Shakespeare and Ghālib talk, encore on railway administration

 

This is a follow-up on the changes sweeping in the way Indian Railways (IR) is administered, which was covered in this blog.

 

An Indecisive Indian: Talk show with Shakespeare and Ghālib on railway administration

Access at: https://anindecisiveindian.blogspot.com/2022/10/talk-show-with-shakespeare-and-ghalib.html

 

The news is now about IR deciding that non-performers and corrupt officials would not be tolerated in railway jobs anymore; in the past year or so, IR have reportedly fired such non-performing and corrupt officers at the rate of one in three days.

 

https://www.timesnownews.com/jobs/railway-jobs-has-no-place-for-non-performers-indian-railways-removed-177-officials-in-past-year-article-95730192

 

It was declared by the ministry proudly that 139 officers were forced to take Voluntary Retirement and 38 officers removed from service in last one year or so. It was, however, also reported that not all amongst these 139 officials were sacked; some of them put in their papers after being denied a promotion or on health grounds. Has the number of officers exiting the service also become a performance parameter of such significance that even this data is sought to be fudged and misrepresented? 

I recently tweeted saying that,  ‘In the season of restructuring and IRMS, I marshal my thoughts so I do not end up eating crow”. As a quintessential railway babu, I could not connect with the media blitz on the issue and got somewhat unscrewed. My taste buds do not tingle at all by eating my own words, or any variety of crow for that matter, even as I continued to be mystified till I happened to overhear this sagacious conversation between my great-uncle Shakespeare and the youngest uncle Ghālib. So, I am passing on this wisdom, reproducing verbatim whatever emanated from their exalted traps:

 

Ghālib: Pink Slip ab railway men bhī chālu (Railways have also started to hand over Pink Slips)! Gulābi Parchī.

 

Nikalnā ḳhuld se aadam kā sunte aa.e haiñ lekin

bahut be-ābrū ho kar tire kūche se ham nikle

(ḳhuld: paradise, eternity, aadam: Adam, be-ābrū: disgraced, kūche: lane. Bārad bhai angrez (brother English bard), it means that although I have been familiar with the disgraceful exit of Adam from the Garden of Eden but here I am, thrown out of your street with greater humiliation.  For your firangi (European) intellect, just catch the humorous sense here, comparing Adam's shame at being bunged out of the garden of Eden with a more meritorious, and even idolized, exit of the lover getting thrown out of the beloved’s alley.

 

Shakespeare: Good Gaulib, you may sympathize with those who have been so ejected but like Polonius who says, aside, in Hamlet, "Though this be madness, yet there is method in't". Have you read Twelfth Night? No? I thought so. If you had, I would simply ask you to hypercorrect the stupid lines spoken by Malvolio as he reads from a letter written by Maria, "Be not afraid of deadbeat shirkers. Some are born shirkers, some achieve shirker-hood, and some have shirker-hood thrust upon 'em."

 

Ghālib: Miyaa.n (Mr.) Sheikhpeare, I mean ShaKHs-e-Peer (Old man), Taubaa (Be repentant). These loser railway officers are a bunch of nadaan ahmaqs (foolish ignoramuses), more to be pitied than censured. Did they not join Indian Railways as their coveted retreat of non-performance, a sanctuary which would be agnostic to any attainment? They are right in wondering as to why their sheer ineptitude and their laboured rise to their pinnacle 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?)

 

When were they ever told that they must perform or perish? You first let them wither away to blissful indolence and then come hard on their assiduously-nurtured mediocrity with a vengeance! Not fair.

 

Naukari ne rail ki inko nikammā kar diyā

varna ye bhī aadmai the kuchh kaam ke

(Naukari: service, nikammā: worthless, good for nothing. This sordid railway service has made them worthless, otherwise, they too were once men of substance.)

 

Shakespeare: Once again, my simpleton dervish-like desi (a person of South Asian birth) friend, you fail to grasp the nub. Hark back to those timeless lines of Jaques in As You Like It, which I rework a bit, “Indian Railways today is a stage, And all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, And only some men, the king and his admirals play the main part.” Like the King in Henry IV “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.”, and so, to get rid of all uneasiness, they must turn violent to banish the clowns and to save their crowns; they must wield their swords to seal their authority. Has Friar Lawrence not proclaimed, In Romeo and Juliet,  ‘These volent delights have violent ends’.

 

Having long since become sceptical about the capabilities of its minor satraps, all the king’s men have decided to flex their muscles but only to flog dead horses and whip the whipping boys. One contrast here, though. My plays, comedy or tragedy, end in the pathetic key with an admixture of compassion, agitation, frantic action and the passions with which they are commixed, leading to the calm of a supreme exaltation. What you see on IR today is burlesque masquerading as machismo.

 

Ghālib: Billy urf Bārad qibla (Billie the bard sir), what you overlook is that some of these johnnies wanted to quit on their own. Why bracket them with the dishonest and the incompetent who were forced to exit?

 

Shakespeare: Shed no tears, my poet pal. Have you not heard of collateral damage? These un-worthies have no fight in them. Unlike Romeo in Romeo and Juliet who was distraught at being banished and preferred death, they are mere damp squibs, seeming to whimper, “Ha, banishment! So merciful, not dismissal. For dismissal hath more terror in his look, Much more than exile. Say banishment again.”

 

Ghālib: Poor souls! They lament:

 

Nā-karda gunāhoñ pe bhī miltī hai yahāñ laat

Sunte the faqat karda gunāhoñ kī sazā hai

(Nā-karda: not done, gunāhoñ: crime, fault, laat: kick, faqat: merely, sazā: punishment. I am getting kicked for the sins I did not commit whereas I had heard that one would be punished merely for the sins one committed).

 

I too bemoan with other non-performing railway men who cry out in sympathy and empathy:

Ham-pesha o ham-mashrab o hamrāz hai merā

In sab ko burā kyuuñ kaho achchhā mire aage

(Ham-pesha: of the same profession, ham-mashrab: of same disposition, hamrāz: confidant, co-conspirator. The sacked railway man is of the same profession, of same disposition, a co-conspirator, all of them should be called out as good, not bad)

 

Shakespeare: Amen! Unlike Ophelia in Hamlet, “They know what they are, but know not what may be made of them”.

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