Tall people and their mango tales

A former CM used to take one week off in a year to rest and recuperate. When I was SDPO, he chose a forest resort in my sub division to do so. When the CM comes visiting, the big dignitaries in the district become small dignitaries. Thus, the DM becomes the usher boy, the SP becomes the darwan, the DFO becomes the forest guide and so on. SDOs and SDPOs are reduced to being mere errand boys. During that time, the government at the centre which was supported by the party in power in West Bengal was about to collapse and the Prime Minister tried to speak to the Chief Minister. However, in those pre-cellphone, trunk call days, the connections could not get established. That was a crisis of epic proportions. The Divisional Commissioner was furious and rushed off to “wake up those monkeys at the telephone exchange,” as he put it. In my capacity as errand boy-cum-announcer, I accompanied him so that I could precede him and announce his arrival in hushed but important, sibilant tones to the telephone guys. When we reached the exchange, we found exactly one guy nodding off on his table. I duly announced. As he was slowly coming to life, the Commissioner started a barrage of abuses. He raved and ranted for almost ten minutes. At the end of which, the guy just said, “Hobe na,” meaning, no can do. Those two bored words put an abrupt full stop to all that sound and fury of the preceding hour. I guess, the government at the Centre would still have collapsed even if the PM and CM had connected on phone that day. 

The next morning, I found that the pilot of the helicopter by which the CM had travelled had taken seriously ill due to suspected food poisoning. Since no one else in the entourage had any problem, I investigated the matter a little further. What happened was, this particular pilot used to think of himself as no less than the CM. He came strutting around and demanded all kinds of luxuries including the choicest booze. By the evening, most of the guys were thoroughly pissed off with his demands. I was told that a Dy SP took an empty Black Label bottle, filled it with the local brew, Changta and palmed it off as the real thing. Even strong men with zinc-lined stomachs shudder at the thought of having Changta but the poor pilot was taken in. The rest was history – or, at least, complete bed rest for a few days. Luckily, he recovered before the CM was due back.

 

Subsequent to that infamous price rise leading to the fall of Delhi government in 1998, in West Bengal, there were daily meetings chaired by a senior Minister. As DCP, I used to accompany CP, Calcutta to these meetings. One day, the honourable Minister said, “Look, West Bengal accounts for the highest potato production in the country. The people here will forgive us anything else but won’t tolerate an increase in the potato price. Let’s stop export of potato to other states for the time being.” Accordingly, we stopped all the outbound trucks transporting potato to other states. The next day, there was an emergency meeting in the Minister’s chamber. Apparently, in response to the potato ban, the Andhra CM had given a press statement that fish export from Andhra to West Bengal would be stopped. Andhra accounted for a huge percentage of the fish consumed here (70 %, I was told). This was apocalypse! So, exports to Andhra were reluctantly allowed, under duress, and all of us were tasked to report the price of different types of fish in each market on a daily basis.

 

In my cadre, there is a system of calling on the senior officers when one joins a new assignment. The system was corrupted so much that in the district where I joined as SP, there was also a system of calling on the DCS, the local big leader of the ruling party. When told about it, I was a little revolted. For me, my senior officers were mai baap, real mothers and fathers. Given that, I didn’t want to acquire excess luggage like step-mothers and step-fathers in the form of politicians so I didn’t bother about the calling on bit. After waiting for the courtesy call, the DCS must’ve become furious. When I went to Calcutta after a week for the calling on with the senior officers, my first port of call was the Home Secretary. After the pleasantries, he asked me what I’d done to enrage the DCS who had gone complaining about me to all and sundry. I said how was that possible as I was only one week into the assignment. Then he burst out laughing. He said, “No, the guy was complaining that your English was weak. When I asked him why, he said, shuddu ektai word jaane, NO [the only word you know is NO]. Whatever his party members were asking, e.g., don’t arrest our supporters, arrest the other side in cooked-up cases, inform us before starting a case and so on, you’re just saying NO.”

 

The District Magistrate and SP behave like lords in the districts. As SP of the district, I used to be invited for some parties. I attended very few of them but used to land up at the appointed time, to the consternation of all. I found that, actually, there are people designated in the DM and SP’s retinue who ring up to find out whether the other guests had arrived and only after that was so, the laat sahebs (DM and SP) would make an appearance. Sounds silly? Actually, we can be very silly.

 

Oonche log aur unki aam baaten. Tall people and their mango tales. 

 

[To be continued]