your relative?” He enquired again.

I was completely taken aback but my guest replied “I was the one who took your two hour lecture in the morning”. I had nothing much to say.

After that I deliberately avoided discussing interest of officer trainees in lectures. My guest was a nice human being and as far as I know, he carried a 'almost' good impression of the academy.

Moral of the story is Murpy's law is indeed true.

PS: As in all other posts, this one too has a good content of my imagination. So please do not consider it to be literally true.

All (Good) Things Come to an End

So what is coming to an end? My foundation course (FC) at LBSNAA.

The truth is even if I crib, I enjoyed it and FC became a part of my life. I will miss seeing 300 faces, getting up at 5 AM, working late till night, enjoying the batch gossips and making new friends. I do not know what the reason of my nostalgia is when there are still 20 days to go. Perhaps if on a Deepawali morning, you are alone and you know that in coming days this loneliness will increase, you can only feel sad.

Today I will tell you the heights of the FC. If you have been a regular reader of my blog, you may know about many of them. But I have never written a comprehensive blog devoted exclusively to entire LBSNAA activities, so here it is.

TREK: It all begins with the trek, a nine day affair, when you are left on mountains in a group of around twenty. It is a nerve testing experience. There you discover and rediscover your limits, make some really good friends or rather ever lasting relationship and see the difficult side of life. Mountains reveal many truths and make you humble; one realizes that his life, egos, ambitions etc are too small in this game of nature.

VILLAGE VISIT: The first place where you are treated as an officer; where you get to know what real India is. In a group of around six, we are sent to distant backward villages. Probationers live in the village itself and there they discover that rays of India’s shining are yet to reach many places. They realize that task ahead for a civil servant is really demanding; but yes if they work with empathy, they can make a difference.

FETE: In a team of nearly ten, we manage a shop, just like the school kids do in school fete. The shop that earns the maximum profit becomes the winner. There is this jail where you can send anyone by paying a token money, there is that music on demand, there are usual pani puris, fancy dresses and what not. And this time we also got the real Bond, Ruskin Bond. Welcome back to the school days.

INDIA DAY: The batch is divided into four zones, region wise. Each zone presents its culture, its cuisines, its dances for an entire day. Everyone gets dressed in his traditional attire. That is the time when you know how much you have missed by not learning classical music, by not knowing any dance form etc. And that is also the time one discovers why India has unity in diversity.

There are many other things a FC too. There are cultural nights by professionals. You listen to the classical Ghazals and realize that they are beautiful; you see your first Odissi performance and cannot help appreciating the dance. There are also regular physical exercises and I am told this becomes a habit and reason of good health of many civil servants.

To avoid giving you a skewed picture, the highs of the FC are evenly balanced by over demanding discipline, lullabying lectures, loaded academics, occasional show cause notices, memos, castigations etc.

But everyone tells me, FC remains the best (or the most nostalgic) part of a civil servant’s career.

To end it on a positive note, see the most popular joke here.

There is a queue of dead people and god is sending them to heaven and hell by seeing their life records. An officer trainee from LBSNAA comes there is his suit, tie, and lapel card etc. The god without even seeing any of his records sends him to heaven. People protest. They shout how only being from the academy qualifies him for heaven.

God replies: But he has already been through hell at LBSNAA!

Reality Bytes: India Revisited

What is your caste?

Within minutes of landing in the village, I faced this question and I was almost shocked. This was my first interaction with real India. So I am back from my village tour, somewhat wiser about India, little more curious about Bharat.

The village we went to was Mehandwas, in Tonk district of Rajasthan. In a way it was somewhat a developed village. It was on the national highway, so definite signs of development were present. There was eight hour electricity supply, a primary health center, four schools, many motor cycles and innumerable mobiles present in the village.

We received a royal welcome there. In fact their hospitability touched our hearts. Everyone wanted to meet us. I do not know if they trusted us but they liked that someone from government was hearing their woes. There was that old lady who took us to her house to show how bad road to her house was. Then there was that SC sarpanch who was so happy because we ate at his house against the wishes of elites of the village.

You must have guessed by now that caste was the most dominant factor in the village. And I found the caste system exactly in the way I felt was extinct in India. The village habitations were divided in caste clusters, one of Yadavas, one of Brahmins, another of Bairavas etc. And if you feel that this is it, you are mistaken.

Untouchables lived outside the village and they were treated different from schedule castes. In fact schedule castes treated themselves to be much higher than untouchables. The untouchable still had to go to the city for haircut as the village barber refused to touch them. In roadside hotels they were served tea in disposable cups!

A heartening thing to discover was that there was complete communal harmony in the village. There was no history of any communal clash. The authorities said that this is the case in nearly all villages in India. This is a big thing that urban India has to learn from its villages.

Now being a government servant, I should also talk about the government schemes. There was a great enthusiasm for National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS). In fact that has made Panchayats all the more meaningful. The second scheme doing wonders is Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. Now a lot of money is being pumped in mid day meal, school infrastructure and that is showing. In case you have no idea, 65000 teachers have been recruited in Rajasthan alone in last one year!

So what did we do? We tried to convince the villages that they have to be an agent in their developments. Other people can come and help them but they ultimately have to be the primary drivers. People looked to panchayat and government even for simple things. And you know what; most of the villagers were convinced.

If you want to know our concrete achievement, a lady member of our group shook the entire district administration to get a Below Poverty Line card of a widow made. Then there was this overseeing committee for education of panchayat which was meant to check teachers absenteeism, quality of educations etc. We tried to give a new birth to it as most villages complained about the quality of education in schools.

I do not say that we changed the face of that village; neither have we learned a lot. But yes, we felt that being in our jobs; we can really make difference. And trust me, even the feeling of getting just 1 BPL card made for a deserving widow is beyond words!

PS: I will write in detail about this and what I feel can be done about village development. I also have to tell what was my score in perceptions about village in last post. But in many devious ways, LBSNAA is keeping me too busy these days.

Off to Bharat

My next blog shall come after ten days. The reason is that we are going to see the real India, that is its villages. I shall be going to a village in Tonk district, Rajasthan.

It is not that I have never seen a village. My grandparents lived in a village and I used to go there every year. But this time it shall be different. We will try to understand functioning of development programs, caste dynamics, delivery of services etc.

Before going there I wish to put what I expect a village to be like. It would be fun to see after coming back if all this is true.

1. The caste will be a dominant factor in village.
2. Since the village is in Rajasthan, there will be problem of water.
3. Women will be in Purdah and more backward than males.
4. The school teacher must not be coming regularly.
5. The actual functioning and statistics on paper of development programs will be different.

Well these are only my naive perceptions. I will be happy if the village has mobile signals. Not because my mobile will be functioning, but that shall be a sign of perculation of development. Anyways I have to rush now.

Wait for the details of ‘Bharat’ till I come back

We Will Make a Difference

Ravi had done his B.Tech from IIT Kharagpur. He had topped in all his classes and now he had the option of going abroad or taking a job with a fat pay package. But then he had other plans. He was fascinated by freedom fighters. He dreamt of Gandhi calling for Dandi march, Bhagat Singh leading the revolutionaries and Nehru promising life and freedom for India at independence. Like them, he also wanted to do something for his country. He chose to be a civil servant.

Dharma belonged to a backward community. He was poor and had suffered caste discrimination throughout his childhood. But he refused to submit. He wanted this to change, not only for himself, not only for his village but for the entire nation. For this he saw a clear path, civil services.

Shirin was a physically challenged girl. Most of her life she had heard sympathetic talks. But she wanted dignity, and she also wanted the society to change its perception about her. She wanted to prove that she was equally capable and can contribute equally in the development of nation. She cracked the civil services.

All these are imaginary names. But there are many Ravi’s, Dharma’s and Shirin’s in the 81st foundation course at LBSNAA, Mussorie. About 300 probationers have gathered in the academy here from all over India. They belong to different regions, religions, castes, sects etc. They have different educational backgrounds and different exposures. They have many other stories too. But they have one common dream, to work for India.

Many wonder that why lakhs are attracted for this job which offers the toughest competition in the world and still offers a meager salary compared to the private sector. In the era of globalization many people thought civil services will lose its sheen. They gave it derogatory names like Babudom, or the big fat clerks whose only aim is to put red tapes. But to their utter surprise, a recent survey rated civil service to be the most coveted job in the country. It still attracts the youth who want to work directly for the country.

And no one can agree to it more than we probationers at the institute. All of us suffered the shortage of electricity, bad roads and inadequate infrastructure. We stood in queues in government departments and at times felt harassed by the slow system. But then, instead of cribbing about it, we decided to change it. We believed in what Kennedy said “Ask not what your country has done for you - ask what you can do for your country”. And we chose to do our bit by becoming civil servants.

We, in the 81st foundation course believe that we are the steel frame of India. We agree that civil services need a lot of changes. It has to be lean and thin, responsive, corruption free, efficient and effective. It has to deliver to the common man. But we also believe that it has the most important role in the emergence of developed India.

In the first issue of our journal, we take a pledge that we will make a difference. Things will change in India and we will transform the image of the Government. We do not predict a revolution but we will devote our lives in making our motherland a developed nation. That is a solemn promise of all Ravi, Dharma, Shirin and others like them present in the 81st foundation course.

PS: This is an article sent by me for LBSNAA magazine. The benefit of a blog is that even if it is not published in the magazine, I can have the solace of getting readers for this in my blog :)

These days

Finally today is Sunday. Never before I realized in my life how precious Sunday is. As the state of my mind is filled with mundane things at LBSNAA, I can write only about it :)

The major happenings were the trek, dying of election fever, memos, return of my 'lonely' attitude and ‘murmerings’ of couple formation.

Yesterday we again went for a trek to a place called Lal Tibba. We walked for nearly 20 Km on tough terrains and believe me, some of it was really dangerous. We were briefed a lot about two things, one a scorpion grass and second leeches.

Though the scorpion grass made us feel its presence, we really missed leeches. I feel that poor leeches were given such a bad name that they decided to boycott our trek. Dear leech, please forgive my instructor for painting you in such a derogatory manner.

We also had a Bharat Natyam program, and remember the attendance was compulsory there. So all went there, willingly or unwillingly. Add on to it that you have to watch it on a friday evening when you woke up at 5 in the morning and have been busy since then. Though it was not very good, but I enjoyed it.

The thing I disliked about some officer trainees was their ‘comments’ during the program. An artist must be respected. Somehow I feel they have not got over their ‘Boys will be boys’ mentality. The thing that pains me more is the general acceptance of it.

And yes, at times I have started feeling alone. It is strange that this feeling hits me more when I am in a crowd. Though it is nothing uncommon with me, but I somehow felt I will not be myself in Mussorie.

Now about those ‘murmerings’. Though in nascent stages, the signs are visible during treks. There are 'some' lucky ones, with girls and then there are many others, who are keeping records of the signs. The real game will begin once the cadres come. I think many are getting geared up for it. After all ‘Cadre Marriages’ is the only rescue of candidates sent to north east.

In case you have any doubts, on a Sunday evening, I am sitting in my room, analyzing signs of others and writing blogs, so you know on which side of fence I am.

The Hullabaloo at LBSNAA

If you think civil servants are civil, think again. That certainly was not true in first week at the academy. Along with our hectic first week, we also had our elections, and elections we had.

The thing started with vying for a cream post, that’s called President, Mess Committee (PMC). I do not know if it really is a great post or the candidates were attracted by the promise that PMC may be able to escort all dignitaries who come at LBS; but many people started coming in the forefront.

And the person who tells you that it’s the participation that matters must have lost the game. So the contestants (for all posts, not only PMC) started leaving no stones unturned in ensuring their victory.

No stone unturned is a euphemism for starting all kinds of lobbying. This candidate is from north, this from Maharashtra, that one is Telugu and so on. The only thing they forgot was just a day before they had taken the oath of serving the country without having biases of caste, religion, region etc.

So, first there was order. I mean there were few candidates and they tried to have a consensus who should contest; then more arrived with their aspirations. The order turned into a chaos. And then people started lobbying.

But in this hard game, the poor voter was pulled from various lobbies. When many candidates bugged him with their manifestos and promises, he decided to do what was right. That is to vote on his own, not on being a part of a lobby. I do not claim that the candidates who won were the best. But then I can see that most attempts of lobbying failed, ‘mostly’ for all the posts.

That’s the power of democracy. It can create order out of chaos. It has the power to take care of aberrations. When the voters are pulled by various factions, they decide to do what they think is right. I ‘hope’ what they did here was right.

If our PMC is reading this, ensure that our mess bill comes down, as you are projected as the right candidate :P (Just to tell my readers, we give more than one third of our meagre salary as mess expenses)

PS: Like all my views, this article is colored by my perspective, so I do not claim this to be the truth. And yes, forgot to tell you, I won for a small post too :)