Not So Long Ago

It is proving to be rather difficult to get used to the fact that only a couple of weeks before I was traveling to small villages in passenger buses on work. It seems a long ago, though that I was roughing it out in the rural landscape trying to make sense of my job. Now that I am in Hyderabad, at a desk job, it feels odd. Though I had returned to the field post after a long gap and had been at it for just over a year I felt at home there. But it was rather tiring work with all that travelling, meeting farmers and feeling some kind of an invisible pressure all the time. Not that I did not enjoyed it but a field job had its own problems and perks. But a desk job is something else altogether.


There are several reasons why I do not enjoy desk jobs. I prefer being in the field posts where the action is, where one comes face to face with the public whose ‘servants’ we are. In the field you know what is happening which is not possible if you are sitting in your chair in some far off office. In the field, you are in the ‘situation’ which incidentally changes every day. There’s nothing to beat the feeling of being in the thick of things. To sum up, there is nothing like a field posting to make you feel that you are doing a real job.

A field post involves traveling all the time, meeting different kinds of people, facing different situations and generally, is one which doesn’t let you sit still. The field posting also puts you in different moods. Sometimes you are elated that you were able to help someone and being thanked for it and sometimes you feel rotten given the kind of people around you. Sometimes you become an unwitting target of some poor guy’s ire for no fault of yours. This is a very common thing in field postings, being a government wala, to suffer the consequences of someone’s mistake. I did not mind shouted at, but what got my goat was facing the anger of some innocent villager cheated out of his rightful due by some dishonest employee. You’d be surprised to see the levels to which some government employees stoop to make money off poor villagers. All this takes a huge toll if you are someone like me, too sensitive.

Not that I am glad that I have got out of the field post but I feel relieved a bit. In this current posting, miles away from villages I am in the centre of the government establishment. But I am only one among the hundreds in this office which hums with a strange power because it is the place where the top people have their offices and decide upon important things. This, needless to say, doesn’t make for much excitement for someone who is only a face in the crowd. About the only excitement I had in these couple of weeks was being asked one morning to rush to the office to send a message to the Navy to take up a rescue mission in a faraway place. Someone had drowned in a river and his body was untraceable. But before the naval swimmers could begin there was another message that the body was found. So much for my rushing.

As of now, two things I am glad about is that I am with my kid all thet time and that I get to eat my lunch on time. Out there in the villages it was something I was not sure of getting much less having it on time. Even though I hardly eat two morsels out of my tiny lunch box I am glad I have it right on time. Yes, I am also happy I get to have Irani chai whenever I feel like it. There is nothing like downing a cup of Irani chai straight from the saucer to make you feel like a Hyderabadi.