Life, Lilies and Surf

Chapter 16

"Men are always sincere.  They change sincerities , that is all.         Tristan Bernard

"I am not sincere even when I am saying I am not sincere.             Jules Bernard .

"One by one, like leaves from a tree,

All my faith has forsaken me.       Sara Teasdale,   Leaves.

Latha left Delhi with her baby with couple of suit cases containing her things. Bhaskar's boss had asked for a month's time to relieve him, as he was doing a project.  This was agreed to by the higher authorities much to the pleasure of Bhaskar.  He was inwardly happy that would be able to spend unfettered time with Geetha without inventing excuses.  He had to pack the household things to get them transported by goods train to reach Madras and leave Delhi after the project was completed.  He got the household furniture and kitchen things packed with the help of peons in the office.  In these offices, there were always attenders and peons who were good at it.  They have been doing the packing and loading things in the lorry or good train for officers who were transferred.  And there were always senior officers who were transferred frequently as per the delightful policy of the Department, which believed in cross country transfers.  After all, only officers of his service could be subjected to ping pong  movement as all others in cadres below him cannot be transferred even from one office to another in the same city.  These non transferable cadres are permanent fixtures of each office and they consider themselves as the Department itself.  They view the senior transferable service officers  as birds of passage that roost short time in their office, lay no eggs and perforce had to take wings to another far away perch.  They were correct in their assessment as transfers were very frequent in those times.  The top management of the Department  considered as its duty to resort to transferring the covenanted officers, more to accommodate some favoured ones and to ensure that there was no continuity of tenure.  The top person, the CAG or his deputy  who was empowered to transfer the service officers had ingrained fear that if the service officers were kept long in an office he would take roots there and become biased.  In principle it was correct but it was not uniformly applied for all .  It was in those days carried to ridiculous level that the service officers by their short tenure in a post really became birds of passage.  But now a days it has taken the swing in the opposite direction.  

The top level person appointed to head the Audit department  under the hand and seal of the President of India was there for a tenure of five or six years and it was mostly a post retirement bonanza.   He can rule the the department and lord over the transferable service officers with no questions asked by any one.  Being a person from administrative service that had always been irked by Audit, he could have no sympathy or appreciation of the role of the service officers and Department and the work that is done.  All along they had been subjected to irksome questioning by the legislative committees that used the Audit Reports of the Service officers.  When appointed to head the Audit department and overlord it, what else could be expected?  This has been the position last fifty years thanks to political bosses.  It has been cleverly ensured for the past 50 years by the central government and administrators from Administrative Service that no officer of the Department could preside over the Audit department that has been served by them for decades with technical capabilities.  It has now become a rule not to make the audit professional service officer as the head of the Department.   It is due to the present self perpetuating Administrative caste system not found even in Pakistan; and it is more rampant, pugnacious and permanent than the caste system of the Hindu society.   

    Bhaskar sent them by goods train to Madras to Latha's address, as she could find as she could find a house with in ten days of reaching Chennai.   Those days the measly allowance given for transporting the goods was never sufficient to cover the transport and the other expenditure involved in the transfer and transfer was always a punishment unless you get a better station.  The time allowed for finishing the project gave him full opportunity to spend his time with Geetha in her house without the need to invent excuses as he was doing when Latha was there.  But he knew that eventually he had to go to Madras as the project work would not keep him indefinitely in Delhi.  So the day came when he concluded the project and handed over the report and handed over charge in Delhi.