My tension doesn’t abate till I check-in.  I enter the lounge after the security check and all I notice is an ocean of olive green.  Army men in fatigues and uniforms occupy the entire lounge broken only by small groups of men with billowing beards.  “Is the situation in J&K this bad?” my heart skips a beat.  How difficult it must be to live there!  I even call up JS to tell him as I sit next to a colonel.  He looks at me disdainfully.  Later I realize that many of them are leaving for a UN mission on a chartered flight!  Ah, the fanciful flights of mind!

A security man grunts something at a 30 something bearded man even as he smiles obsequiously.  “I have to go to Kashmir” he says – twice – in Hindi. The image stays even as I board the flight.  I find the same man inside the plane sitting in a row ahead of me.  A while later there is commotion over the seat.  Another man – slightly distressed – repeatedly buzzes for the airhostess.

 “Yes Sir?”

 “My boarding pass says my seat is 10A but someone’s already sitting here”. 

I notice it’s the same bearded man with the same stupid smile.  The air hostess tries to converse with him in English and he smiles away without comprehending much (I presume).  “May I see your boarding pass please?” she says in English and repeats in Hindi and the man hands over his passport to her!  She manages to get the boarding pass and says, “Sir this is not your seat.  Would you please come with me?” The man says, “but I sat here first!” in Hindi as he rises and walks behind her, grinning sheepishly! 

Inclement weather and mighty turbulence we experience on the way.  The flight is delayed by a good 20 minutes before it lands.  Nobody checks the boarding passes of the alighting passengers to verify if they’re to disembark in Jammu only. I’d assumed it was a routine but mandatory drill.  It’s raining in Jammu.  “Is it a good sign?” I muse.  It’s a small airport.  Someone from the office is already there with a placard carrying my name.  “Samarjeet Singh Sir, AAO”. He tries to carry my baggage even as I firmly say no. 

It’s 2kms from the airport to the office (and the guesthouse).  A few more officers from the office are awaiting my arrival.  After a round of pleasantries and tea they leave allowing me to freshen up before I meet my new boss. 

GS is a short man, bald with a little grey hair on the fringes.  He sports an almost invisible white cropped moustache.  His English bears no trace of his Bengali antecedents.  A few minutes of polite banter over tea follows. 

I’m in!    

My last day before I start for Jammu.  Hectic is an understatement.  Hair colour (I wanted to colour mine brown much to the outrage of BS and JS, who also were forced to join in), a new restaurant for breakfast (Mayyas in Jayanagar, a flop show as we couldn’t find place among the crowd), meet SB, a senior officer and JS’s former boss in Bangalore, lunch at JS’s, movie (the Public Enemies, not worth the hype at all regardless of Johnny Depp’s presence), packing, a booze session, multitude of calls (importantly to RD to ascertain if the vehicle is coming to pick me up in Delhi) and the last minute tie-ups (for the taxi, contractor’s payments, Abhi’s fees, instructions to the maid and the  gardener, etc).  I’d later realize that as usual I’d forgotten to pack certain essentials. 

I crashed even before I’d finished a sentence of complaint at BS. 

17 August

I was stopping over in Delhi.  To meet with the Senior (I’d sought an appointment too, to keep the pompous man happy).  RD’s vehicle was waiting at the airport.  I remember the first time I’d come to the new terminal at Delhi in May, I’d noticed that there was a leak in the ceiling.  They’d placed a dirty plastic bucket right underneath, to avoid the water spilling all over the place.  I’d even taken a picture of it.  So much for private participation. 

I reach the HQ by 2:15.  RD is – as usual – a beehive of activity.  People and papers keep buzzing in and out.  RD shoots one command after the other, efficiency and assurance personified.  I learn that the Senior’s busy in a conference and it’s 4:30 when it gets over.  I’ve already left a message with his PS that I’m waiting.  I check out with the PS again at 5 and learn that he’s back in his chamber.  I am told to wait, as is his wont.  I smile at his consistent ways.  After a good 15 minutes the King relents and lets me in. 

“So, is your boss sad?” he guffaws.  I wonder what he might tell someone else about me.  “Your new boss, Mr. GS, is a taskmaster”.  “That shouldn’t be a problem Sir” I respond mechanically.  “Okay, all the best” he concludes.  But I didn’t go there just get his wishes.  So I ask.  “Why Jammu Sir?”  “Because that was the only place we could accommodate you at”.  Audacity.  “Besides you also must look into yourself and see why you were graded the way you were graded”.  I start telling my story.  I know he’s not interested in listening.  I don’t stop though until I’m not through.  I wanted him to know that I could’ve defended myself even if he had not revised my appraisal. 

RD – who had a conference in between – is back too.  “Why don’t you meet SK while you’re here?” she suggests.  SK is the in-charge of all the administrative matters.    I was hesitant.  SK was good to me in the past.  He had acceded to my request for posting in Bangalore.  But in the aftermath of JS’s case against the department, the equations had certainly changed.  “Hey! Look (that’s her favourite phrase), people now know the truth about JS yaar.  They know that SSM isn’t a holy cow as he always has projected.  There’s a lot of sympathy now for JS and they know that they were wrong in their actions against him” she rattled.   I acquiesced.  “Don’t take too long.  Let’s go out for dinner and I have a lot to talk” she warned.  “I don’t think he will have much to talk to me” I retorted. It was going to be 7PM and I had no mood to sit there for more than 10 minutes.   I was soon proved wrong. 

SK gave me a long, soft stare as I entered his room.  “Just came in to wish you Sir”  I said, fidgeting and not knowing what to say.  “Now that you’ve come and wishes, sit for a while”. Silence.

“So, what is the matter between your boss in Bangalore and you?” 

“Do you really want to know Sir?”

“Yes.  I have to know.  I have a mandate”.  So my story began.  The second rendition for the day.  Surprise of surprises, he was very attentive as the narration unfolded. 

“Why didn’t you even give me a hint?”

“Sir, had it been before July 2008 I’d surely have spoken to you.  But after what happened with JS…”

“Even I was a villain in the piece there”

I can’t but smile as I said, “Yes Sir”. 

RD walked in.  It was past 8PM.  And further discussions enfolded.  How to establish a two-way communication mechanism as against the one-way that exists now?  What could be done to ensure young officers do not lose their morale while caught in the wrong places/situations or with the wrong bosses?  SK even suggested I should stay back in Delhi for another day and meet the Madam.  “Tell her the entire story.  Only the truth.  And let her decide what could be done about your transfer”.  I declined.  “I’ll report and then submit a representation Sir”.  “Which places – other than Bangalore – would suit your requirement?”  “Any place I can reach home from within 12Hyderabad, Pune, Chennai and Kochi”.  He was perplexed for a moment.  He also confided that he was given to understand that I wanted this transfer (to Jammu) and that’s how he didn’t talk to me before issuing the orders.  Hilarious!  I also learn that it was RD who helped the Senior in ‘revising’ my appraisal.  I feel deeply touched.  And, she’d never NEVER told me, though we had talked to each other several times hence. 

It was 9:30 when RD and I reached a south Indian restaurant.  Our idea of a great dinner and a lot of gossip, a lot of talk about our lives.  By the time we parted ways – she graciously saw me off to the guest house – it was almost midnight.  “Won’t your mom be anxious?”  “I’ve already called her to say I’d be late” she said as the car zoomed out of the guest house. 

Bolt from the Delhi Skies

Mid-July.  My colleague PU called up from Delhi to announce my impending transfer.  It hit harder than Usain Bolt’s record possibly.  “You know you are being posted to Jammu.  The orders might reach you any moment from now” he announced.  I was too dazed to react.  He went on to say a lot more things which I later recollected through the haze.  There was hardly anything pleasant though.  He called again in a while to tell me that he was in the Senior’s chamber and it was him who’d asked PU to speak (the tone, the words et al) to me thus.  I got that.  The word Jammu had yet to sink into my skin, mind etc.  I hadn’t even made the mandatory distress calls to JS and BS about it.  When I ultimately did they first thought it was a joke.  Many others (who had seen the transfer on the net) called in over the next 24 hours.  Mom was shocked and she began to cry over the phone.  Dad was equanimity personified.  “You knew all this when you joined the Service, didn’t you?” 

But the transfer was not a benign one.  It was being effected because of two reasons.  One, my performance appraisal had gone terribly wrong at the hands of my boss (though it was suitably ‘amended’ to save my fall from grace by the Senior).  So, ostensibly, the Senior wanted to save me from further trouble from my boss in Bangalore.  But then the Senior himself wasn’t too happy with me.  “He’s ignoring me and has grown bigger than his boots” he had commented to whoever wanted to hear.  And he had an axe to grind with my boss too.  One stone, two birds.  Upgrade my appraisal to acceptable levels and insult my boss and get me posted out of Bangalore to a distant station and teach me a lesson.  Mission accomplished.  None in the department was too happy that I was hobnobbing too closely with JS.  JS was my colleague, friend, sounding board, many things rolled into one.  He was fighting a legal battle with the Department (the Jury is still out on this). 

Farewells

Many of my colleagues, well-wishers asked me to represent against the transfer.  One senior even joked, “What are they trying to do?  Make you see all the corners of the country?”   SV (and a few others) even sent me drafts of my representations over mail.  “Please don’t accept this transfer”.  After much deliberation I chose NOT to represent and accept the transfer order, though I had spent less than 2 years in Bangalore. 

Further drama unfolded over my date of relief.  Any ways, I was relieved from my office in Bangalore on 3 August 2009 after several farewell parties from the colleagues and subordinates (lunch, tea, dinner).  Some even gave me presents – nothing expensive thankfully.  A Baba’s idol, a Ganpati, a coupon to buy books (as everyone knew I loved books). 

Amidst all this, I had a memorable afternoon of getting together with my High School classmates – many of whom I hadn’t seen in over two decades.  A two hour togetherness got extended to a five hour one!  Cameras flashed unceasingly; the conversation flowed non-stop too.  Especially with Lakshmi wielding the baton to ensure everyone spoke and shared all their history of the past 2 decades! 

Best Laid Plans

Most of the days between 3 and 17 August I spent at home, in Kolar.  Supervising the construction of the house.  Most things I’d planned happened.  Some didn’t.  As the date of journey approached (17 August) I wondered about all that JS, PK and I had planned about thinking beyond our current jobs as our careers. The transfer was happening at an inopportune moment; a mighty spanner in the works.  Even though I displayed bravado I was scared within.  Our trip to Hyderabad wouldn’t happen.  The plan to go the entrepreneurial way might just get delayed.  The fate of the house under construction seemed too bad. 

I – after talks with BS and JS – tentatively fixed the date as 5 September 2009 for my return from Jammu to wind up things in Bangalore.  With the number of horror stories that were being told about my boss in Jammu I wondered if I’d be able to stick to this either!

 The man arguably created some of the best music the pop world has ever seen.  His work also saw him catapulted to stardom that wasn’t probably heard ever before (ah, barring a certain Elvis of course).  Records were broken with impunity by the Jackson numbers.  His album ‘Thriller’ to this day perhaps holds the record for the highest sales ever.  Dangerous and Black or White succeeded Thriller with super sales, albeit criticism that they weren’t as good.  I remember all my classmates waiting eagerly for the release of ‘Dangerous’ in the late 80s with such infectious keenness, when I’d not even heard of him! 

 Michael Jackson’s personal life made more news than his music in the 90s.  Or perhaps, his popularity resulted in so much media hoopla about his life.  The accusations of pedophilia, the umpteen numbers of legal tangles, the loss of money and almost-bankruptcy filled the pages.  While it was only his obsession with his skin-tone (and the hushed multiple plastic surgeries) and the rifts in the family were the only talk of the gossip mills earlier.  A make-believe marriage to the King’s daughter, Lisa Mary, didn’t help things much.  Lisa went on to reveal later that the couple never had sex (wasn’t that obvious?). 

 MJ’s death doesn’t come to me as a surprise.  Possibly it’s a welcome relief for the wonder who created some of the best foot-tapping music coupled with equally mind-numbing dance moves.  Hope his soul has found the solace it never had in its mortal life.  And, hope the world would ideally remember him for all the right reasons - his music and his dance - than all the wrong ones!

(Thanks to a test at www.mindmedia.com)


Your Brain Usage Profile:

Auditory : 64%
Visual : 35%
Left : 47%
Right : 52% 

Overall, you should feel content with your life and yourself. You are, perhaps, a little too critical of yourself - and of others - while maintaining an "openness" which is redeeming. Indecisiveness is a problem and your creativity is not in keeping with your potential. Being a pragmatist, you downplay this aspect of yourself and focus on the more immediate, the more obvious and the more functional.