बाल-हत्यारे का निबंध

खबर है कि पुणे के पोर्शाचालक, पुण्यात्मा, पियक्कड़, परमेश्वर-पोषित पुत्र ने मास्टर साहब को निबंध लिखकर जमा कर दिया है। मास्टर साहब ने इस बाल हत्यारे को दो मासूमों की हत्या करने की सजा तीन सौ शब्दों का निबंध सश्रम-कारावास के समकक्ष मानते हुए सुनाई थी।

पहले तो होनहार बालक के धनाढ्य पिता ने बाल-विद्यालय के मास्टर के विरुद्ध हाई-स्कूल के हेडमास्टर को अर्ज़ी लगाई कि कहीं आजकल के मल्टिपल-च्वायस प्रश्नपत्र के जमाने में कोई निबंध लिखता है भला, वह भी तीन सौ शब्दों का? यह तो बेचारे बालक के प्रति घोर अन्याय है। और तो और, मेरे पुत्र ने आम आदमी को कोई टेम्पू या मारुति से तो मारा नहीं है, पूरे ढाई-करोड़ी गाड़ी से निपटाया है। हाई स्कूल के हेडमास्टर साहब को ज्ञात होवे कि पोर्शा से कुचला व्यक्ति सीधा बैकुंठधाम को जाता है। ना गाय की पूँछ पकड़ने, ना वैतरणी पार करने का झंझट; सीधा मोक्ष का द्वार हैं पोर्शा के पहिये। मेरी महँगी गाड़ी “टोटल” हो गई तो क्या, दो जवान व्यक्ति सीधा स्वर्ग के नागरिक तो हो गये। अहो, यह पुण्य मेरे पुत्र को वाहन-चालक और मुझे वाहन का मालिक होने के कारण अनायास ही तो मिला है। धन्य है प्रभु की लीला! अत: हे, हाई-स्कूल के हेडमास्टर साहब! मेरे पुत्र पर आरोपित निबंध-लेखन की सजा माफ़ की जाए, या कम से कम स्टे तो लगा ही दिया जाए, या शब्दों की संख्या घटाकर पचास कर दी जाये।,

 

हाई स्कूल के हेडमास्टर साहब यह मल्टिपल-च्वायस वाला आवेदन देखकर भ्रमित हो गये। वे ठहरे निबंध लेखन के ज़माने के पढ़े हुए। सो बोले, “कुछ नहीं, कोई रियायत नहीं मिलेगी। निबंध लिखना है तो लिखना है, वह भी पूरे तीन सौ शब्दों का। दस-पंद्रह शब्दों की कमी होगी तो मैं देख लूँगा, भूल-चूक लेनी-देनी।” निराश होकर पीड़ित, संतप्त पिता ने स्थानीय कॉलेज से एक अंग्रेजी के प्रोफ़ेसर को बुलाया, जिन्होंने समाजशास्त्र में भी ड्युअल डिग्री ले रखी थी। प्रोफ़ेसर साहब ने आनन-फ़ानन में कुल चालीस ड्राफ़्टों और एक हज़ार पन्नों के रफ़ वर्क के बाद मात्र तीन हफ़्ते में निबंध लिख डाला। फिर एचपी लेज़र प्रिंटर पर टाईम्स न्यू रोमन फॉंट के चौदह साईज़ में छापकर बाल-हत्यारे के पिता जी को सौंप दिया, और अपना सवा दो लाख का मेहनताना लेकर चल दिये।

 

पिता-पुत्र निबंध लेकर बाल-विद्यालय के मास्टर साहब के पास पहुँचे। मास्टर साहब प्रिंटआउट देखते ही भड़क गये। बोले निबंध हस्तलिखित होना चाहिये। पिताजी इस बार सस्ती-सी बीएमडब्ल्यू में गये थे, पोर्शा अब तक गैराज में जो थी। सस्ती गाड़ी की सवारी से स्वाभाविकत: उत्पन्न विनम्रता से बोले कि हस्तलिखित की तो बात नहीं हुई थी। मास्टर साहब ने बाहर खड़ी सस्ती बीएमडब्ल्यू पर नज़र डाली और कड़ककर बोले, “क़ानून सबके लिये बराबर होता है, निबंध तो हस्तलिखित ही देना पड़ेगा।” पिता-पुत्र पैर पटकते हुए बाहर निकले। होनहार बालक मन-ही-मन सोच रहा था कि पोर्शा को गैराज से निकलने तो दो, अगला नंबर इस स्कूटी-चालक मास्टर का ही लगाऊँगा। अभी अठारह का होने में चार-छह महीने बचे हैं, एक निबंध और सही।

 

ख़ैर, एक सप्ताह का समय बच रहा था। सो मासूम बाल-हत्यारे ने बॉर्नविटा, क्रैनबेरी जूस और ट्रिपल-चीज़-सलामी-पेपरोनी-पिज़्ज़ा के सहारे अपनी हैंडराईटिंग में निबंध लिख डाला। माताजी बेटे की यंत्रणा देख-देख परेशान होती रहीं और वैष्णोदेवी जाकर मत्था टेकने की मनता रख ली, पर देवी मॉं से अपेक्षित विलंब के लिये क्षमा भी माँग लिया; पोर्शा अभी गैराज में जो थी।

 

बाल-विद्यालय के मास्टर साहब हस्तलिखित निबंध देखकर अत्यंत प्रसन्न हुए और बोले, “जाओ बालक, अब तुम दण्डमुक्त हुए। अब जाओ, स्वच्छंद जीवन का आनंद लो। कोई तुम्हारा कुछ नहीं बिगाड़ सकता क्योंकि तुम बाल-विद्यालय के छात्र हो, और मैं यहाँ का मास्टर।”

 

दण्डमुक्त बालक ने भी मन-ही-मन स्कूटी-चालक मास्टर को क्षमाप्रदान की और सोचा, “तुम बच गये मास्टर। इस सेवा के बदले मैं शीघ्र ही तुम्हें एक बुलेट मोटरसाईकिल उपहार में दूँगा!”

 

बुलेट मोटरसाईकिल की कथा फिर कभी।

My Office Superintendent and the Sea Level

While working in a Railway Workshop in Lucknow I discovered that I had to sign sixteen daily reports every afternoon. All these reports were physically carried by a person travelling to Northern Railway Head Quarters in Delhi by an overnight train. The year was nineteen eighty eight and there was no email, no fax nor any other electronic means to transmit the documents. They had to be carried personally. Someone or the other, generally a favourite of my Office Superintendent, was earning traveling allowance as a regular source of income.

 

There was a Type Section in a large hall with over a dozen typists, who worked on Remington and Godrej machines to type myriad documents the most prominent ones being the sixteen reports. There was a supervisor designated the Office Superintendent Type Section, or OS Type. Krishna, the OS Type, would decide whose handwritten papers would be rendered into typeface and and by which typist. The most accomplished typists were deputed to create neat and error-free documents for the head of the office. The type section had the old substitute of a photocopy machine, the Kores carbon paper. Inserted between rice-paper sheets the combination could spew out upto five or six copies of the document in one go. Documents of the Bada Sahib, of course, were typed using fresh carbons and even the sixth copy would be easily legible.

 

Coming back to the reports, I found that I was signing all the reports mechanically without even reading them and couldn’t understand the purpose of many of them. I wondered if anyone read them in the HQ either. So, one day, after I got tired of mindlessly authenticating six copies each of those seemingly useless reports, I told the OS to stop sending them.  Not a single report would go. He was aghast, “But Sir, won’t we be pulled up by the HQ bosses?” I am sure the OS Type was more anxious about his raison d'être, which primarily appeared to be the flourishing of these reports every day. He himself didn’t know what any of those reports meant. He was simply handed a stack of handwritten papers, which he diligently converted into presentable yet meaningless official despatches.

 

I told him not to worry and that no report should be sent from then on until someone noticed in the HQ. But the OS said, “Sir, I think I will still type them and keep them stored in case we are asked for all the past reports some day. What if someone wakes up to them in the Head Quarters? He just couldn’t think of keeping his dozen typists idle for the whole afternoon twiddling their thumbs instead of battering the keyboards with their fingers.  I could sense that the main thought in his mind was that he would be robbed of the very purpose of his employment. So, I told him to keep the typing work going as usual.

 

Nothing happened for a few days; no reaction on the missing reports from the Head Quarters. Nobody in New Delhi had noticed the missing despatches. Then, someone called and complained that a particular report was not reaching him. Then again, a few more persons called. Finally, six reports were found missing by someone or the other. So, I called Krishna, the OS Type, to resume sending those six reports. The remaining ten reports were never demanded and never sent again. Thus were saved many-many trees and Krishna’s purpose in life. The environment was thus protected as well. Sea levels will not rise for another century.

                                        —-ooo—-

On Father's Day - My Father and Computer

No, this is not the story of a youngster teaching his dad modern computer skills. It is the opposite of that. There were no computers when I was a teenager. It is the tale of a caring father, who I remember today, on the Father’s Day, for his farsightedness. The year was 1978. I had appeared for my matriculation examinations and was awaiting the results. There used to be a gap of three to four months between the matriculation examination and admissions to colleges. My father enrolled me into a typing school. There were no PCs those days. Indeed, none had even imagined that such a thing as a Personal Computer would ever become an inalienable part of our lives. Even until much later all that the humanity had was punch-card type computers adorning mysterious computer centres of universities and multi-nationals.

Now, typing schools in those days were mass-skilling centres. Unemployed youth would crowd my centre too that was housed in a run-down building in which dozens would clatter away on rickety typewriters for hour-long sessions. The environment was depressing, students were not too excited about life. Chairs and tables were wobbly, ceiling fans rotated above just for the feel-good. But the fee was a mere ten Rupees a month!

The owner-teacher was actually a good person, who would do rounds of the hall and challenge us with new lessons – a newspaper cutting, a yellow or pink advertisement slip that came inserted into newspapers, or some such thing he could lay his hands on. I was told to begin with ASDFGF and ;LKJHJ. In a few days I scaled up to “A quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” I kept picking up speed and soon could type away at a reasonable rate.

The teacher was happy with my progress, that of a mere teenager rubbing shoulders with much older men. Then one day the penny dropped. The matriculation results were declared, and my photo appeared in newspapers, who had published the merit-list of the State Board. As had become a daily routine I was typing away at my desk on that day too. The teacher came to me with a newspaper in his hand, excited and almost breathless and asked, “You have come in the merit list of the whole state. Why the hell are you learning how to type?” In his opinion only the jobless, and those seeking the careers of stenographers needed to learn how to type. Well, I was technically jobless too, even though I was only fifteen. I told him, “My father has asked me to learn this skill and that is why I am here.”

I continued for a couple of weeks more, then other things demanded attention and I quit the typing classes without mastering, say sixty or eighty words per minute.

Later in life, when PCs came on our desks and we had to do some typing ourselves, I had a head start over most people in office. In all of my postings, my stenographers and secretaries were surprised to learn that I could type faster than them and also with fewer errors. It was a pity to see colleagues asking their assistants type out even Power Point presentations.

One has many things to thank one’s father for. But it impossible to thank him enough for his farsightedness in ensuring that I learnt a futuristic skill early in life – TYPING.

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