Bent Babus

If someone were to tell me that he joined the Government to change the world, I’d try hard to keep a straight face. Most join out of an earnest need for acceptance and importance. I had the silliest reason. I joined to escape banking. Never been sure I did the right thing. Also it was disappointing not to become a glamorous Babu in the Foreign Service or a pretentious Babu in the state government wielding a wide range of positions and immense powers. I ended up with a technocrat’s job in Government. One that doesn’t have much brand equity or acceptance and is often relegated to the bottom end of the cesspool that is Indian bureaucracy. But I had mournfully occupied controversial and hard posts without knowing that these jobs could, with the right enterprise, be turned into lucrative ones. Once a colleague proved me terribly wrong by turning the very same post I occupied earlier into a money spinner. Yeah for the imaginative and bent Babu, there is a gold mine out there waiting to be discovered.

Recent days have been very demoralizing. It is learnt that the chief of my organization has been caught with his hand in the cookie jar immediately after retirement. The two hundred year old parent organization I belong is being battered from all sides and I don’t feel like going back and continuing there. I have signed a bond to serve the Government for five years and hence cannot quit and start a chain barber shop in Delhi as a well wisher suggested in this blog. After twenty years in the bureaucracy, I have nothing to show for it; except a rich rainbow of experiences, lots of books and music, places travelled on a shoe string budget and some nice people I have come to know. Missus has an old flat in Chennai and I hope she won’t boot me out of her life unless I start wearing flowers on my ears or cross-dressing. I have always been suspicious of those who wear honesty on their sleeves or give boring lectures about integrity. The first guy who gave me a lecture on integrity in Government got thrown out of service for petty corruption. Like in every job, there may be occasions when we walk the thin line between scrupulous honesty and expedience. There was a time when I wouldn’t send my peon to book a personal train ticket or do a small home errand on government transport. I have changed a lot. Expedience says when important matters of state await you in office, better make life a bit easier. I have evolved over the years.

The corrupt bureaucrat in Delhi is an object of much admiration; much as a man with a second wife in Chennai is. A soul searching question I have often asked myself is this. Still why are many bureaucrats clean? I know not less than 50 officers in South Block who would not take a bribe. Our journalists are not interested in finding out with a sting operation. Sleaze sells: not honesty. I know that you will find this hard to believe. We also have clean politicians. Are some bureaucrats clean because they are idealistic? Or aren’t they adventurous enough? Are they scared of God or law enforcement? I don’t know. Mostly it is a matter of habit. Some are born with school teacher parents, who drilled a lot of morality into them. Some are either too poor or too rich to want more money. I guess I am lucky to be born to undemanding parents who lived a frugal life. Or to have a wife who brings home an equivalent packet. Also money matters less as you are older. My favourite repartee is of Michael Moore, the American satirist who made the documentary “Fahrenheit”- a damning indictment of Bush administration. When asked what he intended to do with the minor fortune he made out of Bush-bashing; he said. I lived my life well into my forties on an annual income of less than $ 30000 (pretty low by US standards). Millions at this age do not matter much to me….

I wouldn’t say the same thing although it is more or less true in my case. I earned a pittance well into my forties. But I am not entirely unclear what to do if I became a millionaire overnight. I might get good Hi Fi equipment, gadgets, lots more books, DVDs, music and a decent large LCD TV. Then what? Maybe get some decent clothes - although I can’t be too bothered about it. In Delhi the clothes maketh the man. Maybe I will be stuck knowing not what to do after spending the first couple of lakhs of money. It is difficult to turn a leaf and start a new life. I am almost certain that I can’t bring myself to be any different than what I am today. Let me try to explain why. This has nothing to do with Gandhian ideals, promise of heaven in afterlife or middle-class morality.

The Government is my employer. Pays me a pitiable salary but expects me to protect its’ interests. I should quit and join the suits in corporate world if I am not happy with the wages- too late for that now. But this fluid entity called government sometimes is not sure what it wants. So I think hard and decide what is good for my employer and try to be worth the money it pays me. It gives me a lot of freedom. I needn’t grovel before the serious looking guys who run it. The Government is also remarkably endowed with a sense of justice- often slow and slippery. I would feel diminished and less human, if I use my official discretion to fatten my purse to the detriment of my provider. I am not sure I have the same sense of loyalty in other matters. But this is my livelihood. I am grateful to my provider for keeping my home and hearth warm and my son clothed and fed- as simple as that. Not convinced? Well- it’s true…

But the flip side- If I was working for the suits or seths and I am expected to carry a bagful of cash to the bent Babu to advance my employer’s interest, would I do it? You bet I would- without batting an eyelid.