I really want to help you, but ...

O Dear, I understand your problem and I really wish I could do something for you. After all, I am here to serve the people of India. Am I not a public servant, appointed just for this? 

Your problem seems genuine and your grievance authentic. I can't tell you how pained I am at the insensitivity of the system of which I am a part. This problem should not have arisen in the first place if my colleagues in that department and the rules of this other department had been a bit more accommodative. I must now solve your problem. Let me see .. .. Let me see .. ..

Hmm .. Umm .. Uh .. Oh ..

Ah .. There you are. Here is your file. Let me see .. Let me see .. Oh my God! Look at this clerk of my office and see what he has written. There is no rule to do this! How can the rascal write that? I truly want to help you out here and this lowly clerk write here that it can't be done!

Sorry, my Friend! The rules don't permit. Or else I could have done it in no time at all. I know what your are thinking. You are shocked that this great bureaucrat of the government of India, this guy selected out of lakhs and lakhs of bright candidates by the UPSC through the toughest selection process on the planet can't help you!

You see, my Friend, I may have been the brightest, the most educated and the smartest of all. But, my mind is pawned to that clerk sitting in that corner at the end of this dingy corridor. Yes, he is only high school pass, but he does all the thinking for me. He interprets the rules, links precedents, brings out perils of decision making and predicts the outcomes of my decisions on my behalf! He verily tells me what I should do sitting in my chair. In most cases he even drafts my orders and tells me where to sign. If he tells me to just sit there and twiddle my thumbs, I would do that too for I have outsourced my thinking to a high school pass clerk.

He thinks for me. The junior clerk runs this office. Why don't you sit with him and explain your case to him? Maybe I can help you then, provided he writes a favourable noting. But, that is between you and him now .. .. I really wish I could do something for you. After all, ain't I here to help you?

वंशीधर के वंशज (The Salt Inspector lives .. ..)

Munshi Premchand wrote how regulation and taxation of the commonplace salt led to black market, illegal trade and corrupt officialdom. The opening paragraph of the famous story, नमक का दारोग़ा, read as follows:

जब नमक का नया विभाग बना और ईश्वरप्रदत्त वस्तु के व्यवहार करने का निषेध हो गया तो लोग चोरी-छिपे इसका व्यापार करने लगे। अनेक प्रकार के छल-प्रपंचों का सूत्रपात हुआ, कोई घूस से काम निकालता था, कोई चालाकी से। अधिकारियों के पौ-बारह थे। पटवारीगिरी का सर्वसम्मानित पद छोड-छोडकर लोग इस विभाग की बरकंदाजी करते थे। इसके दारोगा पद के लिए तो वकीलों का भी जी ललचाता था।

The salt satyagraha of was a turning point in the freedom struggle. The Mahatma, through his Dandi March in 1930, turned that folly of the British to his great advantage and mobilised a whole nation against foreign occupation. Non-violence protest and civil disobedience were defined for an oppressed nation and a timid mass of humanity, which found a powerful weapon to fight the mighty brutal Empire.

Do you know that this nation of timid masses still bears the cross of the Salt Inspector. The British are gone and salt tax was a not insignificant force in their ouster. Yet, cess on salt remains and its regulation is an important opportunity of discretionary use of power. A population, which threw out the largest power on earth for regulating salt still perpetuates the same tax and regulation!

Did you know that there is an All India Service called the "Indian Salt Service"? It is a Group B service, with officers posted all over, which rules the sea coasts of the nation.

The Website of the Salt Commissionerate defines some of its its function as follows:

1. Leasing of Central Government land for salt manufacture.

(How much land is owned by the Central Government, which it leases?)

2. Planning of production targets.

(Why should the government set production targets for salt? Are resources, like the sea-water, in short supply?

3. Arranging equitable distribution and monitoring the quality and price.

(Why can't the market forces do that? The government doesn't do that even for food grains.)

4. Promotion of technological development and training of personnel.

(Technology? Why does it require the government's intervention?)

5. Maintenance of standards and improvement in quality of salt.

(Really?)

6. Collection of Salt Cess, Assignment Fee, Ground Rent and other dues.

The website goes on to say:

"As per document available the salt department has been in existence prior to 1802 AD. Salt manufacturing activities were brought under licencing system by an Act containing stringent panel action .. .. The collection of salt revenue was originally vested in the Collectors of Districts; subsequently a separate Department under a Salt Commissioner on the recommendation of a commission appointed by the Government of India in 1876 was created."

Well, the Salt Commissioner, created in 1876, exists even today.

In the constitution of India, Salt is Central subject and appears as item No. 58 of the Union list of the 7th Schedule, which reads : (a) Manufacture, Supply and distribution of salt by Union agencies : and (b) Regulation and control of manufacture, supply and distribution of salt  by other agencies. The Central Government is responsible for controlling all aspects of the Salt Industry through Salt Organisation.

 

The British Government finally abolished the "duty" on salt. And lo and behold, it imposed a "cess" on it on 1-4-47. This was subsequently ratified by the Government of Free India as Salt Cess Act, 1953. 

Guess, what was the purpose of this cess. It was to meet the expenses of the salt organisation, the very organisation, which should not have existed in the first place!

Through several legislations, reports of committees and commissions, in the year 1996 the Government of India decided to de license the salt industry. But, the Salt Commissioner exists along with his sub-offices and an army of salt officials recruited in the "Indian Salt Service".

Amongst other things, the Salt Commissioner certifies if the salt being transported by rail is for Industrial consumption or human. Indian Railways carry the latter at a concessional tariff. If the concessional tariff was to be removed, the salt we eat would cost us some fifty paise extra per head per month. But, we could then get rid of the entire salt Commissionerate as a result!

Munshi Vanshi Dhar, the original Salt Inspector, must be turning in his grave.

http://saltcomindia.gov.in/HistoryOfSalt.html?tp=html

MAN AND CHILD (Aged 22 and 29 respectively)

Here is a man. Capt. Pawan Kumar of the Indian Army. Martyred at the age of 22 in the service of the nation. When he turned 22, he had already put in three years of active service, earned a promotion and was leading a team of soldiers, who were ready to die for the country. Capt. Pawan Kumar led his men against entrenched terrorists and made the supreme sacrifice for the Motherland. There is not a single person in the country who is not proud of him. Capt. Pawan Kumar joined the Army not because he wanted to die for the country. He did so because he wanted to protect his country. He entered the Armed Forces not because it was easily available. He did it through a tough process of selection called the NDA examination - A highly competitive written test, a rigorous physical test and a test of his aptitude. He, of course, knew the risks and dangers of an Army Officer's life. Yet he chose it over easier career options of Engineering, Civil Services or IT.

Here is another man,  err.. a boy. Kanhaiya Kumar. All of 29. Pursuing a PhD in a subsidised education system of the country that Pawan Kumar laid down his life for. Kanhaiya Kumar earns a scholarship of nearly thirty thousand Rupees per month, gets free housing, free medical care and has all the time in the world to profess breaking up of his Motherland. A parasite that he is, he leads a team of equally parasitical "boys and girls" to apologise to a terrorist's soul, who was responsible for slaying Kanhaiya's compatriots. Kanhaiya Kumar does not study "African Studies" (his topic for PhD) because he is even remotely interested in Africa, its history, literature or its people. He is studying it because a seat was available in that department, which paid him a handsome salary-like scholarship for five years of mollycoddling campus life. He did not choose to do a PhD to contribute a great deal to the knowledge of mankind. We will also check out his PhD thesis for original thought it is supposed to contain. He opted for a PhD because he did not get a job with his earlier education. He chose it because he was actually good for nothing else. His academic scores in JNU will prove that once again.

Capt. Pawan Kumar also holds a degree from the JNU. If he had lived to be 29, like Kanhaiya, he would be a Major in the Army, living a life of fulfilment and inspiration. He could still die for the nation as a Major. In fact he would protest if ever he was not sent to the front. He would be commanding a few Captains and a much larger unit of soldiers, each one of whom would look up to him for lessons in grit and gallantry. 

Kanhaiya Kumar would have turned 36 by then and would be pursuing a second PhD in "Gender Discrimination in Angola", raising slogans against the Country and promising to destroy it. He would, however, still be called a simple misguided boy. If Kanhaiya played his cards well, which he seems to be doing, he could become a Professor in the same incestuous system of education and spawn more middle-aged boy-traitors like himself in a never ending chain process. Worse, he could become a politician himself, given his recent display of power over them, to unite against the country. In the worst, though not unimaginable case, Kanhaiya Kumar could become the forerunner of a new ideology, where biting the hand that feeds is fashion.

गाल-सटाऊ चुंबन

उमुआँ .. उमुआँ .. .. 

आपने अक्सर पार्टियों में ऐसी आवाज़ सुनी होगी। अरे ये मैं क्या कह रहा हूँ? आपने कहाँ सुनी होगी? आप तो हिंदी पढ़ रहे हैं? ये आवाज़ें हाई सोसाइटी की पार्टियों में सुनने में आती हैं । क्या कहा आपने? हाई सोसाइटी क्या होती है? हाई सोसाइटी का हिंदी में कोई अर्थ या पर्यायवाची शब्द नहीं होता। अरे भाई साहब, हिंदी में तो हाई सोसाइटी होती ही नहीं|

अरे मैंने भी कहाँ सुनी थीं ऐसी आवाज़ें, मानों कोई बिल्ली अपनी सहेली से सालों बाद मिल रही हो। वो तो एक बड़े उद्योगपति की पार्टियां आजकल टीवी पर दिखाई जा रही हैं, उसी मैं मैंने सुना। आप भी वॉल्यूम ऊँचा करके ध्यान से सुनेंगे तो आपको सुनाई देंगी। उन्ही उद्योगपति, मच्छीमार हवाईजहाज वाले या बियरवाले दढ़ियल साहब की पार्टियों की बात कर रहा हूँ, जो करोड़ों लेकर फुर्र हो गए| इन पार्टियों में गाल से गाल सटा कर एक दूसरे के कान में हौले से हवा छोड़ते हैं और कहते है, "उमुआँ .. उमुआँ"। और भी कुछ बोलते होंगे, जैसे, "यूअर प्लेस और माइन?" या, "उस कमीने को देखो, कैसा मिसेज़ शर्मा पर लाइन मार रहा है।"

सुना है कि सरकारी बैंकों और सचिवालयों के अधिकारी भी इन हाई सोसाइटी पार्टियों में शरीक होते थे। क्या वे भी उमुआँ .. उमुआँ करते थे? अब कंडक्ट रूल्स में उमुआँ .. उमुआँ करना मना तो नहीं है? सो करते होंगे, मेरी बला से। लेकिन एक उमुआँ पर नौ हज़ार करोड़ न्यौछावर कर दें, ये भी कोई बात हुई। मैं तो ऐसे गालसटाऊ नाटक के पाँच रुपये भी न दूँ। कान में हवा जाने से मेरी तो फुरफुरी छूट जाए। और बेचारा आम करदाता जो फ़िल्मी मैगज़ीन में उन सुंदरियों की तस्वीरें निहार कर ही अपने को निहाल समझता है - उमुआँ तो एक दिवास्वप्न सा ही रह जाता है। नौ हज़ार करोड़ हालाँकि उसी की कमाई के जाते हैं|

आपसे फिर मुखातिब होउँगा। तब तक के लिए उमुआँ .. उमुआँ|

एंड टेक केयर!

DOES THE FARMER REALLY KNOW?

Creation, or non-creation of jobs, has been discussed as a yardstick of success or failure of a government. It is indeed a meaningful measure of the wellbeing of the economy. An ITI-pass plumber or a welder in a small town can at best hope to earn subsistence wages of about ten thousand Rupees a month. In fact even graduate engineers go abegging for such a salary. Thinking of a marginal farmer or a small milk-producer (gwala) numbs the mind. He has no salary - he and his entire family work for free in the field or in tending to the cattle. He sells the produce out of what is leftover from family's own consumption. That pays for his other needs - clothes, medicines, house-repair, cooking, education of children and the other myriad necessities of daily life.

Now, there is no job like that in the world that doesn't pay wages. Surplus produce cannot be called a wage, certainly not for all the members of the family. The wife, the mother, all the children are actually working for free. Each one of them should actually be getting the minimum wage every day for their back breaking labour, say ₹200 to ₹300 per diem. If they did claim that wage, our milk would cost us seventy-five Rupees a litre and wheat sixty Rupees a kilo. After all a large farmer or a dairy-owner does pay his workers some wage. So, our cheap milk, vegetables and food grain are actually a product of self-inflicted slavery. 

So friends, pray to God that the small farmer doesn't became aware of this!

                    ---ooo---

BLOATWARE IS BACK

With the advent of Android and iOS there was a hope, howsoever slim and shortlived it proved later, that software writers were back to being sensible once again. I was told the Windows XP had a billion lines of code. The initial years of Android and iOS were ruled by constraints of limited processing power, low memory in the mobile devices and need to quickly roll out software. Apps, the nifty little pieces of software, had made the routine easier and quicker. The mobile Operating Systems themselves were compact, yet functional and stable.

Soon, the cliques of code-writers realised that they would be out of business and jobs. So, the guild struck with a vengeance. They soon started writing bloatware once again like there was no tomorrow. And lo and behold, the hardware industry lapped up the opportunity like a drowning man clutches a life buoy thrown to him. So we are now commonly looking at 1.7GHz Octa Core processors, dedicated graphics processors and assisted cooling accompanied by 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage.

We are back to the past, where software was distributed on double sided DVDs. Apps now are as big as half a Gigabyte. Even an upgrade is a few hundred Mega Bytes. Take a look at the attached screenshot - an upgrade of MS Word weighs in at 306 MB. A mere upgrade of just a component of the MS Office, that too of the mobile version is all of 300+MB or the size of half a CD! Not long ago, full MS Office came on ten floppies adding up to just about 14 MB and later on a CD of 700MB. Hard Disks were considered large if they had a capacity of 30GB. But that was before the bloatware took over.

That is not all. All other Apps that I fondly installed on my iPad or the Android phone also need  upgrades every two weeks. So if you have say 40 Apps, not an unusually large number, each one of these will "offer" a free upgrade (update) twice a month, demanding an average of 50MB data traffic for it. That makes nearly 4GB of data every month (2x40x50) just to make up for the stupid code-writers' slip-ups. Well, I often think that I am the stupid one to have fallen for all this. Even unlimited WiFi plan is not really unlimited - we all know that. There was a time, when the industry or the discerning users or at least the nerds cursed Microsoft for coming out with an upgrade (they called it a patch) every six months. But, now we do not even murmur at this rip off - in matter of data charges, personal time and possibly unknown security-holes in the App, which they want to plug every fortnight.

The Empire has Struck Back!

                                            ---ooo---

KANHAIYA KUMAR (Why target a single person?)

Numerous TV debates have harped on this point. Why single out one student, when a whole lot of others were shouting seditious-slogans? Why only in JNU, when they dance tango with similar people in Kashmir? Well, Kanhaiya was (is) the leader of the JNUSU and was leading the crowd that day, when they called for destruction of India. That is good enough reason to put him behind bars. Whether he uttered those same very words from his own lips is not important. But, the legal issues go beyond that. Why make a single person (or just a few) pay for the crime of many? 

Let's go back to the days, when music piracy was at its peak, five to ten years ago. Powered by peer-to-peer networks like the Limewire, BitTorrent or Napster, millions of young men and women, older ones too, downloaded and shared songs, which were copyrighted by record labels or music companies. It happened in India and many countries.  But, in the USA, which prides itself on a tough regime of patents and copyrights (a great factor in its vibrant culture of innovation and creativity in academic, scientific, technological and entertainment fields), the record companies took the matter into their hands. They sued unknown millions for damages. Of course, it was technologically possible to list out each one of those anonymous downloaders and make them party in the legal battle. But, they narrowed down to just a few, out of which two cases are the most celebrated. The judiciary went along with this course.

Jamie Thomas-Rasset, a Woman from Minnesota was fined US$2,20,000 (RS. 1.5 Crores at today's exchange rate) for just 24 songs. She ended up paying US$9167 (Rs. 6.25 lakhs) per song. The case was filed by the Recording Industry Association of America and went up to the Supreme Court, which upheld the penalty.

The second case is of Joel Tenenbaum, a PhD student of Boston University, who ended up paying US$6,75,000 for just 30 songs or US$22,500 (Rs. 15.30 lakhs) apiece. The Supreme Court refused to even admit his appeal.

The argument that a single person should not be penalised since millions others were doing the same fell flat on the judges. The downloaders (pirates, actually) even argued that they would pay for the album, which they had copied, an amount of a few dollars. The judges were not impressed. They said that an example had to be made of them. They also said that the loss to the recording industry went far beyond just the loss of sale of one single album by the accused. Today, such blatant music piracy is virtually non-existent in the USA. One is scared of even making copies of CDs for one's friends.

Well, an example has to be made each of Kanhaiya Kumar and of SAR Geelani. And the damage they have caused goes far beyond mere an evening of slogan shouting and a seditious press-meet. Thank you.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/sep/11/minnesota-woman-songs-illegally-downloaded

http://www.digitaltrends.com/music/appeals-court-denies-piracy-penalty-plea/

THE RADIO WAVES A HELLO FROM THE PAST

One of the biggest regrets of my life is that I have not listened to the Vividh Bharti for decades now. Such has been the invasion of the television in our lives that we have voluntarily surrendered to its designs. Sitting in a couch, staring at a flickering screen while those unrelenting enemies, fat, cholesterol, triglycerides, unburnt-calories, Vitamin-D-deficiency, varicose veins, and flabby-belly ceaselessly shooting at you, has been a lost battle for good health.

The laws of physics are mercilessly unfriendly. A visual must be viewed directly since the line of sight is but a straight line. The potato is therefore necessarily bound to the couch. Sound waves, on the other hand waft and swirl around the house, from room-to room, in you garden and onto you balcony. The radio uncomplainingly sits in a corner, a most tolerant and liberal device not seeking to arrest you into confinement yet regaling you while you read the newspaper, sip your morning cuppa, walk on you treadmill, brush and shave or even take a shower. It works on your mind and not on your eyeballs. It doesn't enslave you, it befriends you. It captivate you, yet doesn’t take you captive. Human mind, the radio knows, is a powerful receiver. It can process multiple inputs, all at once. So, you can listen to the news while you drive, tap the table to Kishore Kumar while you eat your porridge or play with your children while the radio entertains you faithfully unconcerned with what you are doing.

So, whether it was a lazy summer afternoon or a cold winter night, you could be snuggled indoors and let the tuner beat the blues for you. The radio was a democratic device that entertained no matter where you were in the house. It enchanted the children, the Dad and the Mom, the housemaid and the passerby alike. If you wanted to enjoy a primetime serial, though the term serial was not invented then, you could curl up in warm blankets and listen to the Hawa Mahal. Or you could tune in to Radio Ceylon and enjoy the Binaca Geetmala, the weekly "award" rating of music that could easily outdo the glitzy Grammy Awards function. The best part of it was that the compère Amin Sayani came out tops every Wednesday, beating the songs that he played. The Vividh Bharti was the station, we didn't have channels then, that kept the love of music alive across generations through special programmes like Chhaya Geet and special programs for Fauji Bhais. Does Jhumri Talaiyya still exists on the planet earth? Let me find out next time I tune in. Raju, Babli and Pinki must have grown up now. Their postcard requests were read out as if they were personal messages from long lost friends.

Tuning in to obscure and distant radio stations gave greater pleasure than actually visiting London, Peking or Washington DC. The Aha Moment of locking into the clearest reception of the BBC or the Voice of America was as rewarding as a grandmother's success in threading a needle without glasses. The modern avatar, the FM Radio, comes close to the old faithful AM, but the latter still wins because it served you, without aerials and antennae, in basements and on sky-scrapers, in the hills and forests, on sea beaches and on high seas.

I have missed you, Radio! The #WorldRadioDay just told me that I have missed a lot in these years. I promise to make up for it. #ThankYouRadio.

---ooo---

PATANJALI STORES - Bhag MNC Bhag!

Visited the Patanjali Store just out of curiosity after having heard good things about it from many persons. "Total delight" is the only term that describes my experience. I have always been suspicious of Babas and have kept my distance from them. I would prefer to learn Yoga from Shilpa Shetty to a Baba-type teacher.

They say that Baba Ramdev has commercialised his brand. Nothing could be further from truth. He indeed has. The Patanjali brand of household stuff sells like hot cakes even in a small town like Salem and one has to wait one's turn in a queue. The reasons are not difficult to see. Everything is so well presented, packaged and ridiculously low-priced that one can only curse oneself for having been cheated all these years by the likes of Hindustan Lever, Colgate and Proctor and Gamble.

The Patanjali Stores sells everything of daily need - soaps, detergents, toothpaste, rice, atta, pulses, cooking oil, biscuits, cornflakes and even instant noodles. Every single thing is packaged professionally matching, if not beating the MNCs. Prices are unbelievably low. Soap cakes for half the price of what Hind Lever sells, shampoos and seventy percent cheaper, biscuits at half price and so on. Pulses are unpolished and very attractively packed. All foodstuff is fssai approved.

The range of soaps can shame Hindustan Lever and that of biscuits the Britannia company. The quality is top class and reassuring. The salespersons are ultra polite and are obviously well trained. They had staff, which spoke Tamil, Hindi and English. There is also an in-house consultant, who prescribes Ayurvedic medicines for you, all of which are available in the store at very reasonable prices. The blend of heritage and herbal offerings with modern stuff like moisturisers, sunscreens and hair-conditioners, liquid hand-washes is seamless.

This Baba is soon going to give the MNCs a run for their money. He has also launched a major advertising campaign in the media. The best part of it is that he does not use a beauty-queen or a film star as a brand ambassador. His market savvy and care for details will soon be a case study in Management Schools.

I recommend a visit to your nearest Patanjali Store.

(Disclaimer: I am not a follower of Baba Ramdev)

IS THIS GUY A SALES AGENT OF AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES?

We all know the "seminars" Australian Universities hold every year in India to catch the rich kids. Education is business in Australia and Indians are the biggest customers. Or, shall we say the raw material or the fuel to keep their teaching factories going?

But, Narayan Murthy is professing that India spends five billion dollars every year in educating our students in American Universities for next fifty years!

Mr Murthy! Why not spend five billion dollars every year in India to set up world class Universities? One can set up a Harvard style University in India for about 100 million dollars or say 700 crore Rupees. We could set up fifty Harvard Universities in India for five billion dollars. Fifty every year, that is. For next fifty years!

We will not get good teachers, you would say. Then set up forty Harvard style Universities for four billion dollars and employ the best professors for the remaining billion dollars. You could get the best in the world for that kind of money. 

The problem, Mr Murthy, is not sending 10,000 PhD students every year to the USA. The problem is what jobs we will offer them when they come back. Do we have the laboratories and research houses to employ ten thousand PhDs every year? And what salaries will we offer them? That of the peon? Didn't you hear that nearly two million candidates, some of them PhDs and MTechs, applied for a mere three hundred jobs of peons in Uttar Pradesh?

On second thoughts, why not spend half of five billion dollars in setting up twenty five Harvards or MITs in India and spend the rest in setting up high class research labs. But again, who will be the customers of such labs and of the fantastic designs they will churn out year after year? Does the Indian industry have it in them to absorb such research products? 

Well, Mr. Murthy! You need to read up some economics after all that COBOL programming that you have learnt. You can't develop an economy in such a lopsided manner. And please stop being an agent of the American Education system. It is sinking for some time now and it is going down for reasons well known to them. We will not prop them up.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/Send-10k-PhD-students-each-year-to-US-Narayana-Murthy/articleshow/50780069.cms

BUREAUCRATISATION OF EDUCATION

When I was a school going child, the only authority I knew in the school was the Principal or the Headmaster. The Principal, aided by the Vice-Principal, epitomised all the powers that were to be exercised in running the school, from caning and disciplining the students, decisions regarding admissions, upkeep of the playgrounds and gardens, cleanliness of the campus, time-tabling, examination and vacation dates to meeting the parents.

 

In the last two to three decades or so, schools have come to be owned by "trusts". So, now we have a Chairman of the trust, a vice-chairman, a Secretary, a Treasurer and numerous trustees. The poor Principal is now placed so low in the hierarchy that he is probably just a trifle above his pupils. Same goes for colleges thousands of which have sprung up every few kilometres as one travels in the country side. Of course, the trusts are just a facade for ostensible "no-profit" venture that these seats of learning pretend to be. All the donations, building funds, development funds, proprietary sale of books and stationary to students from in-house counters and all other non-tuition payments form the real motive of these trusts, which only fatten their members and line their pockets. 

 

I was once invited as the Chief Guest to a famous engineering college in Salem, Tamil Nadu. The Principal himself came to invite me and I felt honoured to be visited by him. But, when I was seated on the stage, the Principal was nowhere to be seen. I had the company of the trustees and some other spurious dignitaries. The programme started and I was surprised to find the Principal getting up from a corner seat come up and touch the feet of the Chairman, the Secretary, the Treasurer and a few other members in succession. This was a shocking let down for me. I had always envisioned a Principal as the supreme authority in a college. As the programme progressed, it became clear to me that the whole exercise was a show of sycophancy, subservience and obsequiousness. The trustees were the reigning deities, who were paid obeisance by one an all, the Principal, the Heads of Departments and College students alike. In the melee the Chief Guest was also forgotten. The Principal, upon whose visit I had felt honoured, was merely a messenger of the trustees after all!

 

I remember my days in school and college, where the Principal and senior teachers were role models and symbols of dignity and probity. But, here I saw the Principal and HODs in a role so diminished that students would probably have no reverence towards them. They would all learn to stand in awe of non-academic authorities. I have, likewise, seen some schools that are run on "corporate" lines, many of which love to call themselves XYZ International School. We see a Managing Director, an Executive Director and a few Deputy Directors in them. Each one of them have office chambers in the school building and when they come avisiting, the Principal is seen running errands for them or flitting in and out of the hallowed chambers attempting to look like obedient junior schoolboys. And, when the MD himself visits, they line up small students from the gate up to the portico showering flower petals on him. In my school the Principal's office was a much feared or a much respected place depending on the type of student one was.  There was absolutely no authority above him. Today the Principal stands probably at number seven in the rank.

 

The school and college management has taken faithfully after the government or corporate bureaucracy. Teaching and learning are incidental and the main purpose seems to be massaging the ego of hierarchy that has been unnecessarily created. Money making and its laundering continues as the hidden agenda.

 

Needless to say, I never visited any such Institution again. 

चाय मैं क्यों बनाऊँ?

आप किसी बड़े होटल में जाकर चाय का ऑर्डर करें तो कमबख्त आपको चाय-पत्ती, चीनी, दूध लाकर परोस देते हैं। यहां तक कि छन्नी भी पटक जाते हैं। "लो जी, बनाओ और पी लो।" वह तो गनीमत है कि कोयला और अंगीठी नहीं दे जाते कि जाओ चूल्हा भी आप ही जला लो। पानी गर्म दे जाते हैं।

अब आप ही सोचो कि ऐसे होटल में आपको यदि चिकन-मसाला और पराठे खाने की इच्छा हुई तो क्या होगा? बेयरा आपकी टेबुल पर जिंदा मुर्गी और मसाले धर देगा और बोलेगा, "साहब जी, आप मुर्गी हलाल करो और मसाले कूटो-पीसो, तब तक मैं कड़ाही लेकर आता हूँ। और आटा आपको कौन सा चलेगा - शक्तिभोग या पिल्सबरी मल्टीग्रेन? आटा गूँथने के लिये पानी कौन सा चाहिए - बिसलेरी मांगता है या नलके का मारूँ?  अभी लेकर हाजिर हुआ।"

अब ये भी कोई आउटिंग हुई, साहब? ऐसे ईटिंग आउट का क्या मज़ा? अरे भाई, मैंने चाय मंगाई है। सीधे-सीधे एक प्याली चाय ले आओ। और ये क्या टेबुल पर काटना-पीसना-पकाना? तुम्हारा खानसामा भाग गया है क्या? मुझे बख्शो, बरखुरदार! आगे से मैं रामप्रसाद के ढाबे पर ही जाऊंगा।

                                           ---ooo---