Random musings

The chasm between field and head offices is an ever widening one. Those in the field always have a grouse against those comfortably settled in apex offices and wonder why the field realities remain invisible to these guys who really matter. And the very same guy on being kicked upwards to apex offices conveniently avoids the ground realities in favour of his warped perceptions and continues to be regarded in the same league as he regarded those above him, earlier. The relay continues with a lot of unhappy people emerging all around.

I have always wondered why field postings are meant for relatively junior and the headquarter postings for those born much earlier. Perhaps it is the general perception that wiser people should inhabit the superior offices and the not so wise, the lowly ones. This, despite the fact that it is predominantly the work at the field level that decides the fate of organizations whether they move forward or stay where they are.

On the other hand, the work of the superior offices is to provide vision and direction besides facilitating the working of their subordinate units, activities that they rarely indulge into. Unfortunately they end up attempting to monitor what the field units are doing, without generally providing any value addition whatsoever and therefore are regarded more as an evil that one has to live with than an office one usually looks up to.

Why shouldn’t then field offices have a status much higher than the head offices? And postings then should also follow this logic with sheer competence, not rank in the hierarchical set up deciding where exactly the bureaucratic bloke should park his backside upon.  Seniority then should not really matter and even the seniormost bloke, if competent should be parked in an assignment where his capabilities and talent can be best utilized. On the other hand even a junior official if perceived to have vision can be positioned in assignments in head offices where providing vision and direction is the major concern.

After all positions within bureaucratic setups should be positions of authority and responsibility, not merely positions of power and the aim has to be delivery, not merely positioning of men in hierarchical assignments.

Railways is a classic example of an organization where the field formations are generally treated with contempt by superior offices that themselves repeatedly on many occasions prove their irrelevance. Yet there is a race for superior yet irrelevant positions for the field is regarded as inferior to setups ensconced in ivory towers.

When shall we wake up to the reality that positions that impart power and authority are merely roles that one plays and each role has its own relevance? Regarding one role as superior to the other is a folly that most of us commit. After all real progress can only be achieved by a confluence of roles, all working in tandem with each other.   

The turmoil continues!

I am often amazed at the generally prevalent tendency amongst the upper crust to decry those who are actually making life comfortable for them. Imagining a life without the presence of those who serve us and take care of our routine needs at home and office silently and often efficiently makes me cringe in pain.

Our peons and personal staff in the office and our servants at home are generally the silent army whose existence is noticed only when the job they perform is not upto our hallowed expectations. And then they are shouted at and demeaned, very often to a ridiculous extent, not exactly commensurate with their failing.

Having lived in Delhi, the apex city of the country, for a fairly long period, I have suffered being a witness to the demeaning acts of those in power and also those who roll in wealth even if of an ill-gotten origin. The chief executive of fairly recent vintage in railways who almost daily went to the extent of snatching money from the hapless servants who worked in their home besides heaping many other unmentionable indignities. Many others in powerful positions also display similar traits of leaving no opportunity to pull down those very persons who make their lives comfortable.

Somehow I am unable to appreciate this widespread national malaise of human beings treating others of their own elk disparagingly.  Perhaps such a breed is not human after all and are many notches below even though they may be regard themselves otherwise.

Many media reports of politicos, bureaucrats and even highly paid corporate maltreating (often maltreating is a mild word) their household servants have emerged in recent times and that makes me wonder whether it has now become a social issue beyond correction. Perhaps it is symptomatic of a society evolving through the morass of ill gotten wealth and rampant abuse of power by those who were meant to emerge as role models. Yet what frightens is the sheer scale and often social acceptance or mere lack of concern for such practices.

Such conduct is indeed sign of a society that is immature and backward in the true sense. That demeaning others is surely not a sign of greatness is something that we have to realize from the core of our hearts. Yet who wants to be merely great in a setup where greatness is almost always equated with the quantum of power or wealth one wields. Perhaps when we acquired independence, we were a bunch of people uneducated in the real sense, but were destined for self rule and the chaos and misdemeanors by those meant to set things right therefore continues unabated. 

Amen!

The final destination!

Nigambodh Ghat is indeed a great leveler and the real final destination. Its holy pyres do not differentiate between the men in power and those shorn of it, super rich and the super poor, brahmin and the shudra, male and female. A visit to its premises therefore does much to cleanse the heart and the brain of thoughts that are not in conformity with the fundamental tenets of humanity, even if only momentarily.  

“Ram naam satya hai, satya hi mukti hain” is always repeated by the men carrying the body for its last rites. The premises of the ghat also reverberate with the sounds of these words. Satya means truth and Ram is the name of the divine hindu god, yet I wonder why this saying is reserved only for the last journey? Is truth not an important and essential pillar during the journey of life itself? Why many of us who generally err on the side of falsity throughout our lives, repeat these words that underline the importance of truth only when one of our close ones leaves for his heavenly abode?

Watching a pyre in full flames is also an exhilarating experience. The final destination of each and every single one of us, the funeral pyre obliterates the very existence of people who considered the world of themselves and for whom till then death was something that happened to others. A view of the pyre has the capacity to bring down to earth even those who regard earthly pleasures as the ultimate goal of life and so it does to me. Power, position and wealth ceases to matter at that very moment and for the next couple of hours till the materialistic world takes over.

Yet life has to go on and so it does.

Amen!

can u feel the pain?

Can you feel the pain of others? Can you feel the pain of your men who feel they have been wronged? If the answer is Yes, then you qualify to be a real human being. If No then whatever you may say, you are just not concerned about the human beings around you and therefore have no right to expect concern from others. I feel sick of the duplicity of people, especially of the sarkari kind who profess concern for their men and also the masses, but do not feel or even appreciate the pain of others.

Yes, feeling the pain of others complicates the life but also makes the life worth living for and worth dying for. After all what is life, a transient extravaganza, a momentary period of existance in this never ending cycle of time. It is definitely not worth living for ones own self.

When my wife feels the pain of her servants, it makes me proud of her. When I feel the pain of the staff working under me, my life acquires a new meaning. The mere feeling that other human beings and myself are part of that greater power, makes me one with the universe. Life then acquires a new meaning, a meaning that is worthwhile, to live for or to die for.