An Ode to Audit

Nearly fifteen years ago I was posted as the Addl. Divisional Railway Manager of Nagpur Division in the South East Central Railway. We had a huge narrow gauge network in the Division, the vastest in the world at 700 kilometres. The railway line passed through thick forest and connected many stations, which had no road connectivity. The narrow gauge trains were the only means of communication available to the poor villagers and tribals inhabiting these lands. The famous Satpura Express ran on this network between Balaghat and Jabalpur. The network has now been converted to Board Gauge and the romance of narrow gauge is gone for ever.

Nainpur was a major junction on the narrow gauge network and was frequented by Divisional officers for inspections. A night stay at Nainpur would help them inspect many segments during a single visit. Train journey from Nagpur to Nainpur would take eleven hours and was extremely tiresome and backbreaking what with sharp curves and lurching of the carriages, which were fifty to a hundred years old and had poor suspension. Even the villagers would not travel such long distances. They used the trains to connect with nearby villages or small towns. Students would go to school and vegetable growers would sell their produce in nearby consumption centres.

Railway Officers going to Nainpur or Seoni would travel by road. Roads were rather good and even though they traversed the same forests, it was possible to cut diagonally and reach Seoni or Nainpur in just three to four hours. So, one could leave early morning one day, do some useful work that day and the next day and come back the next evening. Going by train would have wasted too much time. This doesn’t mean that tracks on the rest of the network was not inspected or attended. That was done in short stretches over a number of days.

Well, one fine day I got a letter from the Audit Officer questioning why officers were not travelling by train. After all they were railway officers and must travel by train. All written replies about the duration of journey and time being of essence was dismissed by him. I asked him in a meeting if a State Road Transport Corporation officer always traveled by bus, or did he sometimes travel by train and air too. But, he would have none of it.

Finally, when nothing seemed to work, I said in a tripartite meeting (the Executive, Railway Finance Officer and the Audit team) that all future tripartite meetings would be held in Nainpur and that all of us would travel by train. That was a meeting every month and would have taken three to four days of staying out in near wilderness,  not to speak of the bone-shattering journeys to and fro.

The Audit team was stunned. Said, “Sir, please write some justification once again. We will close the case. And, they did.

A New National Festival (दिल्ली की सर्दी)

Delhiites must think that they are God’s gift to Indians. They enjoy the best civic amenities in the country. Delhi has the best roads, pavements, parks, malls and schools. A Delhiwallah enjoys the  benefit of the best universities and colleges, and the best hospitals, both government and private. Delhiites have uninterrupted power, clean water, roads that are swept every night and drains that flow like smooth single malts in their collective oesophagus. An average citizen of Delhi thinks he has arrived in life what with rubbing shoulders with the mighty and the powerful.

Yet, the annual gripe and grouch on pollution by Delhiwallahs visits the whole nation with unfailing regularity. Come November and the city is agog with plaintiffs crying white death, “Oh, the air is filthy, smokey and we can’t breathe. Damn the farmers of Punjab, Haryana and UP.” Juxtaposed pictures of Delhi in June and November are flashed across newspapers and in social media to prove how the nation has failed its capital. Oh, how thankless and how uncouth the unwashed Indians elsewhere are! It is for them that the privileged elite can’t even have an easy breath while strolling in the lush green Lodhi Garden and Nehru Park and the Europe-like vistas of Chanakyapuri and Connaught Place. That the rest of India pays for the carpet grass and blossoms of these parks and yet can’t ever imagine a fraction of that in its towns and mofassils is not even a wispy thought in their minds.

Yet, the same Delhi residents, in spite of the spectacle they create on pollution heaped on them by the hoi polloi of the netherworld of India can’t get their act right on COVID-19. The most educated and aware single, contiguous lot of people, supported by the best healthcare system in the country, still throw up an ever increasing number of the infected, five times higher proportionately, than the rest of the country. Who is to blame for such carelessness, and who will bear the brunt when the high pressure cauldron of Coronavirus ultimately cracks open to inflict on the whole country yet another wave of the deadly virus? Surely not the farmers of Punjab and Haryana.

Show me a photo of Delhi in June and November of 1950s and I will show you the same contrast. Visibility impairment by fog is not a proof of pollution. Well, there is some smoke that creates a smog. The smog continues much after all the paraali is burnt and disposed of. The pollution is as bad, or worse in December and January. Surely There is no smoke coming from Punjab and Haryana then. It is from Delhiites’ own cars, buses and two-wheelers.

Yet, firecrackers are banned in Diwali. They are banned not only in Delhi, but in entire India just because someone in Delhi approaches the law and lawmakers and the Green Tribunals that Diwali is oh-so-polluting, and merriment of children in Patna, Bhopal, Lucknow and Mumbai; in Jaunpur, Hubli, Nanded and Midnapore is clamped down. This is an annual ritual and the whole country of one hundred and thirty crores is deprived of festival fun of a few hours in a year so that smoke of firecrackers doesn’t blow in the winds from Indore, Nagpur, Coimbatore, Kochi and Jaisalmer straight to Delhi. I have never heard of someone from a smaller city or a village ever seeking a ban on Diwali festivities.

The whole nation must collectively lament that Delhi has polluted air in the winters. We owe it to them. The entire media chokes and coughs like there is no other event they have to cover. Sino-Indian standoff takes a backseat, so do politics, COVID, Kashmir, article 370 and Masood Azhar; the country suddenly becomes a place of harmony and peace. Isn’t smog over Delhi the biggest apocalypse that has descended on the humanity?

So, friends and countrymen! Let’s celebrate the biggest festival of India - the Smoggy Winter of Delhi.

Winding Down

What is the age at which one should begin to think of uncluttering life? Fifty, sixty or three scores and ten? Now that I am quickly approaching sixty I think the time has come to take stock of belongings, desires, missions, targets, relationships and to-do-lists.

Why do I think so, you may ask. Ain’t I still productive, have enough energy and drive to deliver for the society and doesn’t being active keep one young? I surely want to remain young, or at least remain youthful like a young man. Who doesn’t? But, I can see the horizon in the distance, where the sky meets the sea. I also see the sun, well past its zenith, though burning bright, is speeding towards it. Can I stop its descent? Can anyone? I have discovered a special vision now - I can see around things. I can see behind what is before me, and I see the rainbow meeting the earth, a beautiful rainbow, however.

I have no misgivings in my mind that I am here to change the game or its rules, not any more. There is the next generation, the vivacious and the driven, who thinks so now. So, no high-octane gas fuels my drive now; I ride a sedate sedan - easy and comforting. The sedan must be light and nimble, though. So, what do I do with my five hundred book collection in two large Victorian cupboards? What do I do with the cupboards themselves? My lead-crystal glassware, which I collected to serve the finest brews to my connoisseur friends, looks at me sadly and reminds me that my friends too are on the same path as mine.

The book that I wanted to write and had been putting off for the day, when I would have time to invest, should now wait since the time I have on the planet has many demands on it, the least of which is of writing a book. So, should I dust that forgotten recliner and at least read up some of my library? I kept buying self-help books on how to win friends, how to cook that chicken soup for my soul, my collection of management books that were to teach me how to motivate, how to run a startup and what kind of boss I should work for - they all seem purposeless. I have gotten by rather well without their help. 

Do I really need to go out and see the world now, when I am free from encumberances, or will be soon? The Caribbean cruise, the Egyptian pyramids, the Louvre - haven’t I seen enough even though I may have missed those. Does bucket-list tourism make any sense, or spending time with the ones you loved makes for a more fulfilling life?

What about the lovely furniture that we curated so longingly, the silk drapes and the satin covers? Do I have enough of them, or an excess of them? Is it even a question to ask at this stage? What about the electronics - the hi-fi music setup, the gadgets and watches? Do I still renew them every few years? How many such renewal cycles do I have left?

Will I still be beguiled into desiring and acquiring more, or will I begin to shed baggage? The nest is empty, yet it is full. One thinks that one should buy a new car, and a large one, so that it could carry the whole extended family - children and grand children - once they all gather together. Should I buy a new car at all? Will I be fit enough to drive it after five years, ten? Should I move into an old age home? Would it not steepen the downward incline to be in the company of setting and dimming suns?

What are the commitments one had made and to how many people? Let’s get together one day, let me come by and say hello to you the day I get some time, O! Shouldn’t we, the old gang, reminisce over a few drinks and go back in time. If only one had the time! When I look back twenty years and wonder if there will be another such looking back after another twenty years, I don’t get a sure answer.

So, I ask myself, “ Should the next five years, or ten or twenty, be lived easily or more intensely?” Isn’t there so much that is left unfinished? Isn’t a five year period now far more valuable than it was twenty years ago? Should I begin to wind down and leave the reins, which I never actually controlled, or should I make up for the lost time one last time?

I am undecided.

The Death of the Conference Circuit

Some call it the cocktail circuit. To attend one of those you had to pay an entry fee of $1500, then travel and hotel expenses would add up to say, another $2000. If you were a presenter or speaker, some organizers would let you attend all other sessions free or at a discounted rate. Of course, there were coffee, cookies and “networking dinners” thrown in. Some sight-seeing too, if the locale was exotic – wasn’t that the basic idea, to begin with? One could then also write a new bullet point in the CV and earn some bragging rights back home or in office.

COVID-19 and the restrictions it has imposed on our lives, vis-à-vis travel, congregation, hotels stays, buffet walk-around-dinners and the collective boat-rides on the Seine, Thames, Tigris or Lake Cuomo, Why didn’t someone think of videoconferences, zoom meetings or the mighty Webex earlier?

Well, the number of conferences and seminars have not gone down; they have skyrocketed on the contrary, in a new avatar, the “Webinar”. So, while I never understood the fine distinction between a conference and a seminar, I feel vindicated now that they are all clubbed as Webinar. It is now so easy to send emails to prospective attendees with the schema of the next Webinar, which would be addressed by the most burnished luminaries on the planet. Now, whereas the organizers would earlier charge an attendance fee, set deadlines for registration and offer a $5.50 discount to early-birds, they now request, almost plead on bended knees, through repeated emails and phone calls, “Oh, please, please, Sir! Do join the webinar. At least the opening session.” Once you acquiesce, you name is added to the list of “participating luminaries” to lure even more luminaries to participate.

The speaking luminary has agreed in advance since he/she is now spared the travel, time-out-from-office and now addresses the audience through a pin-hole on a table-top “device”. The paradigm of eye-contact has changed to eye-camera contact and even the shyest speaker pulls it off with aplomb. The luminary speaker also, regrettably, loses out on his fat speaking fee and free travel and stay, away from the humdrum of monotonous office routine.

O! How I mourn the death of a major corporate perk that has vanished into thin air – one of travel and holidaying at the employer’s expense and a chit-chat with a long lost friend, who may be on the same jaunt. How I miss the cocktails and the networking dinners! And, don’t forget the faux-leather shoulder bag stuffed with sanitized handouts, sanitized in the business way not medical or hygienic. The generations to come will never know that there were events called conferences and seminars that laid out the chart humanity must follow. Maybe they will gawk and wonder at some rundown ruins of conference venues just the way we admire the Forum of Rome.

Of High Perch and the Hard Ground

It is necessary to know your men if you want to go beyond the incremental and deliver magic. The difference between a leader and a manager is stark even though books have been written to explain it as if it was a fine and indistinguishable gap.

A manger sits on a high perch and expects the men to deliver on the ground. So, they do deliver, but just the way they have been doing and maybe a bit better. A leader is out there with his team roughing it out on the ground and in the trenches, and makes them leap to heights neither they nor he himself ever thought was possible. For a leader the sum is alway more than the parts; in fact it is not a sum, but a new number altogether. A leader doesn’t do two plus two to make four; he puts them march together and makes a twenty-two. Being out there in the field doesn’t necessarily mean working on that nut and bolt. It means being able to wield the spanner and show them how it is done if the occasion arises, and in good faith.

As one grows in the organisation the size of the team assigned to him grows and a time comes, when knowing all one’s men becomes impossible. While it is true that the team directly reporting to a senior manager (I prefer leader) is still small and it is possible to know them intimately, the satisfaction of knowing all the men out there diminishes. What does a people’s man, the leader, do under such circumstances?

What does a leader do, when there are a thousand men working in the organisation or ten thousand? This is a question that has been frustrating me for years. Even as one wishes one could put one’s hand on the fellow worker’s shoulder and ask about his welfare, health and family, it is not possible as a regular behaviour. You simply can’t know all of them personally.

But, nothing prevents from letting your people know you intimately. It is the next best thing if your men look at you and see in you “their man”. If you walk among them, each one of them should bond with you even if you can’t do the same, to the same degree, in return. The biggest proof of being owned by your men is that one of them, anyone of them, can walk up to you without fear and hesitation, look into your eyes, and speak with you. The feeling is electrifying. 

If your men break into a smile upon seeing you, if they think they can come to you with a problem and go back with a solution, if they meet you with sadness and go back with hope and reassurance, they will deliver magic for you.

This is not to say that a leader should shirk from taking tough decisions or being unpleasant when the occasion demands. But when one does that, people understand.

(please pardon my use of the word “men” repeatedly. There is no gender bias, just the need to let the language flow easily)

मेरी तप की आकांक्षा और मोक्षमार्ग की बाधाएँ

पुराने ज़माने में ऋषि मुनी बात-बात पर तपस्या में लग जाते थे। क्रोध पर नियंत्रण नहीं रहा तो पर्वत पर पाँच वर्षों की तपस्या, काम वासना में मन फिसला तो किसी गहन कंदरा में दस वर्षों की कठिन तपस्या आम बात थी। इन तपस्याओं को भंग करने के लिये क्रमश: राक्षसों और अप्सराओं की व्यवस्था भी थी, जो परीक्षा को और भी कठिन बना देती थी।

अब मुझे कोई ये बताए कि अपने कामकाज से पाँच दस वर्षों की छुट्टी कैसे मिल जाती थी उन्हें? फिर कुल जमा सत्तर अस्सी वर्षों की ज़िंदगी में तीस चालीस साल तपस्या और प्रायश्चित में ही निक़ल जाएँ, और कोई बीस साल बचपन के घटा लें, तो बचे कोई पंद्रह साल। अब इसमें कोई क्या जिये और क्या प्रमाद और पाप करे?

कभी कभी उकताहट में मेरी भी इच्छा होती है कि पाँच सात वर्षों की तपस्या पर निकल पड़ूँ। पर मेरे संसार से विरक्ति के निर्णय पर पानी फिर जाता है कि साल भर में कुल जमा आठ दिन आकस्मिक अवकाश के मिलते हैं। अर्न्ड और मेडिकल लीव इत्यादि मिला दें तो महीना, सवा महीना और। इनमें आधे तो धर्मपत्नी की शॉपिंग में बैग और टोकरियाँ उठाते ही निकल जाते हैं। एक बाबा ने कहा, बेटा एक्स्ट्राऑर्डिनरी लीव लेकर मेरे साथ हिमालय चला चल। वहाँ तुम्हें दीक्षा दूँगा और तपस्या के गुर सिखाऊँगा। बाबा इतने आत्मीय तरीक़े से बोल रहे थे कि एक बार तो मुझे लगा कि तस्करी के गुर सिखाने की बात हो रही है। पहले तो मैं ख़ुश हुआ कि पाँच साल तक घर दफ़्तर के झंझटों से छुटकारा मिलेगा और मेरी अनुपस्थिति में बॉस और पत्नी दोनों को मेरी कमी खलेगी और मेरी क़ीमत पता चलेगी।

पत्नी ने मेरा प्लान सुना तो बिना सिर उठाए बोलीं, “जाते हुए रास्ते में ज़रा मेरा मोबाईल मरम्मत को देते जाना और ड्राईक्लीनर के यहाँ मेरा शॉल दे देना; मैं वापस मँगवा लूँगी।” मैंने कहा कि भागवान मैं पाँच साल के लिये जा रहा हूँ। वे बोलीं कि फिर अख़बार वाले को बोल देना कि इंडियन एक्सप्रेस बंद कर दे, मैं तो हिंदुस्तान टाईम्स पढ़ती हूँ। और हॉं, होमलोन, कार लोन और आईफ़ोन के ई एम आई भरने का इंतज़ाम करते जाना। इतना सुनते ही तपस्या के मंसूबों पर पानी फिर गया। ये कमबख़्त ई एम आई भी ग़ज़ब की बीमारी है, लगी तो छूटती ही नहीं। अरे बीमारी क्या, बंधुआ मज़दूरी है, साहब।

फिर सोचा कि घने जंगल में गुरु और उनके चेलों ने खाना पकाने और झाड़ू पोंछा का काम दे दिया, तो ना तो तपस्या और चाकरी हो पायेगी, और ना ही भागा जायेगा। ये साधु लोग दस दस साल की तपस्या में खाते क्या होंगे? आस पास के फल और कंदमूल तो कुछ महीनों में निपट जाते होंगे। और अपना कोई खेती बाड़ी का भी अनुभव नहीं है कि सिंधु घाटी सभ्यता से प्रेरणा लेकर गाँव ही बसा लूँ। और फिर गाँव ही बसाना था तो संन्यास क्यों लेना?

फिर सोचा बिग बास्केट या ज़ोमैटो को ही रेगुलर सप्लाई का एडवांस ऑर्डर दे कर प्रयाण करूँ। पर उन्होंने वेबसाईट पर पूछा कि अपना पिन कोड डालें। अब दंडकारण्य और हिमालय की कंदराओं का भी पिन कोड होता है भला?

कुल मिलाकर निष्कर्ष यह है कि समस्त ईश्वरीय और सांसारिक शक्तियाँ मेरी शांति और मोक्ष की राह में बाधाएँ बन खड़ी हैं। चलिये छोड़िये, मेरे कार्यालय जाने का टाईम हो गया। निकलता हूँ, नहीं तो बॉस झणमात्र में विरक्ति के मार्ग पर धकेल देगा।

Remembering Father on Mother’s Day

Loss of one’s father is a shock that is impossible to recover from. Don’t get me wrong. Mother is no less important. Mother is the very essence of your being - she brings you into this world, suffers sleepless nights so that you sleep soundly, bears with your tantrums, sicknesses, understands your needs even before you express them and provides the very basis of emotional well being. Loss of one’s mother is devastating.

But, when father leaves the world, the feeling is of complete rudderelssness. Who would you go to explain your grown-up problems, who is your sounding board now? Where is the person by whose side you would just sit and sip your tea saying nothing, but all is understood and shared? One feels like a branch adrift in the waves after the collosal trunk of the tree has been cut and taken away. Where does the rootless branch find its moorings now?

After months of grieving one realises that this rootless branch is actually the colossal trunk to its own little branches and must, therefore, dig in. One must therefore bear and move on. Easy to say, but one must now grieve within, not outwardly.

An Ode to Babugiri

I had an interesting incident in Southern Railway, a typical babu response to a routine matter. The response was meant to impress all and sundry how on meticulous the Finance babu was and that nothing could sneak past his x-ray eyes. 

A purchase order was held up by a junior officer in Finance because the initial indent for material was not made on pink paper. Even though the indent had gone through the stages of vetting, issue of tender and tender committee proceedings, each of which stage has a finance officer in the picture. Yet, when the purchase order went to finance for final vetting, the section officer raised the matter and stopped the P.O. An officer, who would not trust his own judgement and be guided to the hilt by a subordinate ministerial staff, promptly issued a letter station that since the PINK paper was missing, someone had better explain the unpardonable lapse.

I spoke with the Principal Financial Advisor,  my counterpart, on the absurdity of it all. He would have none of it - if the rules say pink, it must be pink. I then enquired of him as to how a PINK indent would now be prepared as all indents and further handling of it has been made online. Then, I sent a poem composed by me to the PFA.

The gentleman was a South Indian, but he had studied in IITD and spoke, wrote and understood Hindi well. He then took it rather sportingly and responded in equal measure. Here are the documents.

DREAM URBAN LIFE - Any takers anymore?

What fun is living in a metropolitan city if there are no movies, clubs, restaurants, parties, music festivals and lit-fests? Over time cities have become centres of business, culture, art and intellectual discourse. The rising density due to migration to urban areas was fuelled by a desire to be a part of it all. Not long ago the same cities had been killing fields of infectious diseases and the raging Corona has established it once again.

As those services in the cities, which make them cities in the first place, shut down or tone down, there will be a massive job-loss. All the restaurants, multiplexes, theatres, malls, retail, exhibition and marriage halls, catering services and consequently hotels, transport, taxis, buses and metros bring down scales and frequencies of services they will necessarily shed workers. Who will, then, pay high rentals of city apartments? So, whether those rendered jobless will find gainful employment or not is a big question, we can be sure that they can no longer afford expensive city living.

So, as people migrate away from big cities will big business follow them? We don’t know since it was always the other way round. Maybe big business will not exist after all. In any case as many establishments and people working for them have found that work from home works equally well, why live in unaffordable housing as the home can now be anywhere.

Killing of Sadhus and Attack on Arnab (What is amiss?)

Killing of Sadhus in Palghar is disturbing no doubt, but such motivated attacks have been common. Attack on Arnab is also understandable since journalist are often attacked in our country. What is not acceptable is the way the police, the first stage in law enforcement, behaved in both cases.

There is clear video evidence that four policemen stood by while the Sadhus were mercilessly beaten for over half an hour by a brutal mob until they died. Not only did these policemen did not act, the video suggests that they were walking around inside the murderous circle and probably even prevented escape of the Sadhus if not prodded the mob further. Four policemen with guns are enough to drive away a violent mob simply by using their guns. What are the guns provided after all if not to protect the innocent and to dissuade a criminal? No action has been taken against these policemen. So, that raises the level of culpability to their bosses too.

Arnab, a famous and intrepid journalist, had to spend ten hours in a police station simply to lodge a First Information Report. Imagine the plight of a common citizen, who is ever pitched against the high and mighty. Even after ten hours and pleading with the DCP, the sections of the IPC were toned down in the FIR to facilitate the goons to be set at large with easy bail and possibly even escape any meaningful and exemplary sentence. The police ignored the statement of one of their own, who was deputed as a security guard of Arnab. Even when the policeman guarding Arnab specifically identified the culprits with a political party, there was great reluctance in his own department to accept that. Well, an FIR is just what if suggests - a First Information Report - It should record all the information, which is first available. But, FIRs are often filed with an ultimate objective.

An honest and neutral police is the first step towards a deterrent yet fair criminal justice system. So, while you may be outraged over the murder of the Sadhus and the attack on Arnab, do shed a few tears for the criminal justice system, which fails us again and again with no correction in sight.