Mr. X is not a friend of mine, we have so very damn different perspectives on life, but he is colleague, and he is about to retire. In the government business retirement is a tricky affair. The amount of paper work is huge. They have to be done right, other wise the poor slob would have to leg it around to various offices after his active service is over. And that is pure hell in this blessed country, for, the moment one retires one’s value dramatically diminishes among the still working. I do not know why it should be like that, but that is the case.
I am in charge of his papers and though I do not like the guy myself I have to do it right. The man has done several things to get under my skin in the years I have worked with him and he is a little doubtful about my interest in his case. Yet he is as evil in his approach to me as ever he was. I can guess why. The poor man is small time leader of a service organization and is looking for an opportunity to rub it in. I do not mind that, for I know him inside out. Like all small time freaks he has a big opinion of himself and he derives great pleasure in showing it off.
The panic of retirement has not yet stuck in.
What irked me when I was going through his papers was the dissembling that went into making him an officer. He belongs to a converted community, or at least I gather as much from his papers. He had given a different community name and has marked his descent from a tribal clan. He was quite shameless in admitting that the thing was done to get him the benefit of reservation in the selections to the services. Now the deception was a quarter century old, and there is nothing to be done about it.
I got through the paper work with a very uncomfortable feeling. I have no ill will towards the guy as such, being aware of his financial position. But yet a bad taste lingered.
Showing posts with label People. Show all posts
Showing posts with label People. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Friday, March 28, 2008
Musings
Hatred is exhibited in many ways. There is class hatred, community hatred, and cultural hatred. On various occasions I had the good fortune to experience all of them. Yes I meant that. I can not but call it a good fortune, because it usually brings the real people out, their pettiness, their indefinable anger at others, their suspicions, and their fears. As a student of the human element I am happy to partake in such incidents even when I am at the receiving end of the shoddy behavior.
It also surprises me a little. Hate is mostly cowardice, it stems from fear rather than any observable external causes. It is repressed anger at being defeated in some way. That may be purely imaginary or fabricated. Years of mistrust of others lies beneath some of these incidents. People shut themselves off from others and that provides food for distrustful minds. But do they believe in it, that is, that all the others are out to get them? Not really, yes some very low lives acts as if they do, but that is out of the pure motive of material gain. But at times even the supposedly intelligent follows in their footsteps. That is what so surprising about this phenomenon.
The work place is definitely a cauldron where such callousness can be exhibited with barely a negligible amount of restraint. I have certain co workers whose only happiness in life seems to be the promotion of their own kind. We may call ourselves secular and open minded, but in reality we are no better than what we are. In India this is more so. There are historical reasons for such distrust. But that alone does not cause the behavior. In the case I mentioned above the fake anger is so wide spread that all sort of people are involved in it. It seems that there are no class motives at the superficial level. But nothing is farther from the truth than that. Certain very shrewd elements have threatened the others into submission and is utilizing them with impunity. The interesting thing about it is the industriousness the poor submissive creatures are exhibiting under duress. Al of them seems completely bereft of their reasoning faculties.
The attacks on the “others” have reached a proportion which these poor beings are finding quite suffocating to sustain. They are even resorting to histrionics to achieve their aim. But none seems to have succeeded. The real cause behind the failure is the lack of self belief among these unfortunate beings. They never practice what they preach. All of them are shady characters thirsting after lucre. Hard words but unfortunately true. Once they have got their hands on it they starts to perceive ghosts in the closets and are frightened that these would come out into the open sooner or later. The only option then is to fashion an all out adventure against whom they fear. At present yours truly is being given enough to think that these lofty “idealists” ( Ha Ha )and faulty practitioners have reached at the end of their tether. Fear is a frightening phenomenon, it makes people do things. It might make these poor beings do ignoble things.
In the meanwhile the performances are definitely worth watching. Yes they are totally amateurish and lack the spark of real life events. But that does not drain the enjoyment of watching these cowardly figures battling it out for survival. I feel some amount of pity for them. Not too much though, because none of them have a worth while motive to hold aloft and because they have made a big chunk of money from it. I often think of bringing these shady deeds before the rest of the world but have refrained from it because of the possibility of encountering many such bad eggs in the endeavor. A lame excuse you may say but these characters are not without intelligence and are good at covering their tracks. The moment we try to do something about it the whole nasty establishment would be out to get you. The whole system is corrupt. This is a fact, at least in India, one we have to regretfully admit. If you move against the stream you are a “goner”. This could only do as a last resort, when they finally single you out for attack without it being caused by you. When that happens you need to be prepared, you need to have every document to prove your case at any of the social bodies. At such extremities whether the establishment turns against you or not pales into insignificance.
If I move against them now it would turn their petty hatred towards me. Not that I am afraid of it( I hope!) and not that they do not hate me already. They heartily do so as they do every honest person around. Oh don’t think that I am blowing my own trumpet, far from it, I know what my personal drawbacks are. But this petty desire for people’s money is not one of them thankfully. At the end of every financial year this same piece is enacted. My wonder is who they are trying to fool? No one is being fooled any way and their gain seems to be the simple feeling of temporary power of unity. A sort of sinner’s pact. Only the god knows how much they have amassed by way of swindling the masses. By the manner in which they are roping in even outsiders as guest artists for the performances they are really having a very god time at making hay while the sun shines.
One of the seedy characters in the play, does seem to have, some connection with the powers that be and is gleefully misusing it to gain his personal and caste-ist ends. Did I say caste-ist? Yes I did and in this “terribly” secular society that does not seem to be a drawback at all. On the other hand it is a sure way for survival and growth. This was an evil proposed to be cast out in our society. It still exists but in a very different form. In the earlier periods
It was the upper caste feeling that led the way . Now there has been a great turn around. The once submerged classes have become revived by the early secular society after the freedom struggle. Now these have become unified into different interest groups covertly helped by the political parties on various grounds. They all amount to one thing. Grasping at vote banks.
As these sectarian groups grew they devised a strategy of promoting themselves and their interests vigorously. It has reached a stage where one can not do anything in this land without considering its caste-ist ramifications. This individual I am talking about is an emotional cripple who has never grown up. He does not know the first thing about leading people and believes that the only known method is to harass every one intermittently, he is a caricature of megalomaniac.
But he would be the last to admit that he is ineffectual in most cases. Yet he is made much of by some of the staff because he is a member of their own community. At the beginning it was very much underplayed, now it is shamelessly exhibited by everyone belonging to that power group. Their recent revival has to do with the arrival of the present boss belonging to their power group.
I certainly seems to be very irked by the recent development in the workplace by going through what I wrote above. Or perhaps I am expressing what I had felt all along . Well, I’d better stop this before it sweeps me too off my feet and into the fold of some of the groups in operation!
It also surprises me a little. Hate is mostly cowardice, it stems from fear rather than any observable external causes. It is repressed anger at being defeated in some way. That may be purely imaginary or fabricated. Years of mistrust of others lies beneath some of these incidents. People shut themselves off from others and that provides food for distrustful minds. But do they believe in it, that is, that all the others are out to get them? Not really, yes some very low lives acts as if they do, but that is out of the pure motive of material gain. But at times even the supposedly intelligent follows in their footsteps. That is what so surprising about this phenomenon.
The work place is definitely a cauldron where such callousness can be exhibited with barely a negligible amount of restraint. I have certain co workers whose only happiness in life seems to be the promotion of their own kind. We may call ourselves secular and open minded, but in reality we are no better than what we are. In India this is more so. There are historical reasons for such distrust. But that alone does not cause the behavior. In the case I mentioned above the fake anger is so wide spread that all sort of people are involved in it. It seems that there are no class motives at the superficial level. But nothing is farther from the truth than that. Certain very shrewd elements have threatened the others into submission and is utilizing them with impunity. The interesting thing about it is the industriousness the poor submissive creatures are exhibiting under duress. Al of them seems completely bereft of their reasoning faculties.
The attacks on the “others” have reached a proportion which these poor beings are finding quite suffocating to sustain. They are even resorting to histrionics to achieve their aim. But none seems to have succeeded. The real cause behind the failure is the lack of self belief among these unfortunate beings. They never practice what they preach. All of them are shady characters thirsting after lucre. Hard words but unfortunately true. Once they have got their hands on it they starts to perceive ghosts in the closets and are frightened that these would come out into the open sooner or later. The only option then is to fashion an all out adventure against whom they fear. At present yours truly is being given enough to think that these lofty “idealists” ( Ha Ha )and faulty practitioners have reached at the end of their tether. Fear is a frightening phenomenon, it makes people do things. It might make these poor beings do ignoble things.
In the meanwhile the performances are definitely worth watching. Yes they are totally amateurish and lack the spark of real life events. But that does not drain the enjoyment of watching these cowardly figures battling it out for survival. I feel some amount of pity for them. Not too much though, because none of them have a worth while motive to hold aloft and because they have made a big chunk of money from it. I often think of bringing these shady deeds before the rest of the world but have refrained from it because of the possibility of encountering many such bad eggs in the endeavor. A lame excuse you may say but these characters are not without intelligence and are good at covering their tracks. The moment we try to do something about it the whole nasty establishment would be out to get you. The whole system is corrupt. This is a fact, at least in India, one we have to regretfully admit. If you move against the stream you are a “goner”. This could only do as a last resort, when they finally single you out for attack without it being caused by you. When that happens you need to be prepared, you need to have every document to prove your case at any of the social bodies. At such extremities whether the establishment turns against you or not pales into insignificance.
If I move against them now it would turn their petty hatred towards me. Not that I am afraid of it( I hope!) and not that they do not hate me already. They heartily do so as they do every honest person around. Oh don’t think that I am blowing my own trumpet, far from it, I know what my personal drawbacks are. But this petty desire for people’s money is not one of them thankfully. At the end of every financial year this same piece is enacted. My wonder is who they are trying to fool? No one is being fooled any way and their gain seems to be the simple feeling of temporary power of unity. A sort of sinner’s pact. Only the god knows how much they have amassed by way of swindling the masses. By the manner in which they are roping in even outsiders as guest artists for the performances they are really having a very god time at making hay while the sun shines.
One of the seedy characters in the play, does seem to have, some connection with the powers that be and is gleefully misusing it to gain his personal and caste-ist ends. Did I say caste-ist? Yes I did and in this “terribly” secular society that does not seem to be a drawback at all. On the other hand it is a sure way for survival and growth. This was an evil proposed to be cast out in our society. It still exists but in a very different form. In the earlier periods
It was the upper caste feeling that led the way . Now there has been a great turn around. The once submerged classes have become revived by the early secular society after the freedom struggle. Now these have become unified into different interest groups covertly helped by the political parties on various grounds. They all amount to one thing. Grasping at vote banks.
As these sectarian groups grew they devised a strategy of promoting themselves and their interests vigorously. It has reached a stage where one can not do anything in this land without considering its caste-ist ramifications. This individual I am talking about is an emotional cripple who has never grown up. He does not know the first thing about leading people and believes that the only known method is to harass every one intermittently, he is a caricature of megalomaniac.
But he would be the last to admit that he is ineffectual in most cases. Yet he is made much of by some of the staff because he is a member of their own community. At the beginning it was very much underplayed, now it is shamelessly exhibited by everyone belonging to that power group. Their recent revival has to do with the arrival of the present boss belonging to their power group.
I certainly seems to be very irked by the recent development in the workplace by going through what I wrote above. Or perhaps I am expressing what I had felt all along . Well, I’d better stop this before it sweeps me too off my feet and into the fold of some of the groups in operation!
Monday, March 17, 2008
Self doubts
Here I am, troubled by self doubts again.
But really, why are people like this, we do one thing and they guess some thing else. We want to help and they turn hostile!
Hostility turned inwards is hate, and hate can be a little too much to handle at times.
Here I was trying to help a poor bugger thinking he deserved it, and it turns out he doesn’t need it……
He does need it badly, but wouldn’t admit it; it amounts to the same thing. We get laughed at for what amount of good we did.
Well, I know, no sane person really cares about what others think of him and what he does, it is not that, it is the hidden animosity that is troubling. Not from others but the recipient. No, we don’t expect them to be servile because we did a favor to them -for the rest of their lives. That would be obscene. But at least we expect recognition.
Well, who does recognize whom these days! We do a good turn to somebody out of good will and we appear as the dumbest person alive!
My friends say I was crazy to do that. The problem is, people have become wise, and none expects any thing from any one other than by way of coercion.
That is acceptable, because there is no loss of face involved. I should have guessed it; none needs any crumbs of bread other than by way of the sweat of their ‘wicked’ brow.
Hello Satan, how are you! (Perhaps I am a little too self righteous?)
But really, why are people like this, we do one thing and they guess some thing else. We want to help and they turn hostile!
Hostility turned inwards is hate, and hate can be a little too much to handle at times.
Here I was trying to help a poor bugger thinking he deserved it, and it turns out he doesn’t need it……
He does need it badly, but wouldn’t admit it; it amounts to the same thing. We get laughed at for what amount of good we did.
Well, I know, no sane person really cares about what others think of him and what he does, it is not that, it is the hidden animosity that is troubling. Not from others but the recipient. No, we don’t expect them to be servile because we did a favor to them -for the rest of their lives. That would be obscene. But at least we expect recognition.
Well, who does recognize whom these days! We do a good turn to somebody out of good will and we appear as the dumbest person alive!
My friends say I was crazy to do that. The problem is, people have become wise, and none expects any thing from any one other than by way of coercion.
That is acceptable, because there is no loss of face involved. I should have guessed it; none needs any crumbs of bread other than by way of the sweat of their ‘wicked’ brow.
Hello Satan, how are you! (Perhaps I am a little too self righteous?)
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