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.