Work culture in West Bengal, a historical view

Much has been said about the work culture or the lack of it in West Bengal. A common refrain is that the decline started when the communists came to plenipotentiary power in the state in 1977. Is the statement true? Please read this anecdote and find out for yourself.

I was about ten years then, it was in the early sixties. One day, my father sent me to his bank to cash a cheque, which was a familiar errand for me. As I studied at a morning school, I would come home at 11 and after that, attend to my duties like going to the bank and the post office.

Banks were well fortified those days, although the moat was missing. A four feet high solid wooden partition separated the front of the banking hall from the rest of it. Above the partition, a heavy wire mesh screen went right up to the ceiling. Customers were confined to the front part, while the bank staff sat within the big cage. It was not possible for an outsider to enter the area reserved for the employees. Inside, a counter ran along the length of the partition at which the clerks sat. Cheques and tokens used to change hands through small holes on the wire mesh. No one had heard of a teller then. One would deposit a cheque and collect a metal token in the morning and come back leisurely in the afternoon to get the cash. Life moved at a gentle pace.

I guess I was only four feet and a few inches then, because I could barely see through the wire mesh above the partition. I could see what was happening away form the partition, but could not see the desk right below, where the counter clerk sat; I could only see his head.

On that particular day, my school ended early and I reached the bank earlier than my normal hours, at quarter past ten. Although the office was scheduled to open at 10, I saw no head at the “current account” counter. There were not many customers either. I waited patiently for the clerk to arrive. But although quite some time passed, no one came. Gradually, transactions started to pick up at the other counters; some customers came and left, but there was no one to accept my cheque.

At length, I peeped through the wire mesh and tried to attract the attention of an officer who was some distance away. But he was too preoccupied to notice a small boy fidgeting on the other side of the partition. So I stood on my toes and looked around to talk to someone else. And what do I see? Right below my nose, the clerk manning the counter is fast asleep, resting his peaceful head on the desk!

(Words – 488)

Seeing the unseen

Last night, I drifted into sleep as I was reading an article on Attention Deficient Hyper-activity Syndrome or ADHS, a condition characterized by activity without thoughts, thoughts without focus and an overpowering lack of concentration.

In the 21^st century, a good number of children suffer from this condition, as do many adults. People afflicted with ADHS run around for what they know not and fritter away time in purposeless activities.

Perhaps our perpetual rush to nowhere is a reflection of our present lifestyle, where we no longer enjoy the wonders of a journey as our eyes are permanently fixed at the speedometer.

This morning, I got up early; darkness had just begun to lighten and the indistinct contours of the buildings-trees-antennas-water tanks were still a vague lump languidly preparing to assert their individual forms.

Crows hadn't begun to caw, the first tram hadn't started its metallic journey, the milk vendor's cycle was still chained and the newspaper boys were turning uneasily in their sleep, subliminally aware that good times would soon be over. The city slept peacefully under a transparent mist of silence.

The world looked sombre. Even my boisterous dog looked solemn as he lay at my feet wordlessly reminding me about the morning walk. I sat at my writing desk and watched the colours of darkness, which were no less eloquent than the colours of daylight. A passionate gust of wind caressed my face. In the same wind, faraway, a kite dived down with quaint grace beside a factory chimney. Its wings were distinct but dark; they were yet to catch the first burst of sunlight. Kites are faraway creatures, seldom are they seen in close quarters; they never deign to nest in your garden, nor do they ever grace your windowsills. Perhaps this goes to show that they have an intelligent mind. Those who shun the human race ought to be sensible beings. As someone said, existence of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe is proved by the fact that they don't try to contact us.

Kites don't wing their way through the sky. They glide across the grey canvas with effortless, unhurried, majestic ease. Not for them is the busy fluttering of wings like the lesser birds. They have quietly discarded the city below suffering from ADHS, and are flying away to the quiet splendour of a Jibanananda Das poem.

Am I too suffering from ADHS? When did I observe a kite last?

Words: 407

Never wish me long life

Where no physical violence is involved, I am a reasonably brave man. I routinely rush in where angels fear to tread. Yet my brave soul feels shaky if I have to call a friend suddenly or telephone an aunt.

The reason? More likely than not, I’d be greeted with a ‘You’ll live a hundred years, I was just thinking of you’, or ‘You’d live a hundred years. We were just talking about you’.

Have you ever thought how often someone thinks of you just when you had to do something with the same someone? Can such preponderance of mutual recollections be mere coincidences? Can such things be explained “scientifically” by the theories of probability or randomness? I believe no. Statistics is beyond my ken, but I know that our mighty science knows little about the human mind. I tend to think our mind has a sensor unknown to scientists. It gives us a nudge when a friend is just outside the door, and is about to press the bell. Or when my daughter at the other end of the country picks up the phone to call me ….

So far so good. To hear that someone thinks of me, that I have a room in someone’s mind, gives me a sense of belonging and warmth. But the hundred year bit? My god, living a hundred years!

Nair-da is a Malayali settled in Calcutta who speaks a beautiful flowery Bengali with a thick Malayalam accent. When I met him last, Nair-da, an archetypal bachelor and non-conformist, used to live in what could be described as the untidiest flat in Calcutta, surrounded by books, cigarette butts and unwashed tea cups. It was a house of openness and chaos, where nothing was swept under the carpet, literally and metaphorically. Needless to say, Nair da loved his Charminars and almost lived on them. I once ventured to lecture him on the evils of smoking and asked him to give it up.

He said, innocently: ‘Give me one good reason, and I will.’

‘You’d live longer,’ and I was trapped. Nair da shot back in his flamboyant Bengali, ‘Preposterous! For living this appalling, wretched, meaningless life longer, you suggest that I give up the only pleasure of living!’

I agree. I have not advised anyone to give up smoking ever since. ‘Live a hundred years’ could be the worst curse you could bestow upon me or anyone. Live hundred years, with friends dead and family drifted away, live in the company of cats and constipation, loneliness and Alzheimer’s. No, please don’t. If you are a friend reading this piece, never wish me long life. If you, dear reader, are a beautiful woman, ("Could I be so unfortunate that there would be none?"), smile your charming smile at these lines. I will trade my long life just for your smile.

The western world and Japan are groaning under the weight of an ageing society. Days are not far off when every working Japanese will have to support three old people besides their own family. We Indians need not worry on that score. We offer no social security to the old. We just let them decay and die.

‘Inqilab Zindabad!’, ‘Viva la revolution!’, ‘Long Live the Revolution!’ Twentieth century’s attempt to redraw the map of human evolution ended before evolutionary history could bat an eyelid. The Russian Revolution died at a young age of 76. China took less time to desert the god that failed. Another rebellion ended abruptly in the killing fields of Kampuchea, with a fifth of the country’s population dead. Perhaps these happened as the revolutionaries were more concerned with the longevity of the revolution, and not its quality.

On my tenth birthday, my dad gave me a book, on the first page of which he wrote: Dear Son, Live well, Live long.

Baba was one of those millions whose world had been shattered by the partition of India. Before that he had had the taste of a tough childhood after losing his father early. After the partition, he started from scratch all over again and had to fight a grim battle all his life. Thanks to an unbending faith in Gandhiji, he had an inflexible conscience and refused to make even the tiniest compromise. In the process, he had his moments of joy, but also suffered terrible failures and indignities. It was hardly surprising that he knew living well comes before living long. … In the end he managed to renounce everything except cigarettes and khadi, left home and died fighting fit, a smoker and hermit, long before Alzheimer’s could catch up with him.

The Russian revolution did die, but ideas don’t. Equality of all is a fascinating concept the time of which may not have arrived, but all the same, it is a concept that cannot be wished away by supply side economists, high priests of “winner takes all” and a greedy civilization that guzzles down natural resources at an alarming speed. My father is no more, the book he gave me has been lost to the tides of time, but I haven’t forgotten his words.

Next time when you are thinking of someone and they happen to ring up, please say: “I was just thinking of you. You’ll live a great life.”

Will the real Velayudhan Nair please stand up?

We, the officers of a public sector bank in the seventies, were a bunch of permanently displaced people. The bank would relocate us on an average every one and a half years. What was achieved by destabilising people so often – except helping out the railways and other transporters – was a closely guarded secret. Personally, it entailed a few hassles for us, the worst of which was finding a house every time we moved into a new place. The predicament was more complex for the bachelors of our lot. Prospective landlords firmly believed that every bachelor living on his own was a philanderer and possibly suffering from unmentionable diseases. Naturally, they had to be shunned. Some of us had to tie the knot prematurely and sacrifice our much-cherished freedom only to prove to the community of landlords that we too were respectable citizens of a free country.

One Sunday morning, my friend Damu, who had just been transferred to our city, and I got the information that one Velayudhan Nair, a retired Govt High School teacher had a house to let. If the description of the gentleman was sketchy, the address we had was more so. It was “Jagathy”, period. But being seasoned house-hunters, we decided to track down the said VN with the spirit of a real hunter.

In the late seventies, the populace of Thiruvananthapuram was as much familiar with multi-storeyed buildings as say, with the Parthenon of Athens. The city had beautiful small bungalows. Luckily, we found Mr Velayudhan Nair in the first house that we knocked at; he ushered us in. But soon, it was clear he was not the one we were looking for. He said, “Retired teacher? Then you must be looking for my brother-in-law. He too is Velayudhan Nair. His address is …”

The next VN had been a teacher all right, but not in a government school. More importantly, his only house was already too cramped and he was planning to construct another floor.

Slightly downbeat, but still persevering, we finally got Velayudhan Nair’s address at a local teashop. A senior citizen, he was tending his garden, with a Doberman in attendance. We mustered courage to open the gate, and walked in. After introducing ourselves as bank officers, we explained the purpose of our visit. The grizzled old man didn’t quite like the intrusion. He looked up from his adolescent crotons and said in a caustic voice, “You are bank officers, yet so careless! Why disturb me when you’re looking for somebody else? Which bank do you work in?”

The dog looked at us more sternly than his master. When we gave the name of our bank, he (the master, not the dog) said, “Thank God, I don’t draw my pension from your bank.”

As we silently thanked him for doing us the favour, He talked eloquently about the terrible state of public sector banks in the country. He was evidently pleased to find the two persons responsible for the mess, standing right before him, heads hung in shame. After half an hour, he decided to parole us, but not before saying, “Please give me your names, I must write to your managing director.”

Damu: “Sir, I am V Sreeram and he is Mr K C Peter” and we left quickly. The gentlemen who answered to these exalted names were the MD himself and his deputy.

We were delighted when the next Velayudhan Nair we met said that although he had never taught anywhere, he had a house at Sasthamangalam to be rented out. Prima facie, the building fitted the bill; and the rent was affordable. We were convinced that this particular Velayudhan Nair was an angel as he didn’t even quiz us on our marital status.

My friend Damu was a handsome young man then. He was, and still is, a perfect gentleman and an almost perfect Malayali. The modifier “almost” is necessary here as you can’t call a Malayali male who doesn’t sport whiskers, a perfect Malayali. (The accepted norm those days was a pencil line moustache; Mr Mohanlal was only a rising star then.) Velayudhan Nair seemed to have taken an instant liking for Damodar Menon.

At this point, a girl around twenty, tall, petite and pretty, breezed in, saying, “Achchan! …”. Seeing us, she stopped, blushed and breezed out, much to our disappointment. Her father said, “It’s more or less fixed then, let me get the car keys, I’ll show you the house straightaway.”

I thought it would be better if Nandini, Damu’s wife, saw the place, and interjected, “Sir, wouldn’t it be better if Mrs Menon also saw the house?”

“Mrs Menon?”

“Mrs Menon,” pointing at Damu, I said, “his wife.”

I thought Velayudhan Nair had a sudden bout of colic pain. Nothing else could explain why he turned so visibly pale. At length, he turned his gaze towards Damu and asked through his suffering, “Are you married, Mr Menon?”

“Yes,” Damu said most apologetically, “last month …”

“Please leave your phone number. You needn’t call, I’ll call you.”

I felt sorry for my friend. As we came out, I told him, he seemed destined to receive the rough end of the stick both as a bachelor and as a married man. My dejected buddy replied, “Can’t agree with you more. I’ve a rotten luck. Had I been a sailor, I would have had a mother-in-law in every port.”

Incidentally, the owner of my Cotton Hill residence was a VN, and so was the stenographer of our office. Incidentally, both were straight and nice persons. Although our mission failed that morning, we discovered an important truth: Thiruvananthapuram was teeming with Velayudhan Nairs. And although Kerala was to soon reach negative population growth, the parents of Velayudhan Nairs evidently didn't think they should deny the world of more Velayudhan Nairs. May their tribe prosper.

Kolkata, 13 August 2003