Talk show with Shakespeare and Ghālib on railway administration

 

Anchor: Welcome Mr. Shakespeare and Mr. Ghālib to this talk session on the ongoing exercise to provide Indian Railways (IR) with a unified management system which works for IR and not for departmental silos. You would have heard of the introduction of Indian Railways Management Service (IRMS), eliminating all the eight departments which were always at each other’s throat. As always, I am in awe in your august presence, I am really fortunate but also unequal to introduce your greatness. You are both acknowledged to have incisive insight into human psychology and therefore Human Resource Management. I humbly solicit you both to introduce yourselves!

 

Ghālib: So, do you expect me to repeat,

 

Hogā  koī  aisā   bhī   ki  Ghālib   ko  na   jaane

shā.ir to vo achchhā hai pa badnām bahut hai

(badnām: disreputable, ill-famed. Is there anyone, any unfortunate individual, who does not know Ghālib, that is, there is no such person who does not recognize Ghālib. He is a very good poet but, like most charismatic individuals, he is also egregiously infamous)

 

First of all, are you sure, Mr. Madārī (street-side magician or showman) that I am alive?

 

Huī muddat ki Ghālib mar gayā par yaad aatā hai

vo har ik baat par kahnā ki yuuñ hotā to kyā hotā

(har ik baat: on every topic, muddat: long time, period. It has been ages since Ghālib died but one still remembers his saying at every trice and instance as to what would it be, if it were this or that way.)

 

Be that as it may, since I have an opinion on har ik baat, here I am, dead or alive, speaking to you.

 

Anchor: And you, bard sire, let our listeners know who you are.

 

Shakespeare: Me too! Unlike this feller Gaulib, who does not know if he is alive or dead, I died more than 400 years ago but continue to live in the hearts of millions. I am Shakespeare, the evergreen playwright and poet, and this ducky dude Ben Jonson, wrote about me that I was “not of an age, but for all time”. If you were to see my plays in the Globe, it would cost you tuppenny for a seat,  in today's money Rs 1200/-. Or a poor crummy bozo like you could stand in the back for a penny, and here you are, asking me to tell these Indian viewers who I was. Seems you have not read Romeo and Juliet, the most poignant love story ever writtten, you benighted bonehead, or you would remember me saying, through Juliet, “..What’s in a name? That which we call a rose By any other word would smell as sweet. So Shakespeare would, were he not William called…”.  Go on, now, get on with it.

Ghālib: Don’t worry about this puffed-up angrez (Englishman), I was humble about myself when I said,  “Reḳhte ke tumhīñ ustād nahīñ ho Ghālib, kahte haiñ agle zamāne meñ koī Mīr bhī thā”. But look at his ghuroor (arrogance):

 

Angrezi ke kyā khāk ustād ho O ShaKHs-e-Peer

kahte haiñ agle zamāne meñ ek Chaucer bhī thā

(ustād: master, zamāne: age, time, ShaKHs-e-Peer: Old man. You are hardly the exponent of English, it is said that there was one Chaucer too in earlier times.)

 

Anchor: Honorable gentlemen, pl shun your rivalry, this is about IR and all its top posts, Members of the Board, General Managers (GMs) and Divisional Railway Managers (DRMs), being vacant or under temporary/extended/Look After tenures. Most of its organizations are like headless chicken, kingdoms without kings…

 

Shakespeare: Kings are immaterial in this world. I imparted this wisdom to King Henry in Henry V, who speaks when in disguise “I think the King is but a man, as I am. The violet smells to him as it doth to me. The element shows to him as it doth to me. All his senses have but human conditions. His ceremonies laid by in his nakedness he appears but a man.”. IR has become sceptical about the motives and capabilities of its kings, except of the supreme king, and decided that these worthies are inconsequential and irrelevant. What is the need of Members, GMs and DRMs?. “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.”, as the King in Henry IV, and so, to get rid of all uneasiness, get rid of the clowns, I mean crowns, let no shrimpy runt of IR, lining up with nothing but their pretentious seniority to show for, wear a crown and so…

 

Ghālib: Khāmosh (Quiet)! Converting this talk show to a tamāshā (grandstanding)! People say about me, “…magar un kā kahā ye aap samjheñ yā ḳhudā samjhe” (what this gentlemen says is understood by him alone or God) and even I know that “Mushkil hai zabas kalaam mera ai dil…” (O heart, my ghazals are very difficult ones to decipher) but this firangi (European) takes the cake. What he wants to say is that, na rahegā baans na bajegī bānsurī (if there were no bamboo, no flute would be played). I say,

 

Ishq ne Ghālib nikammā kar diyā

varna ham bhī aadmī the kaam ke

(nikammā: worthless, good for nothing. This sordid saga of my love has made me a worthless hobo, otherwise, I too was once a man of substance.)

 

That is me because of my passion and obsessions. But these IR bosses, when they become a Member, GM or DRM, are absolute nikammās, they are no more than impotent wimps. Why then have them at all? “Na khaūñgā aur na khāne dūñgā” (Neither would I eat nor would let others eat). Have you not heard this from the Vaziir-e-Aazam (Prime Minister)? These twerps are a step ahead; they are those who would “Na kareñge, na karne deñge” (Neither would they do anything nor would let others do). Dekho,

 

Nā-karda gunāhoñ kī bhī hasrat kī mile daad

yā rab agar in karda gunāhoñ kī sazā hai

(Nā-karda: not done, gunāhoñ: crime, fault, hasrat: unfulfilled desire, wistful longing, desire, wish. I desire that I should receive kudos for the sins I did not commit if, O Lord, if I am sure to be punished for the sins I did commit.)

 

Their motto is that since doing something has a risk of punishment, they should be kept rewarded for not doing anything at all.

 

Anchor: Are you poets telling me that IR is better off without filling up these posts?

 

Shakespeare: Bingo, for once this dervish-like desi has talked sense! In any case, suchlike, such toady officers, are given only to sycophancy, dispensing and receiving. Unlike Kent in King Lear, telling the king, “Think’st thou that duty shall have dread to speak when power to flattery bows? To plainness honor’s bound when majesty falls to folly.”, they would never intercede even when the supreme king makes illogical and rash decisions. Good riddance.

 

Anchor: (aside: Senile, are they not?)  But chachā, (uncle), looks like you support IRMS also and the new 360 degrees, Emotional Intelligence, juniors evaluating their seniors, dud committees evaluating what one did and what one would do, with zilch weightage of seniority and so on.

 

Ghālib: These inorganic senior railway bābus (clerical bureaucrats) are bereft of any passionate emotion, there is no fire in them. Assessing their Emotional Intelligence, Forsooth! Merī samajh ke bāhar hai (it is beyond my comprehension).

 

Be-ḳhudī be-sabab nahīñ Ghālib

kuchh to hai jis kī parda-dārī hai

(Be-ḳhudī: senselessness, being beside one's self, be-sabab: without reason, parda-dārī: secrecy, covering with a veil. This state of senselessness is not without a reason as there is something that is being hidden.)

 

Anchor: And sire, senior officers are being shown the door like billy-o. Too harsh?

 

Shakespeare: Too harsh? Not at all. The ministry must act against these duffers, and if the former claims credit for booting out even those who left on their own free will, so be it, no harm done. The idea is a little inverted from Angelo’s in Measure for Measure,   “We must (not) make a scarecrow of the law, setting it up to fear the birds of prey, and let it keep one shape till custom make it their (perch and not their) terror.”

 

Anchor: Well, so you do think that it has been established that IR can run without regular Members, GMs and DRMs, right?

 

Shakespeare: I must quote what I never said but people think I did, “Expectation is the root of all heartache” and these wasters expected something that would not be theirs in the present regime. What I did say, through Malvolio in Twelfth Night, “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon em.” No such greatness for these johnnies as the Powers That Be believe, like father Polonius to son Laertes in Hamlet, “Give every man thine ear, but few thine voice; Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment".

 

Ghālib: A word about these loser senior railway officers who should have made it, but did not, as a Member, GM or DRM. They are right in wondering as to why their sheer ineptitude and their coveted rise to their level of terminal incompetence is being held against them:

 

Ham kahāñ ke daanā the kis hunar meñ yaktā the

be-sabab huā Ghālib dushman āsmāñ apnā

(daanā: knowledgeable, yaktā: skillful. We are admittedly devoid of any wisdom or skill so why has the sky turned against us?)

 

Anchor: What a mistake coming to these poets, they are no more than bhakts (devotees) themselves, have to scoot, viewers, Zing! Pip Pip, back to the studio...

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