The No.2's Car

It is more than a month since I’ve become the No. 2 in my office. Though I’ve become used to some of the perks that come with that post there’s one thing I’m yet to get over. I still cannot believe that I’m being driven to and from the office in a big car. Since as far as I know I’ve been only riding bikes to office all through my career and never once did I imagined that one day I would be going by a car. Since I ride a bike it used to be a vague sort of dream to sit in the back seat of a car and read the papers like some of the people I watch while on the road. I used to wonder what it would take to reach that position but did not give it much thought. Now I am doing exactly the same.

Of all the perks of being No. 2 the only one I am enjoying immensely is the facility of being driven in the car. To someone who has to negotiate the traffic in Hyderabad on a bike in the hot sun it is nothing short of a miracle. Everyday morning the car waits for me before the gate while I leisurely get ready. It struck me in the first couple of days that I could do something productive in the twenty minutes it takes me to get to the Secretariat. I decided I would read since I haven’t been much reading of late. So I am carrying a book along in my bag. I am reading quite a few pages of the book but I guess I am reading the wrong book. It is a book that I feel one shouldn’t read in the air-conditioned comfort of a Honda City. I am reading P.Sainath’s ‘Everybody Loves a Good Drought’ during my daily journey in the car. If you’ve read the book you will know why I feel guilty.

I know I may not be No. 2 for long and am actually waiting to be back to being No.5 which is more comfortable but no less arduous as being the No.2. Being No. 2 is different as I found out the other day on a trip to Delhi. A couple of weeks ago my boss told me to attend a meeting at Delhi in his place. It made me more jittery than flattered to represent my boss at a meeting. The meeting was in one of the spacious halls of Vigyan Bhavan and I sat in the front row rigid with anxiety. All around me were senior officers from all over the country and we were being addressed by some very top shots of the Government of India. I couldn’t breathe freely until the meeting ended before lunch. I was glad I wasn’t asked how the situation was in the state. But it felt pretty good attending the meeting though I did not open my mouth to say anything. Except a handful none of the others too spoke. On the plane back home I wondered about my incredible luck-the car, the trips to Delhi by plane and of course, an allowance for being No.2. I couldn’t ask for more in this job.