Logging out

The sound of drums and the murmer of the crowd gathered outside had almost reached a crescendo when I decided to walk out of my chamber in the late afternoon of the 15th of May 2012, my last working day as the Divisional Manager of the largest division of the national railway network. The impatient yet emotional crowd of railwaymen that numbered over five hundred had a large sprinkling of the pahari people, who like me had their origins in the state of Uttarakhand.  Garlands, music, dance and emotions flowed and I almost drowned, drowned in memories that I knew would be with me all my life. I earlier never believed that railways can make me cry, but here I was, almost in tears, saddened by parting of ways with what was never mine. Love for what is never ours is the root cause of sorrow, yet some people like me never learn and should never learn. The animate and the inanimate in this world is there to be loved, a love as pure as that of a mother and that is what makes this world beautiful for many.

It was only in the morning that I had witnessed an outburst of emotions and love from my men (and women) working in the divisional office. Almost every section in the office clamoured to bid me farewell, but for want of time only a few succeeded and what I got were bouquets of emotions and love. The official lunchtime farewell by the divisional officers also continued past four in the evening with speeches coming straight from the heart. Only the previous day, the formidable Northern Railway Men’s Union had organized a farewell, the first they ever organized for an officer in history, and the three station managers of the major delhi stations had organized farewell gatherings at their stations. The zonal Association of SC & ST also organized an emotional farewell in their office, a farewell that almost had me in tears.   

The round of office farewells ended with the warm send off by the pahari people, people of my clan, many of them necessarily not working with me, but associated with the northern railways. Even my car was decked up with flowers, flowers that reinforced in me the goodness of men almost everywhere. 

And as an officer I felt small, small at the pettiness of the officer clan in general that fails to treat its men as human beings. Our longing to occupy high chairs, not for the welfare of the organization or its men, but for self gratification of the pettiest kind made me feel small in front of this crowd of humanity that in one single moment taught me what being human and humility is all about.