Babuwala sapna

कल रात मैंने सपना देखा,
एक कर्मठ  बाबूवाला सपना देखा
सपने में फाइलों का समंदर देखा
गत्ते की नैया में कलम की पतवार लिए
मैं केवट और वो विस्तार अपार

फाइलें ही फाइलें  फाइलें ही फाइलें
कहीं नोट शीट, कहीं डाक डाक
कहीं उड़ते पन्ने, कहीं गाँठ गाँठ
कहीं दिखती फाइलें कहीं गुप्त गुप्त
कहीं तीव्र फाइलें  कहीं सुप्त सुप्त
कहीं बोलती फाइलें कहीं चुप्प चुप्प
कई फाइलें कर दें क्षितिज लुप्त

मैं डर गया, फेक दी कलम की पतवार
हे तारणहार तू ही कर मेरी नैया पार
मुझसे नहीं होता ये फाइलों का व्यहार
ये सी बी आई, ये सी ए जी का तकरार
कहकर मैं कुरुक्षेत्र देखे अर्जुन की तरह
बिलख बिलख टूट पड़ा
कलम मेरे हाथों से छूट पड़ा

उस समय उस फाइल सागर की गहराईयों से कहीं
क्षुब्ध सी एक छोटी फाइल निकली और  कही
देखो वीर इस सागर से न डर,
तू हार गया अगर आज इधर
तो मुझे कौन सम्हालेगा
अगर यु पी एस सी पास करनेवाला
इन फाइलों से यूँ घबराएगा
तो देश का क्या हो जाएगा.

मैंने देखा उस फाइल को ध्यान से
क्षुब्ध फाइल को सहलाया प्यार से
अपनी हिम्मत जोड़ी और  उठा ली कलम की पतवार
बोला हे तारणहार दे हाथ तो मैं भी हो जाऊँ आज पार
मेरी पर्सनल फाइल रो रही है,
क्षुब्ध होकर सागर में खो रही है,
चलो इसी की खोज में शुरू करता हूँ

ज़ोर ज़ोर से पतवार चलायी,
प्यारी फाइल को गुहार लगायी
वो दिखती न थी, पर हिम्मत न हारी
मैं बलिहारी, ज़ोर से चप्पू मारी
तभी पड़ा एक थप्पड़ ज़ोर से,
अर्धांगनी ने थी दे मारी
सारा दिन तो फाइल फाइल करते हो
रातों में भी सबकी नींद हराम करते हो

मैं सो गया
कहीं फाइल सागर भी लुप्त हो गया

Google navigation directions in india

And the Google navigation voice said, "Turn north after 100 meters" and after some time it directed me to "Turn east into 80 feet road" 

I am in Bangalore, the silicon valley of India. The directions are never told in terms of east, west north and south. If I tell anyone asking for directions to turn east after some distance, she would think I am nuts. We don't follow directions that way here. We just say turn right or left after a landmark or distance. 

Where I lived in US, at the Salt Lake City, the directions were mostly in terms of east, west, north and south. If you live at 300S, 200W it precisely meant that, the intersection of roads that are marked 300 meters south of reference point (a mormon Temple in this case) and 200 meters west. The roads were marked that way too. The navigation could have easily guided anyone by asking to turn south if one is travelling 200 west road at correct point. 

Here we live in a country where cities are not planned that way at all. Except probably Chandigarh where the roads connecting sectors are perpendicular, and even there I doubt if they use the E,W,N,S convention. They may prefer turning left after shopping complex of sector x. 

Advise to Google maps/navigation: Just stick to basic turn left right and continue ahead. E,W,N,S just doesn't make sense here. 

Knowing a cop

Upamanyu Chatterjee's character in one of his novels when asked for reason to join civil services, replies:

"Because within the civil service, one is likelier to know somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody who knows a cop. Or so I believed eight years ago. Now that I am wiser, I know that the government can fuck you up bad, even if you are part of it - unless you suck, suck, suck. The civil servant can fellate with the best of them. I say, sir, can we roll another joint?"

I believed that the nested somebodies in the sentence gets longer for people who are not in Indian Police Service. Yours truly being in Indian Trade Service, I thought that two or three somebodies coming in between was normal to reach the right cop.

I once tried to help a friend, a PhD in engineering, who was beaten right outside his home by local goons, and his wife roughed up in front of children when she tried protecting her husband. I met everyone from local inspector to ACP and to the DCP, a fine 2004 batch IPS. I failed to get the FIR registered, despite the 2004 batch shouting at his underlings to take immediate action. The local goons who had roughed up were apparently close to the local MLA and there appeared little that could be done. My friend resigned to his fate, sold his independent home and moved into a gated apartment complex. I thought then that probably if I was in Indian Police Service, I could have helped him a little better.
I realise that I was wrong like the character in Chatterjee's novel, after reading this piece by R K Raghavan, a former CBI director and a very respected cop, in The Hindu today (full article link: http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-opinion/the-mystery-of-police-reform/article17431239.ece):

Knowing a cop doesn't help

The queer fever bump on the slope to fitness

Fitness exists in a plateau for me. When I am not very fit, or downright unfit, and not working out for months, I consider myself on an unfit flat plane. I kind of like this state too. Its drifty, peaty, lazy and floaty in nature. I have relaxed mornings, with long coffees, and relaxed evenings with single malts. I know that one day I will rise from this slumber and start working out, and get fit. I have been through many such cycles in last 20 years to know that it shall happen. I am, by nature, not a long term unfit kind of person. 

Then one fine day, long after my paunch has given up embarrassing the newer holes in the belt, I get to working out. My fitness level improves and I fall sick. Random fever types. If I give up at this point, I come back to unfit plane, and if I don't, I continue to higher fitness levels till I plateau. The fitness plateau. I am fit in this plane. My mornings are crisp with a stronger shot of black, and evenings are either abstinence or a single shot. The body disciplines itself to control the diet. 

Then the cycle takes its turn. The reason changes every time for the journey down the slope, but I do climb down after staying at the plateau for some time. On my way down, I encounter another round of fever or illness. With same effects and consequence. 

I find it queer that both up and down the slope there is an illness bump. I cross it both ways. Every time.  I recently crossed it on the way up. 

And as I grow older, I see the cycles taking longer to repeat. The slope is getting flatter, and the plateau on the top is getting closer to the flat plane below. 

Raddiwala

Five labourers were tearing the files in the corridor when I alighted the lift on the 6th floor of Kendriya sadan. I had instructed the incharge to ensure that the tearing of old files begins early in the morning so that the activity is completed by afternoon. Old audited files in government offices need to be weeded out at regular intervals. Files are torn or shredded before being sent out of office as a matter of security and protocol. I stopped by to see the progress. The labourers were too busy to look at me. Their entire focus was on the tearing activity. The binders were being separated, the thread tags with sharp pins were to be avoided while they tore on the pages lest the pins injured the hands. 

 

The activity of watching the files being torn is cathartic. Mounds of torn papers were getting built and tumbled down every few minutes. The process looked similar to the sand mounds that grow inside an hourglass and tumble down under their own weight when the height increases beyond what the gravity can hold. The binders were thrown separate. 

At some point in the history of time, these files would have commanded respect. They carried an application, with supporting documents, and were moved from table to table where each step of the file was recorded in a movement diary.  The interested parties followed the case till the intended benefit was obtained. Prices might have been set for each movement and people might have obtained their little illegal gratifications. Or not. After processing, the files were sent to records section, where they were audited by the audit teams years later. Once clear, they were marked for destruction and waited out their mandatory waiting time as mentioned in some government circular. Years later, they are brought out for destruction. The binders between which the papers existed are stripped out, the papers themselves torn into twos or fours, loaded into gunny sacks, transported on trucks to some distant pulping mill where they are further processed to become what they once were. Pulp. 

The security asked me if they need to tear the files into two pieces or four. I told him to ensure that the files are torn in enough pieces to avoid usage. Two would do as long as it is done properly. The security explained the same to the leader of the labourers in Tamil. The labourers were relieved that their work has decreased a bit. The leader among them stood up and smiled at me. It took some time but I recognised him. 

Anand was a raddiwala who dealt in old papers. He had a small shop at the 80 feet road on Koramangala in Bangalore and he had tied up with some distant pulping mill at Hosur. He had come last time around 2 years ago when I had destroyed an older batch of files. He had not changed much, except that he had grown a beard now. 

'Hi Anand, how are you?' I asked

'Very well saar'

'So what have you been doing? How's the business?' 

'Same saar. Going ok'

'Are you at the same place where you were two years ago?'

'Yes saar. Where shall I go saar?' 

'hmmm'

'What about you saar?' 

'Same Anand. I am at the same place. Where shall I go too?'

Anand smiled and got back to work. 

I walked back to my cabin. As I sat back on my chair, I looked around. I was at the same place. Doing same things, day after day, for the last two years and more. The routine had set into me so well that I had not noticed the time slipping by. 

'Where shall I go too Anand?' 

I smiled and picked up the first file on my table for the day. It was new, with binder, and contained freshly printed application pages between them.