Who Won?

Scams are not new to us. Every other day the media exposes a major scam with grand levels of corruption. The news comes as a shock first, slowly takes the shape of frustration and helplessness and ends up with you playing with the TV remote to land up in some MTV Roadies or a movie. On the other hand it is but rare for us to come across people who, with sheer grit and against all odds, have done their bit to expose a scam. I came across two such individuals in the recent past. One is a male; The other a female. Both unassuming. Both have had their share of bitter days during their pursuit of the rotten eggs. One of them had worked with a very critical Central agency somewhere in the Eastern side of our country. A part of his job included monitoring the performance of a few topmost NGOs that were tied up to massive foreign funds from a few UN Agencies. Those of us who are even slightly familiar with the way the NGOs function can pretty well appreciate the fact that some of the NGOs/trusts give a tough competition to the Government when it comes to the level of corruption and siphoning of funds. Our man here, a novice then, was a little shaken when he stumbled upon a few facts that tended to expose the murky face of one of the most famous NGOs of our country.

Disbelievingly, at the same time being fair to his duty, he collected the dirty facts needed to seal the case. And as with any other important report, he did not trust anyone else while giving shape to all those evidences and facts he had painstakingly collected. He sat through the nights to stitch that solid report that had the potential to shatter the image of one of the "best" NGOs here. Now he needed the bosses - only the bosses and not any middlemen - to take note of the report. He did mail the report one of his trusted big bosses who takes his review. The big boss gave our man a pat on the back. She was not able to locate any gaps in the report. She had a great case. Our man had a good night's sleep.

A few days after an urgent meeting of the bigger bosses an order knocks our man's doors. He gets his air ticket booked to Srinagar. Calls up Movers 'n' Packers to find out if they operate out of J&K. Interestingly that Agency did not have any office in Srinagar at that time. Our man was to work out of a hotel room. As a consolation he was permitted to take some help from the state government when in need.

A few months later, the high-profile head of the NGO steals the headlines for winning some XYZ international award for some tremendous contribution at the grass root level.

A few more months later our man quits the job after landing himself in a better job - nothing new.

But leaves back a newly-built office in Srinagar!

Songs and Signs

During our initial days here we were forced to watch Hariyudan Naan (Roughly translated as With Hari) in Jaya TV. We do not have DTH in the guestrooms here and the local cable guy did not have any other Tamil channel. Only Jaya TV gave us good company and in addition to hitting upon many creatively boring programs, we luckily ended up watching this music contest-reality show on the weekends. The idea was the winner of the show would get a chance to work with Hariharan, one of the most versatile and successful singers around. How can one ever forget his “Uyire…” (Bombay/Tamil/1995) that foretold us he was here to stay; and stay at the top. Close to two decades after his arrival Hariharan’s distinctly pleasant voice continues to enthrall us till this day. There are two other eminent South Indian music composers in the jury with, of course, Hariharan taking the centre stage. All the songs are from Tamil movies. There are many contestants and many rounds of the contest. But that thing that sets this program apart is the comments the jury give after every contestant finishes singing. “Very good”, “You can improve a bit”, “You are not singing well”… these are some of the comments that do not find a place in this program usually. Rather the comments are highly pin-pointed and technical to the extent that I do not understand most of them. In many cases Hariharan even sings a line or two to drive home a point. It is lovely to listen to him. The other members of the jury are equally technical with their comments but rather extra-frank – just to help those young contestants blossom as great singers. The show has moved into its final stage where only the last twenty are left. These days I’ve realised music is as technical as chemical engineering or accountancy.

As a kid most of us have a fascination to give “autographs” or keep signing (scribbling?) in the last pages of our notebooks. This usually happens during the History classes or whenever one gets hold of a new pen. It kind of gives a kick. This liking to see one’s own signature in various styles and pen colours continues even during the college days. The “signature” also gets a new status when one opens the bank account for the first time. You try out various patterns of your signature till you hit upon the most impressive one and fix that one in your new bank account formalities. Some of us are known to relentlessly improvise our signatures and keep them contemporary with the changing times just like the way companies like Tata, Videocon have done with their logos. You can witness this stylish evolution of a signature if you pull out all your certificates from Class X to Graduation, Driving Licence, job offer letters, and the bank accounts opened, and arrange them in the time axis. As a kid I too have had a love affair with my signature. But with a difference. I have always had a plain vanilla signature – I just write down my name. Since the usual practice is to write down one’s name below the signature, I write down my name in CAPS just to differentiate it from my signature. At times, a few have even returned the forms to me saying that I have just written down my name while I was actually supposed to sign there. Nevertheless, my love with my autograph continued until May 21, 2010. That was the day I took charge as a Group A Officer in the income tax department. To begin with I had to sign in a specific form meant for people taking over a charge. It was just a single form, accompanied by 12 xerox copies of the same form! Initially there was a kick as it was the first time I was signing profusely with a green ink pen. Over the next 2-3 days I had already hit a century of autographs! Now I have married my childhood love of my autograph and I no more count the number of signatures I make in a day. Rather I have made a few amendments in my autograph systems and I only keep tab of the number of minutes I sign. For example, today I had to sign non-stop for close to 15 minutes. I recommend ADD Gel.

Old Colony

“Sir, before twenty five years I travelled for 18 hours by train and reached this place. I was doing the right thing at that time. Now my son travelled for 18 hours and got settled in a different continent. It was the right thing for him too.” One could feel pain in the voice of that intimidating, old gentleman who was explaining me about how he had started from scratch and made it big in real estate in Goa, why his son would not like to continue the ready-made, lucrative business here in India, and which ultimately made the old father quit all his projects and pass his sunset days without a sense of security; without his son nearby. He summed up his pain, anger and understanding, “Generation gap!”

The colony (I mean a kind of township, not to be confused with the Medieval times…British colony, French colony etc) where I come from, shares a similar episode. Essentially a middle-class, government servants’ area, the colony today is well-laid out with good roads, water supply, the long-route bus terminus nearby, and individual houses having dozens of coconut, mango and neem trees. The land was all but barren, lined by a metre-gauge railway track, dotted by a few palm trees and thorn bushes, in the outskirts of the city some three decades back. A cent was sold and bought for Rs.100. Today, to get that same one cent area you got to shell out more than Rs.1 Lakh! 1000-fold growth! But more importantly, in these thirty years all those government employees (mainly working with the state government, banks and the then glorious DoT) residing in the area had educated their children in one of those numerous good schools in the city, sent them to professional colleges, got their dreams of their kids working abroad fulfilled, and above all…crossed 58/60 years of age and got retired from their services.

Now most of their engineer sons and daughters are abroad, either they are working in some onsite projects or they have got settled there with their spouses and children. Most of the retired parents of the colony have PCs with a broadband connection and webcam to catch a glimpse of their grand children playing in one of the US coasts. All of them have quite comfortable bank balances, mainly due to the compensation received during retirement, including full leave encashment; also thanks to the remittances from their children. Not to mention they are sitting in lands worth a goldmine.

They plan out for a stay abroad for a couple of weeks, to help out their daughters set up a family, and are quickly back at the colony with loads of apparently jaw-dropping videshi stories for their neighbours, who in turn have their counter-stories, equally mesmerising, about their own abroad trips. Nobody here talks of “Generation gap”. All we get to hear is “Milk is very cheap in the US”, “The roads are very neat ”, “It is very cold there!” etc.

The broadband with the webcam does a fine work; their children give way to the US-born grandchildren; one generation gives way to the next generation; the stories and counter-stories continue incessantly in that colony hidden below the tall coconut trees dancing to the monsoon winds.

As per the MPI’s (Migration Policy Institute) ranking on remittances received by countries in the year 2009, China surprisingly (shockingly?) came only at the second place. No marks for guessing who topped the list.