Exceptions inspire hope!

There can be no output without a commensurate input, yet every input does not guarantee an output. Anyone who understands this simple philosophy will surely appreciate why great things happen at times and do not happen at other times.

The sarkari tantra is largely composed of people who display either or both of the following traits. One of expecting output from others sans input and the second of freely dispensing advice almost all of the time even when what is needed is support. And it is indeed unfortunate that even the so called crème da crème of officialdom displays these traits in abundance.

My successful stints in handling commercial enterprises were successful not because of lady luck, but because of a very strong belief in the uselessness of these traits. Yes it requires courage to plant inputs in a decaying organization that does not display any symptom whatsoever of turning around, but that courage can only be borne out of experience and a firm confidence in one’s own prowess.

It is also necessary to appreciate the uselessness of being encapsulated in rank, a phenomenon that many of us witness at almost all levels, by almost everyone who is a part of the sarkari tantra. The date of reckoning seems distant to someone who is busy relishing the perks and power of office. I wonder why people who sit on official chairs do not appreciate that what is assigned to them is not theirs but theirs to protect and develop only. Yet the power that chairs tend to give, invariably goes to the head direct and straight, despite statements to the contrary.

And the change at sixty that overtakes most of the bureaucrats never fails to amuse me. Their human like behaviour, their concern for the organization and the sense of vision and concern that these chameleons display immediately after they cross the bridge is hilarious. Yet there are exceptions and I have in recent times worked under one such exception who displays the finest of the qualities of the human race.

And it is such exceptions who still inspire hope in a system that can at best be called putrid!