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.
