Every day I drive through a road that is being widened. Amongst the usual blockades, turns and other chaos I noticed something very unique.

When the construction process begins, it finishes quite fast. The delay is often in the initiation. When man and machine are on the job, the work finishes in snap.

But there is another problem. I think that lies with official sanctions and apathy.

Most of the works keep on lurking.

Procedures and processes or lack of them is no more a weakest link.

It sometimes pains to see a JCB lying alone with its driver sleeping just because the clearance is awaited.

And public wonders if chaos were less when road was narrow!

I am not going to discuss pros and cons.

Bandhs and protests always cause public inconvenience.

There are methods to solve issues without inconvenience to others.

A bandh paralyses the state.

Who gets benefited from paralysis?

It is the common man that is at loss.

Anyways. I just hope it remains peaceful.

I am little uncomfortable  today. I wish could be furious but that does not serve any purpose. Anybody would be if one has to spend 40 minutes on a railway crossing.

Yes! 40 minutes.

This happened today morning.

That delayed my journey by probably more than the period  I than I waited at the crossing because it took another 30 minutes to clear the backlog and before traffic was smooth again. [Read more...]

I have always found CAPS lock on the keyboard very annoying. Because it is near to SHIFT button and often gets pressed wrongly, it often results in mistakes that are so irritating that I feel like pulling the button.

I am so surprised at the ite where it has been positioned. May be ewarlier keyboards meant for professional typists only. But now majority of keyboard users are novices like me ho look at keyboard when they type. [I have again pledged to learn typing by joining typing course but I know I am not going to do it before arrival of next year] [Read more...]

Our village is surely changing at fast pace. There is a lot of movement and lot of buildings.  More than that is the the way people have changed the way they carry themselves.

Gone is the timidness and shyness of yesteryear. people are bolder in theri oulook and in their behavior.

People have dreams that are no longer contained by boundaries of the village.

TV and internet have started having their impact.

I see more cars than I used to see the scooters about a decade ago.

The only pain is reducing land for agriculture.

The population is taking its toll

I have grown in a village where every other government official was considered an officer. Yes! Even the peon.

I was told that in order to get your work done, you need to push the officials and the push is given by money, the famous Ghoos.

I distinctly remember many such incidents. The clerk, commonly known as Babu, would not do the job without some chai-paani or mithai.

When I think back and my mind dwells on these incidents, I wonder. why on earth someone would like to live like a parasite who tries to leach money out of some one else’s pocket.

I do not understand why would some one not work and strive hard not to work, fall below human dignity just not to work because the party in question is not paying them.

Why?

Because it does not matter to him.

For an official it is just a job for which he would not be accountable. There is no deadline to finish and there is no accountability. the only thing that can force somebody to work is competitiveness and self pride.

Doing justice to our jobs is one of our prime duty.

But some people jsut lack everything other than greed for easy money.

I would narrate one incident that happened to me when I was 16 years old.

It was a property trelated document mthat needed to get signed from tehsildar at Talwara, a small town in Punjab nearby to our hometown Hajipur. I went to the office and showed documents to the aide,  a clerk.

He scanned the documents and asked me to wait.

People came and went. He would ask chai-paani from everybody and get that too.  Bribe oils the machinery and people are expert at oiling.

I waited for half an hour and went again.

This time he frowned and asked me to get an elder person. May be he was ashamed of asking from a teenager. He was  40 years old then.

I said there is no body. He asked me to wait again.

Second time I got wiser. After half an hour I went and asked him how long I had to wait. He looked at me and told that tehsiladar would not sign if there is no adult person.

He could have been technically right but this is the usual method  the case is built. Create a problem or obstacle.

Naturally, I asked in the tone he anticipated,” Is not there any solution? can you do anything?”

The case is built and person is sold now. .

“I can but there would be some kharcha (expense)”.

“No problem”, I said. ” You could have told me in the beginning”.

He became sheepish, ” I have never taken any money from a young boy before”.

I got the wok done on that day. But i would never forget the incidence.

He wasted my one hour because he wanted to get some money.

There are more unfortunate people. They wait for months together before they realize what is wrong.

There are others who dare to question why work is not being done. They become personal enemies of the official who would try his level best to spoil the work of the person.

I have incidences of papers getting lost just because they asked some daring question.

The face of government offices are changing but old habits die hard.

May be some day we would be proud to work as we are supposed to.