You can’t miss them. They wear the look of Atlas, shoulders
hunched, brow furrowed, feet in a scamper. The reason is simple; they are
trying to keep things going.
Oh no, nothing as spectacular as a path breaking research or
some stupendous project of national significance, not even a first of a kind
event. They are in a tizzy over the daily chore, the mundane, the given, the
regular routine. And the reason this unremarkable target seems to be draining
them of their life force is…..their locale, their karmabhoomi, their work place. Their arena of action is ‘sarkari’.
These are the famed, abused, flogged, derided and resented minority in a government
office. They stick out for one sole reason; they do their job against all odds and
do it well.
Has anyone in India heard of an oxymoron as true as this? The
breed is rare. Stuck in a system that is shy of recognizing merit, they work
only for themselves. It is impressive, this single minded focus on getting a
task over with only to move on to the next one, without taking a bow for a
non-existent pat. No, they are not blessed with any mystical juggling power.
They seem to get things done because they are pouring bits of themselves into
the set up. They give of their lunch time, their TV time, their personal time,
their family time….they snatch energy from their day to put it into what is
after all, ‘only a job’. When colleagues are catching up on welfare talk, they
are racking their tired brains for catchy slogans. While out on a relatively uni-dimensional
supervisory duty, they are mentally calculating execution facts. While driving
home from work, they visualize performance paraphernalia at red traffic lights.
They are not beyond staying up nights to get a recording just right or some writing
out of the way.
When they go on leave, the entire floor space knows what is
to be done in their absence. They plan ahead and leave instructions behind so
no one can claim a task is not done because ‘a’ or ‘b’ or ‘c’ is away. Talking
of leave, strange creatures of habit that they are, there is reluctance to go
absenting. To the degree possible, they will avoid missing work, availing of
their dues is a concept foreign to these self-driven motors. Give them an assignment and watch, barely a
question comes forth as to why or how or when. Project accepted, thank you,
they will figure it out and get on with it. There is no time for doubt or
dismay or delay.
So there you have them, in the foci of an ever expanding
ripple of involvements; primary, secondary, tertiary, moving steadily from
compulsory to the pure voluntary. There is no recognition, no extra
consideration, no special facilitation volunteered by the organization to these
lone rangers. Their reward is more work, more opportunities to prove
themselves, greater and bigger challenges to pit themselves against. There is no way you can miss them. They have
more bad habits. Forgetting to sign their salary registers, being clueless
about their leave record and blissfully ignorant of the changing patterns on their
salary slips, they are likely to be hugely surprised at the appearance of an
incentive.
They are the all-time sarkari suckers, operational on a
minefield of the indolent, unwieldy, dispirited majority who playact as though challenged.
They suffer from an addiction of a different kind. They only listen to an inner
voice. Cut the crap, cut the chaff, cut some slack come on, thanks heaven for
them sarkari suckers!
Lage raho Munna Bhai; Lagi raho Munni Behen……
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