The midnight rendezvous

A gang of good fellows are we?

Few call us mandarins of government. Others hate our power and call us mongers of power.
Loose-tongued ones call us- ‘power-brokers’. More literate folk salute us as ‘civil servants’.
The staid old world of legalese dubs us as -‘bureaucrats ‘ !

A minuscule few of us are definitely a conscientious lot. We tweak the rules to benefit those seeking shelter of law & order. We used to bicycle our way home and to office but with the evolution of technology, we all fly overseas to study at the world bank or some such elite institution and earn our leave of absence from official duties for which we were selected through a couple of open examinations and an interview of venerable proportions. We all admit that these old world babus are as babes in woods- lost souls to a majority of our ilk who live at the expense of both State Exchequer as well as public expectations!

Those vast majority are suspected to have been leeches and blood-suckers in a previous birth . This tribe has not lost traits despite rebirth as humans and the most prized section of rulers of modern day world too..

Why this sudden yearning to write an ode to the babulog? For,these bhadralok had failed to show compassion to the cries of the really poorer sections of society in Delhi state as well as across most parts of the northern region of our country : the les miserables were being denied ration supplies from government fair-price shops because their bio-metrics were not matching with the adhaar database or their names were missing !

All their repeated pleas fell on deaf ears. The babulog little recognized that these hard workers,farm laborers and the like had the layers of their finger skin altered due to scratches,abrasions and such other difficult,grueling manual works. As such,their biometrics could vary from the data-base. The babulog belonged to central government cadre. State was divorced from the Central Government under the federal set up of Constitution. They turned a Nelson’s eye towards the plight of those hungry bellies,illiterate minds and the ‘children of God’.

Left with no alternative, these suffering masses allowed anarchy’s step-child to knock on their doors . He converted the dire straits into one of dramatic connotation. Summoned the chief bureaucrat of the State to his bungalow at the stroke of midnight on some other pretext and got his henchmen to try their goon skills on this solitary head of all powerful men of the State.

Net result?

He got his fame ; his legislators their quota of empowerment as representatives of the people and the bureaucrat his notional earnings!

Yet,who lost sanity ? The rule of law. The rules framed by law-makers.

The whole society which brags of human rights ,fundamental duties and the directive principles of State.

The insane won . Saner ones lost.

A much-maligned community of administrative service officers has begun to enjoy a live-in relationship with anarchy’s street-children.

This is the tale of freedom at midnight and the cost of being enslaved to illiteracy and nasty bias!

Rest in shadows . Let the curtains fall . This is no call for wiping your looking-glasses ..

Let mist remain!!!