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.