My first day in and I got my very own office. Well, it was somebody else’s office. But he was on leave and hey! This place had everything government I had ever thought of. What more did I need? I was down the rabbit hole and I had arrived baby (babu?)!
With time I realised, it meant no such thing.
Babuland takes its offices seriously and uses the same decorator everywhere. This artist leaves a key to the officer’s importance in loud and clear terms. Look again at the pic and you will see that this is the office of a mid-rung guy at best.
Has his own room (good going), has a computer (not bad and an LCD monitor too. Everyone knows that anyone who is anyone has an LCD monitor atleast. And anyone who is more than anyone has something much more beautiful like my boss with his iMac) but he is drowning in decaying files of unknown vintage (Boo) and actually has the ubiquitous Godrej cupboard (yuck! they are to be used not seen). If it weren’t for the shiny white towel, I would have concluded that this guy is just above the bugs in the woodwork and but way below the average mouse in the collectorate.
Whats in a towel, you ask? Its not a towel it is the towel. It is the white towel : King among décor motifs and Lord of the towels. It sends out the loudest possible signal that this guy has arrived. A guy who can afford to have fluffy, white, clean towels on his chair and in his car all the time is a guy who has access to a vast array of cleaners, wipers, washers and dhobhis who without ever being told, keep the towel shining. You laugh, but see if you can get your regular corporate office boy to make chai the way you want it.
In fact among the Babus, rumour has it that Douglas Adams was inspired to give towels such a key role in the Hitchikers after he met a Principal Secretary in London on a Study Tour to understand the impact of cumin in fodder to improve the milk output of a nearly extinct British breed of cows. They met in the Tube where the Principal Secretary was sitting on a towel. A bureaucrat without a towel is like a superhero without his unitard.
Its just not done.
To be fair, nobody actually asks for the towels. They are just there. They were first introduced to counter bureaucrats’ innate aversion to friction. But they became obsolete when an up and coming Deputy Secretary thought up of red tape as an alternative. It was an “Ahaa! No motion, no friction” moment. Alas! It was too late, too many dreams nestled in the white arms of the towels. Each man dreamt of the day when he would have his own towel and he would not let them get rid of the towels till he got his very own set. I can bet that it was the Principal Secretary’s attender who voluntarily packed 5 sets of white towels in a special bag for him to use in London. Government offices today have biometric attendance machines, swipe cards at all entry points and some of the best IT infrastructure in the city but the boss always sits on a white towel.
The towels are not all white by the way. There are the pleasant pastels which can be viewed as artistic license without downgrading the officer. Then there are the garish pinks and the eyesore greens which say you are the bull frog but of a very small well. But beware when they give you non fluffy towels or polka dots -you might have to re-evaluate your career path. The darker your towel, the lower your level. Of course, the fact that you are actually getting a towel means that you are still in the reckoning. There is no confusion about this hierarchy. In my car, my seat is a sea of beautiful white, my driver has a dark blue towel and the other seats are stark naked. And my driver is so keyed into the hierarchy that when a couple of days ago I decided to sit in the front (one of the naked seats), he took umbrage. I stepped out to get some cash from the ATM and by the time I was back, my new seat was draped in white too.
Ah what the hell!
Yesterday I told my secretary to buy new towels daily for me. The message should go out loud and clear “Beware! I am fluffy and I am not afraid to use it!”.
Kima said:
FIRST to leave a comment here!!!! 😀
Kima said:
Wow, first day and I can see you’re making a towelfic impression already! 🙂 It was great reading about your experience and looks like this is the only way we can keep up with what’s going on in our lives as you’re now forever busy, miss babuji 🙂
By the way, you seem to have such a good impression about the guy because of his fluffy towels. Hope you know that guys keep towels around them here and there for some other reason too, which isn’t about cleanliness… 😀
“my driver… my secretary…” ahem… 🙂 times, they are indeed a-changing…
By the way. I twisted my neck and it broke, when I clicked on your uploaded pic to view. lolz lolz lolz… 😀
Kata in Babuland said:
thanks fr being the first Kim..its only fair considerinng how many of your blog posts i religoiously followed and commented on:P
i will definitely keep wat u said abt the towels in mind and NOT touch them..how could that not have occurred to me? is it why it all started? the Babus way of dealing with the chaos around them?:) 🙂
Sampath said:
I believe its the decorators’ cost effective solution to
chair-critics in babus…can’t blame the babus coz they need
to sit for hundreds of hours(assumption)…and decorator would rather change the
towels…the towels in the cars are just conforming to the quality…
if the churning of towels exceeded the cost of the chair
itself over the years…:) two plausible reasons:
1. The financial analysists of the decorator lost their jobs in recession
2. We have a Towel Scam :)))
And yes.. your guess that I might be jobless is not unfounded and not untrue.
Kata in Babuland said:
haha the towel scam.. u might have caught on to something 🙂 might turn whisle blower soon
Ramya said:
Hahaha…..this was wonderfully written. Keep this blog going girl!
Kata in Babuland said:
🙂 thanks babe
Dipika said:
Ha Ha Kata..You strike again ! Sardonical tone but message loud and clear..Now I fully understand the inseparable bond between hierarchy and towels…
Kata in Babuland said:
🙂 hahah thanks
K said:
Nice blog…
Hmm…didnt understand why you would “Ah what the hell”….is it because he used “used towel”?? made me think so because you ordered for new towels daily.
On a different note, challenge the status quo, by using different colors for the towel (dont mean to waste gov property!)…all equal…driver / officer / collector….
Like you the employee sits in a similar cube as the CEO….
Kata in Babuland said:
🙂
Blot said:
Remembered this post when I saw this bunch of images: the Indian bureaucrats do love their towels! http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2011/04/04/jan-banning-bureaucratics/
Kata in Babuland said:
haha.. soo funny how all the pics feel so same..
Pingback: The Great Decorator « Kata in Babuland
sheetal said:
i must say u have evolved as an adroit writer comparing this first blog of urs to the most recent.
the towels. bwahhhhaaahha. people around me looking at me like i am total nuts laughing so loud. btw commuting into london is no fun but is made fun with ur blog.
though this is not the best of ur work, this is entertainingly funny. next time i hear towels, pink, glaringly bright green towels would be the ones i will be thinking of. LOL.
just a heads up, don’t be surprised if ur blog is barged in with new people and comments. hope u dont feel invaded 😉
Kata in Babuland said:
these days i live exclusively on blog hits and comments.. while this has not helped me lose weight in any way, i am much happier..
soo pls bring in the new ppl.. looove it
i still cant believe its taking me so long to become an internet sensation;)
sheetal said:
dont worry mademoiselle. i have no doubt u would be the internet sensation very soon. u definitely have some Londoner fans but must say most of them are lazy pricks 😉
Kiran Reddy Born Stubborn said:
kataji urs blog is awesum
doppelgangerintheclub said:
This is SO fun! I think Indian Bureaucracy needs more of you! The ghee seedhi ungli se nahi toh tedhi ungli se nikaalenge variety! Might do our country hell lotta good. Stay safe girl! 🙂
ab said:
hey not writing?…..
… i remember long ago there lived a master…… said….. the best method to learn is reflection(चिन्तन)……easy is learn from others…and….most difficult to learn from mistakes………..all the best!