Quote: The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is its inefficiency.
Kata: What will save me from inefficient bureaucrats?
I am really sick off this whole believing business ya. What is with people, people? Everyone wants me to believe. First off is this shitty ‘believe in yourself’ business. Then mentors tell me not to be cynical. Then friends tell me to take leaps of faith. Everyone else, in the meanwhile, wants me to believe in truth, justice, beauty, love, gods…O the gods! Don’t get me started on the gods. The gods are always elbowing each other for my faith.
I am like: ‘stop it’.
What is there to believe in? Don’t give me the whole ‘glass is half full’ crap. My question is, it’s been half for a bloody long time, will it ever get full? Or should we call it a day, forget about glasses, and hit the bottle?
Take any institution. The other day I woke up to one paper stating that there were lapses (amounting to 8.5%) in a Rs 52000 crore scheme while another paper yelled that the government was involved in a Rs 52000 crore scam. Which one was telling the truth? Was either? Or is the truth the average of both news?
Anyway, I find the naiveté of our little slogan on the national emblem so cute. Just as cute as I find anyone believing anything these days. Satyamev Jayate. Truth always triumphs. Or maybe it means ‘the triumphant make the truth’. Who knows? Which of us knows Sanskrit anyway? And of course we really can’t believe everything our textbooks tell us.
What is that stink? Do I smell an optimist? Think only institutions are evil? I am over reacting? People are fundamentally good?
Maybe its part of growing up (I, FYI, only grow up. I never grow old). From ‘everybody is nice’ to ‘everybody lies’. They take our rose tinted glasses and fit us with Cubist style ones. Different viewpoints of the same thing. Everything is disorienting, bizarre and grotesque. And honestly, I don’t get anything anymore.
I promised my mother I would keep this PG so let me be polite: people are bastards.
Values like telling the truth, decent work ethic and fear of consequences seem to be the exclusive territory of my parents and a hundred other fools I met so far. Everyone else is living in the Wild West by his own codes.
Let me tell you a story. Its called, ‘Feedback is another F-word’. And it’s the story of every babu who tried to change anything. You have grand plans. Visions. Hallucinations even. You have a team. A rag tag bunch of lagaan-style assorted. The Underdogs always win. Not in Babuland. Because they don’t want to. You give elaborate instructions. Frameworks and timelines. The deadline approaches. You check for progress and you see it hasn’t even taken off. First obstacle and the system comes to a halt. As Sir Humphrey says, ‘the system has the engine of a lawn mower and the brakes of a Rolls Royce’ No one thinks of asking the boss for help. Everyone sits around till she remembers to ask for a status update.
Everything is on a need-to-know basis. And you need to know if you ask for it. If you don’t ask you will never know. The key is never the right answer. It’s always the right question. If you never ask, the issue will lie there forever. Gathering time and gravitas. One year later, the next boss comes along and your office assures you that the problem is tricky, that’s why it hasn’t been solved yet.
Like the twin towers in my office. There are two pillars, forty feet high behind my building. Next to it lies a rusting old metal thingy about the size of an army tank. Legend goes that sometime in the mid-nineties, a Babu facing severe water shortage, decided to get a water tank installed in the office. Clearly a lot of money and effort was spent in getting it in place. The tank was delivered and the Babu was transferred. The next guy took a year to go and look behind his office (Big Babus btw, never walk. They hop from the threshold of the building into the car, and then back out). Nobody told him of the money sitting behind the office. And time rusted on.
Or maybe the guy who built it in the first place never figured how to put an army tanker on top of the two towers. Maybe it was the classic case of reality hitting the visionary in the small of his back. Who knows?
All is maya. Bad administration alone is eternal.
And when you believe in it, it becomes worse administration