What price honesty?

A large number of people of our generation were brought up with the adage "honesty is the best policy". My father followed it to the hilt. He also inculcated that value very deeply into my psyche. However,with the passage of time and the immense change in the socio-economic scenario,the paradigm of honesty appears to have shifted, at both the micro and macro levels. The grey area seems to have grown and the clear demarcations of black or white,have faded. The question is,as is wont to be asked in the new scheme of things, who really is an honest person?

I ask this because, in a sense, all of us are less than 100% honest,so to say. After all,who amongst us does not make personal calls from office telephones, for instance? Or, who does not,once in a while, leave work early to attend to some personal need? Or, who does not use the office car (or the office-maintained car) for shopping or dropping the kids to school? Do all these make us dishonest? If yes, then all of us are corrupt,like I mentioned earlier. If no, then who is a dishonest person? At the end of the day, it remains a matter of perception.

However, it is not my intention to go into a debate in this blog as to who can or cannot be termed dishonest. All I wish to say at this juncture is that there seems to be a widespread area of dishonest influence in the fabric of our present day society. And, evidence suggests, that it is the honest people who have to pay a price, every time! So it seems, anyway!

You do not have to search high and low for instances of this. In 2010 alone 8 RTI activists have been murdered for asking awkward questions...for asserting, as tax-payers, their right to information about public spendings. The RTI Act was instituted to bring transparency in the operations of public offices. What has been the fall-out in extreme cases? Kill anybody who persistently questions corruption!

Remember Satyandra Dubey? He was killed for reporting the financial misdeeds of people who were engaged in a msjor road project.

The Ministry of Shipping's obvious discomfiture at the exposure of the monstrous financial shenanigans of the Kandla Port Trust,is reflected in ample measures, not in repairing,controlling or halting the damage, but in hounding to professional death the only honest person on the scene. His crime? Blowing the whistle on all those raking in the stuff by the bagfuls through infamous means! How does it matter if an upright Deputy Chairman of the Port Trust is without a job today, as long as the scam is perpetuated to ensure the continuous filling of the deep pockets of the scamsters?

Or take the current national mega activity called The Commonwealth Games. According to the media all the stake-holders, including various government agencies, the Union Government, the Delhi government,hundreds of contractors and vendors, have taken the objective of the Games a little too literally - they are dipping their hands into the common wealth that is there on offer in great profusion! I am patiently waiting for the emergence of the jokers-in-the-pack - the Whistle Blowers or the rare honest officials - who will end up being the inevitable scapegoats. I can only pray for their lives!

Although, all this is merely the media's contention so far, it is very very difficult to perceive the organisers of the games to be as innocent as the driven snow! One must not forget the people's penchant for adhering to Samuel Smile's formula - "self help is the best help....." etc, when it comes to making dirty money!

These instances that I have mentioned are only symptomatic of the malaise that pervades the government and public offices of our country. At least, such indeed is the widespresd perception. Government servants, bureaucrats, police personnel, defence forces personnel, et al are forever clamouring for "plum postings" where, more often than not, the pickings are easy. On the other side of the spectrum, who has not heard of or read about mass transfers of public office holders whenever a new minister assumes office? The effort is to always have a coterie of people who will help to perpetuate the channels of illegal gratification, usually in terms of mega bucks. Scam is no more a dirty word. Corruption and bribery, as claimed by the perpetrators, are merely words of imagination used by vengeful people to "malign" others of unblemished characters!

In case my public sector and government friends are feeling hard done by me, please rest assured that I strongly believe, in fact know, that there are a large number of very upright people amongst the same lot. Very true: but this does not absolve the system of its awful stigma of corrupt practices. The thing is, the recent events which I mentioned at the onset, have refocussed attention on the deep-rooted corruption and graft as they exist in today's India.

Not that the much vaunted private sector is not privy to the lure of ill-gotten riches! Not at all! Not in the least!Far from it! The demise of a large number of blue-chip companies can be attributed to wholesale cleaning out of the corporate coffers!

After a career in trans-national and Indian companies, it pains me to say that the disease of corruption is as much present in the corporate world as in the public sphere. The craving for filthy lucre (filthily acquired) is as acute as in any other sector.

I know this because I have had an insider's view for a long time in a trans-national/market leader environment and consequently, frequently suffered for being a stumbling block in the paths of wealth accumulation of various people - right from junior levels up to the very top echelons of management! The saddest part in this is - to my mind anyway - that the moral health of the company's human resource was, by and large, in better shape under the expats than under the Indians!

Where the RTI activists were unceremoniously bumped off,the upright ones in this company had to undergo the indignities like being ignored for promotion, being denied value-added assignments, being overlooked for foriegn assignments,being targeted with single-minded determination for insults and humiliation and,on a few occasions, being hounded out of the organisation! And all the time the cry, the mantra went round " the corrupt shall inherit the earth!"

But do not for a moment think that this environment was peculiar to only the company where I worked. The scenario is typical of a lot of organisations. as I am given to understand by my friends, associates and relations.

And this brings me to my point. Is making enormous sums of money and rising to the "top" by greed, stealth, graft, machinations, sycophancy, politicking,etc, the real hallmark of success? In the same vein, is the failure to reach the dizzy heights of organisational glory due to one's innate honesty,a mark of under-achievement?

IN OTHER WORDS, DO HONEST PEOPLE REALLY HAVE TO PAY A PRICE FOR BEING HONEST?

By practising, the virtue of integrity in their careers, whether at home or at work, I do not believe that honest people had to pay any price for the other people's crimes of corruption. They may not have acquired worldly possessions beyond compare. They may not be moneyed persons by any stretch of imagination. They may have even caused frustrations out of pecuniary embarrassments, every now and then. But I feel sure that they sleep with a conscience free from the headaches of ill-gotten riches. They can look anybody and everybody squarely in the eye without flinching from any sense of guilt. They can hold their heads high and upright with a spotless reputation of honesty - despite the repeated and sustained efforts of the effected people to prove to the contrary.

As against this,in the trans-national company where I worked for over 3 decades, I have been witness to the eventual fall,loss of respect and utter humiliation of ALL those who had corruption flowing through their veins, as it were, and who were hell-bent on marginalising me as I proved to be "inconvenient" to them!. Amazing,as it may seem, every single one of these individuals had to quit the company sooner or later in total disgrace. And this "sack of the rapists" cut across the hierarchy from top to bottom - from members of the Board of Directors to Executive Directors, to Senior Vice Presidents, Vice Presidents, General Managers, Managers,other officials. etc, etc, etc.

I cannot help but be convinced that one has to pay for one's sins IN THIS LIFE ITSELF! There is no need to dwell on the possible conditions of these wretched devils as they are today. What suffices is the knowledge that they are living with the awareness that everybody feels that they are nothing more than common thieves and cut-throats. They also remember that everybody in the organisation was privy to their exit in disgrace. These comprise enough loads round their necks for them to carry to their after-lives.

The above state cannot be the lot of only the people who worked in the same company as I. This is a lesson for all who willingly stray from the straight path in search of tainted gains.....NO MATTER WHERE THEY WORK - GOVERNMENT,PUBLIC SECTOR OR PRIVATE SECTOR.

The honest people, therefore, do not have to pay a price. On the contrary,a heavy price is extracted from the corrupt by Higher Designs, tomorrow if not today.

So, at the end of the day, honesty is still the best policy!

Any takers?

Introducing Al's Diary!

It is not easy to tell a good story...or at least to tell a good story well. Yet, here I am committing to do exactly that - i.e. recount real-life tales - without the slightest confidence of making a good job of it! But all that, a bit later.

First, the genesis of this extraordinary decision!

Over the last few years a whole lot of friends have been urging me to put down on paper the various anecdotes that I may have shared with them from time to time. All these anecdotes are really nothing but situations that I have found myself in or incidents that I have experienced during my school, college, work, family and social life.After having successfully procrastinated for a long time I suddenly realised that I may as well give it a go! Why not?!

A few years ago, on being asked by a friend as to how I was, I remember I had said that I was suffering from "Al"! I explained that since I could not remember half the things, "Al" must have got hold of me. It only remained for "zheimer" to catch up to complete the process of Alzheimer's! Somehow, this reasoning amused a lot of people and soon the theory was being bandied around quite freely. In fact, dear reader, you may have already come across it!

Selim Bose, an old family friend, liked this so much, along with a few of my other stories, that he seriously suggested that I write down these experiences, put them together and call the collection "Al's Diary"! Wow! What do you know? Bingo! That is precisely what i am setting forth to do.Behold the birth of Al's Diary! Thank you, Selim - wherever you may be.

How do I go about it? I wish I had the story-telling flair of my father who was a 'reconteur par excellence' of real life tales! He used to regale one and all with his endless stock of travelogues, stories, jokes, conundrums,even rhymes, what have you! His innate sense of humour was so pronounced that his narratives never failed to raise a smile or a laugh. Naturally, they made for very interesting stuff! The problem is, I do not think I have my father's skill even in half measure.

So, back to the beginning. How do I go about it? A wise one advised me by saying that "start at the beginning and do not stop till you reach the end!" Wonderful! With a helpful friend such as he, who needs enemies? Nevertheless the die was cast! I decided to bring Al's Diary to life - with the thought in the back of my mind that may be I should present only the lighter side of life's offerings!

So, on this the 27th 0f July 2010, Al's Diary is born. As to how long it will live, is anybody's guess. But I shall give it all the help and sustenance that I can muster. Hopefully, it will take root and flourish with time.

Dear Reader, welcome to Al's Diary! You shall have to be a bit patient because the first "story" will not appear in this blog. So keep reading. "Reflections" will necessarily have to be a mix of "Al's Diary" and other articles. In fact, some features of Al's Diary have already been published in this blog! Please recall the case of the royal housekeepr at Delhi's Taj Mahal hotel; or the puzzling location of Czechoslovakia in Canada, etc, etc! Remember? To simplify things, I promise to clearly designate the posts from Al's Diary in the title row itself so that you have no problem in distiguishing between contents of Al's Diary and other articles.

I shall leave you today with a request to please continue to read "Reflections" regularly. I also hope that you continue to enjoy it!

Southern comfort - a mini travelogue

A curious fact about our recent holiday in Kerala was that the most remarkable part of it was the total absence of the use of bad words and naked aggression by the people at large! To North Indians like us, who are fed a diet of "gaalis" day and night by men or women, young or old, it certainly was an unbelievable experience, bordering on the unreal! The Keralites demonstrated a refreshing preference for grammar over expletives in choosing their words and punctuations while speaking!!!Their genteel manner of speech and behaviour were like music to the ears and a soothing balm to frayed nerves.


We arrived at Calicut at about 09.45 hours of the 27th of May to be greeted by our old friend G.K.Nayar who was to be our host for the week. The journey itself was a bit of a strain on the nerves as the flight had a stopover at Mangalore Airport, which had very recently proved to be too small for an aircraft to land on! However, as a result of the intense prayers to all the gods that I could remember on the spur of the moment, both the landing and the take-off went off without us being actually deposited on the slopes of the Western Ghats!

However, we had counted our blessings too soon and not reckoned with Air India! At Calicut we discovered that the carriers had decided to separate me from my suitcase. While I appeared to be in Kerala as borne out by all evidences around me, my suitcase seemed to have been guided to some other destination by the Maharaja! If this was a new version of the "Catch Me If You Can" game introduced by the Ministry of Civil Aviation for the entertainment of passengers in this era of cut-throat competition, it failed to amuse me. My holiday was already doomed! More so because the suitcase contained to very importtant items, my camera and a carefully chosen bottle of whisky!

Fortunately, the ghostly voice of Air India rang up some 6 hours later to announce that my suitcase had arrived in Calicut and would be escorted to my friend's house within the hour.as indeed, it was! So, at last, the Nayars and us could smile and say that "All Is Well!"

At the ungodly hour of 04.30 a.m. of the next day we set off by road for Aleppey or Allapuzha, some 270kms distant, to check-in to our houseboat on the backwaters. En route, we had stopped over briefly at a couple of very picturesque wayside eateries for coffee and breakfast as also to answer various other essential calls of nature!!!

The houseboat was named Blue Lake and was being piloted by Captain Tijo and his crew of two.We set off by 11.30 on a 24 hours' gentle cruise during which we weaved in and out of numerous streams, rivulets, inlets and lakes.

The backwaters of Kerala takes one's breath away! There is water evrywhere...not turbulant like in the open sea but quiet, serene and peaceful. As one travels along on a houseboat the beauty of the place gradually unfolds before the eyes and one gets lost in the placid charms of nature.The pre-dominance of green, in all its hues,is enchanting. The streams flow gently.The numerous islands, rich in coconut palms and other forestry and vegetation, surround the boats from all sides as the latter quietly make their way through quaint villages on the banks.Very often the inlets are so narrow that the hanging boughs of trees on the banks form picturesque canopies, as it were, over the watery paths.The effect is spell-binding.There is hardly a sound except the call of different water birds and the steady but soft murmur of the boat's engine.The surroundings cast a tranquil spell on the passengers too! We certainly did forgot our chatter soon enough and revelled in the all-pervasive stillness.

The 24 hours or so of drifting on the Kerala backwaters was an unforgettable experience. The breathtaking sunset of riotous colours, the gentle hush of the velvet evenings, the sheer spirituality of the breaking dawn, the play of monsoon clouds across the sky, the musical patter of rain on the waters and the omni-present rich greenery all around - embraced us in the ever so comforting arms of nature.The experience was no doubt more poignant to Kumkum and I because of the wonderful change it made from the hot,dry,dusty plains of North India.

We also managed to pack in a few other trips to various places including Kochi where we saw the Cochin Shipyard, the naval base,the fascinating Jew Street, the much vaunted hotel - Taj Malabar and the rest of the neat and tidy city, modern yet modest in its appearance.

An unusual experience was a visit to the Elephant Park of the famous Guruvayur temple. I cannot recall having seen so many pachyderms in one group, other than in the wilds of North Bengal or in the Corbett Park in U.P.These elephants belong to the temple and form an integral part of the religious rituals held there every now and then.

We had more interplay with the seemingly ubiquitous presence of water in Kerala by spending quality time on the Kappad beach of Calicut and in the nearby river resort of Kadavu. The Kadavu Resort is built on the slopes of a hill and overlook the bend of a river. The whole place is simply beautiful - the surroundings are quiet,full of green forestry and, of course, the cool,flowing river.I must not forget to mention the delicious lunch and the chilled beer that we enjoyed in the resort's Coffee Shop, with its gorgeous view of the entire panorama of river, hills and forest. As for the Kappad beach, it was a true representation of Kerala - clean,quiet and beautiful.What a change from Juhu,Chowputty, Marina or Puri beaches!

The other memorable trip was to the coconut plantation of G.K.'s. Situated a fair distance from Calicut city ( an hour's drive),it brought back vivid recollections of Simulbari Tea Estate, my uncle's tea estate in the Darjeeling district of West Bengal.Although the physical appearances were different, the general ambience,the ways of the life on an estate, the abundance of greenery and quiet and the everyday activities were all so familiar and thrilling! We went for a loaf in the plantation savouring thick undergrowth,ducking all the time beneath overhanging boughs of various trees and stumbling upon a reservoir, an old pond, gone dry. This additional touch completed the rural effect to a nicety.

Shantha di, G.K.'s widowed sister was our thoughtful and affectionate hostess. She lives there alone and maintains a shining, spic and span bungalow. Although G.K. actually owns it in the main part, he and Nalini live in Calicut and are periodic visitors to the estate.It is a charming bungalow, perfectly in harmony with the rustic surrounds yet totally modern in its comforts.And the "piece de resistance" of the visit was the splendid lunch that Shantha di served in traditional style on green plantain leaves!That was really enjoyable!

The week passed far too swiftly.However, it did provide me with the chance to reinforce my student days' view that Kerala and Bengal have much in common.In those days my friend Mohan Nair and I were thick as thieves, as it were, and spent many an hour together either in college or in our homes, or in our "adda" dens or even on holidays including one to Simulbari! It was during those interactions that I discovered the uncanny smilarities between the two states and their people.The topography, climate,the culture, the food habits,the stress on academics, the basic nature of rituals and even the fancy for left-wing politics, defined the characteristics of the two people.

Naturally, we felt totally at home with the Nayars who overwhelmed us with their heart-warming hospitality, without ever going overboard with displays of any pomp or ostentation.They treated us like members of the family and we very much felt like members of the family! That was the high point of our holiday.Kerala is wonderful and so are its people. The Nayars, our old friends, are no exception.The whole stay was delightfully free of visits to clubs, malls and social gatherings where artificiality and vacuousness rule at the cost of spontaneity and genuineness.

Our departure from Kerala was no less eventful than our arrival. We arrived at the Calicut airport at 8.45am on the 3rd of June, well in time for our flight. No sooner had the Nayars left for a family do after dropping us, we were informed that our flight had been cancelled!The domestic terminal was deserted. We were told by the security guard that it would come to life only by 12.30pm!

Our friends had gone and we were loathe to bother them in the midst of a get-together. The guard willingly unlocked the entry gate and allowed us to wait inside the terminal, which we did most gratefully.Not a soul was in sight barring a couple of cleaning ladies.Half an hour later a solitary AI official came into view. We promptly butonholed him with our problems. Very politely he suggested that we wait and contact the Duty Manager once he arrived.Soon this good samaritan came back to us to inform that we were to wait where we were sitting because the Duty manager was on his way to meet us!Our first thought was that this would never have happened in Delhi.

Sure enough the Duty manager arrived within a few minutes. He listened to us, looked at our tickets and assured us by saying that it is the Airlines' responsibilty to send us to Delhi and that he would make every arrangement to put us on board the next flight scheduled to arrive at 1.00pm and leave at 2.00pm. He summoned somebody by walkie-talkie, made him open the check-in counter,boot the system,check us in, give us the boarding cards,and duly tagged our baggage with the baggage tickets and kept them ready on the loading conveyor!.

I was concerned about the X-ray of the checked in bags without which we would not be cleared by the security personnel for boarding.The X-Ray machine was to start at 12.30pm and the bags were not with us!The Duty Manager again assured us that the staff would get the X-Ray done and we need not worry at all.Instead, he rang up somebody else and arranged for us to have breakfast in the staff restaurant, with the complimants of the airlines!

Imagine all this being done three hours before the airport opened, let alone the check-in counters!Would this have happened at any other airport? When the check-in finally started at 12.30pm we did not have to do anything except board, when the call came!And believe me, our baggage was duly X-Rayed without any effort on our part to do so!We duly left Calicut on time and were back home at 9.30pm after stop-overs at Coimbatore and Mumbai.

It was such a pleasant surprise to find that pockets of excellence in service do exist in our country, no matter how insufficient. The experience only reinforced our idea of the friendliness and positive-mindset of the Keralite who, as a people, have added to nature's bounties and made the state what it is proclaimed to be viz., God's Own Country.

"We are like this only!"

It has been well over a month since my last pow-wow with "Reflections", and that is not good enough! Of course, there is no dearth of excuses to be proffered, but on this one occasion, I forgive myself because a good deal of the time was spent with those two little devils, Kabir and Raghav. And I would be hard pressed to find a better way of passing time!

So, what do I pen down to rejuvenate my diary? I think I shall go back to the 24th of April when I had made a comment or two on Facebook which, very interestingly, evoked some varied comments. I had mused that to be successful one should not be smart, well informed, confident, etc....or words to that effect. I had not gone into any specifics as the thoughts were general, open to queries and clarifications. While someone was justly baffled one other said "eyik" and a third one called for a delete button!

The point is that, whether we like it or not, whether we suffer from illusions of grandeur about ourselves or not, the "crab mentality" is over active in our collective psyche. As a result of this we are always tempted to catch hold of the perceived achievers in our society and bring them down a peg or two. And what better catch than those who evoke jealousy and inferiority complexes in us; whom we secretly envy; and who we label "elitists" in order to put ourselves on pedestals of "aam aadmi" - where we do not belong!

At the time of my comment on the Faceook, my mind was filled with what the media, the people and the rulers were doing to two persons by the name of Shashi Tharoor and Sunanda Pushkar. I felt that we were being, as usual, too hasty and precipitate in pulling down the two for their indiscretions regarding the IPL Kochi bid. Today, I stand somewhat vindicated as Jairam Ramesh too has fallen prey to this great malady. Shashi Tharoor has been shown the door from the ministry and Jairam Ramesh has been proclaimed a pariah in the government.

It is true that both have indeed been guilty of extremely immature and indiscreet behaviour. But that is all they have done. Tharoor and Ramesh are two of the brighest men in Indian politics. They are not just bright; they are brilliant. Do we or don't we want people of such intellectual stature to lead the nation to the future? The point I am trying to make is that, had the two gentlemen been from say a vernacular academic background, it is doubtful whether they would have made such good "copy" to be hounded beyond compare by the media.

Are we to believe that ministers from more "indigenous" backgrounds have never shot off their mouths or made any unsavoury statements or behaved in unbecoming manner for public figures? Is there nobody in the government who has made blunders galore? Is there noone who has been tainted by scams, crimes, corruption, incompetence and who are deserving of severe punishment? Or are these offences so very minimal that they become eminently acceptable, much in contrast to the indiscretions of M/S Tharoor and Ramesh?

This phenomenon goes back a long way in my memeory. In the second half of 1964 I took admission to M.A. Economics class in the Post graduate College of Arts & Science, Calcutta University. Having been an alumni of St. Xavier's School and College, I was somewhat prepared to face initial hostility from fellow students from vernacular colleges. However, that did not happen. What happened was totally unexpected as it originated from the professors and not the students.

On the very first day, one professor stated that he wished to assess the quality of the class right at the beginning as it would help him to pitch his lectures at the appropriate level. This need seemed a bit odd at that point, but since it was not a major issue for us Xaverians, the matter did not weigh on our minds. However his method of ascertaining this so-called level of academic intelligence was rather tell-tale and bewildering! It certainly drew our attention! It also introduced us to the reality of people's perceptions and how warped they can be, at the best of times.

Prof. Sadhan Bhattacharya, for so was his name, mentioned half a dozen or so colleges one by one and wanted to know who all came from them. He scrupulously omitted the name of St. Xavier's College which has always been the top college in Calcutta in respect of all-round accomplishments of the students. Academically too it was second only to Presidency College, which certainly found a mention in his list! For corporate recruiters the students of St. Xavier's were always the prime catch. St. Xavier's boys (there were no girls in SXC in those days. Alas!) were generally, among other things, smart, proficient in English, intelligent,excellent in sports, followed western pop music, watched English movies, were trendily dressed and usually very articulate and well-mannered. All this proved to be the bane. In the mind of Prof. Bhattacharya and those of countless others of his ilk, this was the stereotype......the elitist, no-good, "phiringi" wasters, interested only in games and girls and far removed from the ideal.....the bookwormish "bhaalo chhele". Hence, in his mind, there was no place for us in the pursuit of academics. I must add that Loreto College for Girls had also not made it to the professor's list. It is, of course a different matter that there was no girl from Loreto in our class!

So, this kind of mental stereotyping is very much prevalent in our society. In later years, I have found this in my working life as well. After repeated experiences of this bias I have come to the conclusion that it springs from sheer jealousy of the smart, articulate and sophisticated people. This is where the "crab mentality" comes in. You cannot emulate the smart trend-setter? Don't worry, just pull him down till he hits dust! Only then will you be able to strut around and flaunt your stuff! Amen!

As for now, I am seriously concerned about the public-life longevity of Kapil Sibal, Salman Khurshid, P Chidambaram and others of their "elitist" breed.

It pays to increase your word power!

There is a fascinating feature in every issue of Reader's Digest which is titled "It Pays To Increase Your Word Power".I do not know whether you follow it, but I do. In fact, I have been doing so ever since I took to reading the magazine in my school days.
Well, it is not my intention to comment on the feature. I merely recall the title as it has been playing on my mind since early morning. It ocurred to me that this particular title, no doubt patented in some form by RD, is so very relevant to our politicians, across the board!

Some time ago, Hon. Sashi Tharoor likened economy class travel on international flights to "cattle class" travel. There was an all mighty uproar in Parliament at this because people (read our learned legislators from some parties) felt slighted, humiliated, minimised, outraged, exploited and God knows what else, because of the reference to cattle, the holy plural of the holy cow. Apparently, Mr. Tharoor's remark was an affront to all Hindus as it allegedly denigrated the holy symbol of Hinduism, the cow. This remark was also perceived to be seen, in some quarters, as a reference to female air passengers as cows. If only the slighted gentry had the benefit of word power in their repertoire of personal attainments, then the derivation of "cattle class" from the old system of herding cattle in tightly packed freight cars with only standing room for the purpose of moving them across the country, would have been eminently obvious to them. There would not have been any cause for heartburns, religious or otherwise. Mr. Tharoor's remarks would have been accepted as a mere humourous allusion to the discomforts of long-distance air travel by economy class. As indeed, millions of people, like us for instance, actually do in everyday life!

Today, a news has emerged that an Hon. Chief Minister of one of our States, has taken umbrage at being told that, in matters of any state's law and order, "the buck stops there", i.e. the Chief Minister's desk. We are given to understand that the expression is a slang and derogatory in nature...that it is not the appropriate language in describing a high public office. If the expression "passing the buck" can be used in profusion in both public and private life, I do not see the logic in objecting to "the buck stops here", unless, of course, it is again the lack of mastery over word power! If the reference is indeed humiliating, then spare a thought for the generations of U.S.Presidents who have inflicted self-humiliation on themselves over the centuries by having a plaque bearing the words "The Buck Stops Here" placed on the Executive desk of The Oval Office! Is the office of the President of the USA, a high enough public office?

There is a limit to sensitivity. The over-the-top reactions are no different from a wide range of people who take immense offence at being called (albeit wrongly) "nonsense" for some reason or the other! The word "nosense", for some mysterious reason, acts as a red rag in front of a raging bull. Plenty of really colourful adjectives do not evoke or provoke such extreme reactions as the innocuous "nonsense" does. You must have come across this many a time. I wonder if the great Sukumar Roy would have felt slighted if he had come across the descriptions of his works as "Nonsense poems". Somehow, I do not think so. After all, Sukumar Roy had word power at his disposal.

Memories on fire!

Fire! Again fire! It feels as though the fires of 26/11 are still raging and nothing that the mind can conjure up by way of distraction, can douse those flames completely. Or so I thought. Little did I realise that it would take another fire, another memory to be set aflame, for the first one to die down. Mr. Arathoon Stephen's soul must be in acute distress at the fate that has befallen his handiwork, the iconic Stephen Court of Kolkata.

Why must all our memories literally go up in flames?

Stephen Court is a building that I used to walk past twice a day, five days a week for years together! This British age building on the one hand and the school and college that I attended on the other, happen to be located, to this day, on the same famous road of Kolkata, viz. Park Street.

This corner edifice was always a landmark for us aspiring Romeos. It stands at the junction of Middleton Row and Park Street which, to us, meant a stone's throw from the YWCA, a short distance from El Morrocco ( there was no Peter Cat in those days) and, of course, just up the street from Loreto House where the hearts of most Xaverians belonged and resided! On the other hand if one progressed along Park Street without turning into Middleton Row, the road led us surely to Mags (our abbreviation for Magnolia), which was, invariably, the first port of call for shared cups of coffee with the current Loreto friend. And not to forget the cigarette shop at the gate of Stephen Court! The owner of this shop was a discerning entrepreneur indeed to have set up shop in such a prime location. For, hardly a college student walked past without fortifying himself with a much needed puff, either to muster courage before meeting the girl friend, or to seek its company before boarding a bus at Chowringhee. And what about the tension filled minutes spent at the junction, trying to look innocuous by glassily staring at meaningless magazines (hung from the grilled fence of Stephen Court by some enterprising book-seller), while waiting with racing hearts and clammy hands to meet Miss Perfect to arrive from LH or from some bus stop? Stephen Court (or just outside it) was the proverbial journey's end where faint hearts and fair ladies rendezvoused to try and avoid myriad people like prying nuns and priests, assorted drivers or inquisitive classmates, or even an occasional parent!

Stephen Court! Many things to many people. Over the decades the building became the hub of many businesses with a honeycomb of offices operating out of it. As a result, today, the day population of the building has assumed considerable proportions. Lots of people, young and old, men and women, boys and girls throng Stephen Court every day, to earn their living. They come from all over the city as well as the suburbs. In fact, my nephew Saurav, runs his outfit from there and is one of those lucky ones to have escaped unhurt while the fire raged in all its fury just above his head on the floor above!

Stephen Court is not all offices, though. Lots of old companies, the British ones in particular, provided very handsome living quarters to their officers. My classmate from school Amit, better known as Mota, lived there for some years. Needless to say the four of us (Chatterjees) had spent a wonderful holiday with them back in 1984. The rooms were so large that the four children of the two families would play their ball games quite comfortably within them. Lofty ceilings, huge rooms were at times positively disconcerting when the four of us (the grown-ups!) would sit down to have a drink and a quiet chat of an evening. We were all so far away from one another! And the resonance of our voices were amazing to say the least! But the extreme comfort offered by the well-appointed flats more than made up for any minor inconvenience like the sheer vastness!

Furthermore , how can I forget to mention Flury's. The wide frontage on Park Street with its huge glass windows was definitely a showpiece of Stephen Court. Strong-willed was the pedestrian who, while walking along the pavement, could resist looking in through these windows to mentally savour the wares on display.

I was introduced to this sweet-toothed gourmet's paradise by my father way back in the '50s. Since then, as far as I can remember, all our confectioneries were bought from this place. Despite its having changed hands several times from the days that a Swiss/Italian gentleman called Mr. Flury set up shop long before independence, Flury's has managed to maintain the standards pretty well, although it may have lost the tag of the best confectioner in India, which it certainly was for a long time. However,the memories of Flury's cakes, pastries, patties and other confected delights are abiding. Perhaps the biggest tribute to the attractions of Flury's was paid by the outstation air travellers who invariably made a pit-stop at this holiest of holies to pick up a box or two of goodies en route to the airport and home, in distant Delhi or Madras or Bombay of the 6os and 70s!

Flury's was also the only restaurant of repute which served breakfast - a famously delicious one, by the way - from early in the morning. When our children were small, a holiday in Kolkata always included a trip to the zoo at 6.00 in the morning followed by breakfast at Flury's. What memories! I can still remember the taste of eggs and bacon, ham sandwiches,chicken patties, the ubiquitous baked beans on toast. And the heady, rich aroma of fresh coffee!

In more recent times, Music World has become a regular stop for me every time I visit Kolkata. This is definitely the new attraction of Stephen Court where people of all ages come in search of the latest music (or films) and the young come in droves for deliciously clandestine trysts with their romantic destinies! Let me assure you readers that my visits to Music World are purely for the pleasures of music and films!

For several decades, Peter Cat restaurant has also been a major attraction of Stephen Court. In fact, together with Flury's and the Silver Grill, Peter Cat forms a trinity of restaurants which Stephen Court alone offers on Kolkata's Food Street. I am not sure but one or two more eateries may have opened in this building by now!

So, it is quite easy to understand how Stephen Court has been for many years, and still is, woven into the fabric of a Kolkatan's life. I certainly hope that it continues to remain so for years to come. I hope that greedy commercialism does not endanger its enviable position in a citizen's heart. The recent devastating fire which reduced the top three floors to rubble, is not only a reminder of how things go wrong at the behest of a few unscrupulous profiteers who care nothing about people's lives in pursuit of filthy lucre, it is also a wake up call for the residents and the authorities to their responsibility towards protection of life and property in the future.

Above all it must be the responsibility of someone , somewhere to ensure that a wonderful part of a Kolkatan's life, as presented by the multiple attractions of Stephen Court, is not taken away by such callousness.

As the period of Lent slowly comes to an end, I sincerely hope that Flury's will once again fill the hearts and minds of the people with their offerings of the famous hot-cross buns and Easter eggs. I am sure the Kolkatan will, as usual, throng Park Street, Stephen Court and Flury's for their share of this annual fare! Happy Easter, dear reader.

Live to work?

The other day, it so happened, we were comfortably ensconced (strictly by invitation to a wedding!) in a 5-star hotel in Goa. It was morning and we were at breakfast in the hotel's coffee shop. All of a sudden a bit of someone else's conversation hit my ears and the piece of egg-on-toast-with-bacon halted in mid-air en route my eagerly expectant mouth. What the person in question quipped was that the whole ambience of that moment, including the ritual of breakfast, fondly reminded him of his working days.

It was quite an innocuous staement by itself. However, to me it seemed absurd that the sylvan surroundings, coupled with the company of friends and merry makers, should remind one of work days of the past. Of course I realised what the person had meant. In his corporate days he used to travel around the country and would put up at 5-star hotels. He was obviously reminded of that. Still, this bit of an offering set me thinking and reinforced my theory that this friend of mine (he shall remain un-named), like so many others in his position had perhaps, sacrificed a lot in life at the altar of career promotion. I used to travel a lot also. I definitely enjoyed the stays in some beautiful hotels. But I cannot say that I enjoyed the good things in life because they reminded me of my working days!

Perhaps, this is what plagues a lot of us in the corporate world. Trite as it may sound, a dangerously large number of people are more and more "living to work rather than working to live." What I mean is that people are increasingly considering their work and its appendages to be their badges of identity. We brand people ( just as much as we brand ourselves) according to their calling and station instead of discovering their intrinsic worth as human beings; as persons. We describe people as "doing well" if he can present an impressive corporate identity - does not matter how he has acquired it! Woebetide a person who is unfortunate enough to be a proficient musician, sportsperson, a performing artiste, an academic, a literateur, unless of course he is in the rarefied atmosphere of the Rehmans, Tendulkars, SRKs, Sens and Seths.

So, when corporate grandeur is the lodestar of one's life, it is but natural that everything outside the environs of the office assumes secondary importance. People often think work, live work, dream work and even socialise only for work. And let me tell you, the majority of these people would point a finger at me and ridicule me for airing my "typically" irreverent view of work culture. The question is - why does this happen? Is it peer pressure? Is it the unimaginable importance of the job? Is it over work? Is it sheer incompetence? Is it a fashion statement to appear very busy at all times? Is it living up to the dubious "ideals" set by the media through that brainless yet overused expression - "work hard, party hard"? Or is it that typically human (read Indian!) habit of sycophancy? The answer, perhaps, lies in a combination of these factors for I have actually encountered, on a regular basis, all of them in the course of my corporate years.

This obssession with work, at times, is bizarre and ridiculous. As a junior manager in the Accounts Department, fresh from completing my 120 weeks of management training, I was in the company of the departmental manager and his two assistants from the middle management cadre. (In fact, one of them was the topic of one of my earlier posts about Canada and Czechoslovakia - remember?) The work-day used to begin at 7.00am and end officially at 5.30pm. To me this was long enough a period to complete the day's allocated work, although one will be hard-pressed to find a more tedious and boring job than Accounts! Anyway, I could leave office latest by 5.45pm. the extra 15 mins being an allowance to enable the stampede of homeward-bound workmen to finish as I had no desire to be caught running out with them!

My senior colleagues saw things differently. My practice of leaving by 5.45pm was viewed as a sign of a callous attitude towards work and, apparently, it reflected a total absence of seriousness on my part. However, that is not the story in this post. It is a story of the three venerable colleagues who displayed their "habit of hard work", their "commitment to the job", their "loyalty to the organization", blah blah, blah blah, by leaving for the canteen (not home!) at 5.45pm and refreshing themselves with tea/coffee and snacks for half an hour or so.. They would then head back to their desks and call it a day earliest by 10.00pm! This routine would be folowed de riguour every day, including Saturdays and Sundays, which were holidays! However, they would relent a bit on Sundays and go home by 2.00pm, at times! Also, they would permit themselves the luxury of relaxing a bit over the weekends by going to office at 8.00am instead of 7.00am! Yes, reader, this is absolutely true.

"The 3 _ _ _ _ _ s" did this year after year. They had no family life and, of course, no social life.So much so, many like me never got to meet their wives or children, although we all lived in the company's estate for managers. I often wondered as to what were they trying to achieve in life. In fact, one of them, most tragically, died the day after his retirement. He had no time for the family during his working life and he certainly did not have it post-retirement. His world, like those of his other two cohorts, comprised the office, the company, the reconciliation of bank statements, totting up the company's credits & debits, maintenance of various inventories, etc., etc., etc.

Years later, when I was in the company's Marketing Division, I had the misfortune to work with several bosses who would warm their office seats till around 10.00pm every day, including Saturdays! In fact, Saturdays became party time for this select band of sycophants. There was absolutely no work. The time was spent in partying, fraternising and politicking! The cascading effect of this "show of importance" was typical. Everybody, barring me, also stayed back late not because each one of them was perpetually inundated with work, but because their action would look good to the big boss and they would be classified as "hard-working". Needless to say, their shameless sycophancy took away every meningful thing from their family lives. One fallout of this was that a sizeable number of them would start affairs in office or with associates. In this instance too, the office and all it represented, became the raison d'etre of these "busy" corporate creatures.

In fact, I had researched deeply and come out with some astounding stats about the cost of needlessly keeping the office operational on Saturdays. After considering the expenses on electricity (generation and use), lunch and evening snacks, the morning and evening runs of the two pick-up vehicles, security, overtime payments, etc etc., the amount we spent worked out to lakhs of rupees per year which could easily be saved. I put all this in a report and placed it for implementation. I only managed to draw ridicule and accusation of corrupting the serious work culture of the office!

I have seen senior managers so caught up in the office rat race that they would regularly shun parties thrown by their friends in order to honour invitations from motley work associates whom the spouses had never even met! In single-mindedly promoting their own career these people lose the support of their family and friends and become lonely in the later years. They spend a lot of time with people who they would never come across again or who matter little in their lives but have no time for near and dear ones. For them they are always very busy, martyrs to the cause of self-grandeur and self importance. Pay-back is never far off. People have long memories and they wean themselves away from such self proclaimed CIPs sooner or later.

What I mean to say is that I wonder what is it that makes people so work-oriented or corporate-glory oriented that they miss out on the joys that life has to offer everyday? Is it because they are Johnny-come-lately people who get mesmerised by the razzmatazz of corporate lives? Or is it that they have no home lives worth the mention and ,therefore, immerse themselves in the murky waters of office life? Or is it purely and simply to impress the boss? Just look at the alarmingly large number of people who do not take their annual leave in order not to displease the boss!

Have you ever noticed that some folks are chronic late comers to parties? These people would consider it a compromise of their corporate importance if they arrived at any time before say 10.00pm! These unfortunate souls fear that early arrival would take away sustantially from their image of hot corporate honchos and would be a come-down in the eyes of their friends. To them it is prudent to be always "fashionably" late at such get-togethers. I know of people who deliberately come home late from office in order to protect their trumped up images of indispensable and hard-pressed hot-shot executives.

Whatever be the reason for letting one's office consume the quality hours, days, weeks, months and years of one's short life, it turns out quite counter-productive, in the end. As I had mentioned earlier we should work to live; work diligently to earn money in order to have a good life with our families and friends. Once we convert our search for money into our reason for living, we are in deep waters. After all, we must have the time and the occasion to spend the money we have earned so single-mindedly. Remember the stories of Mahmud of Ghazni?

I have never felt the need for extended working hours during the course of my career in the corporate world. And no one can say, not even "The 3 _ _ _ _ _s" that my work remained pending or behind hand for 38 years!! Of course, there were special occasions or emergencies when I have had to stay overnight in office. But those were emergencies, not routine days.

At the end of the day, people should be able to relax and treat the job as exactly what it is....a job. We all know and teach our children the adage "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy". If that is so, then why the hell do we turn ourselves into "dull boys?" Who are we impressing or pleasing? How much happiness are we dispensing?

Finally, I cannot help but end as a lotos-eater and recall the immortal words of Lord Tennyson "......if death is the end of all, why should life all labour be?"