An Indecisive Indian

Four years ago, the Indian Railways Management Service (IRMS) was launched with great fanfare, its mission as lofty as a mountain peak: to unite eight warring railway services into one harmonious entity and finally exorcise the ghost of departmentalism. Alas, the noble vision soon developed cracks so wide you could drive a Vande Bharat train through them. After a circus of flip-flops that would make acrobats weep with envy, the government hit the reset button and announced a return to the good old recruitment system through the Civil Services Examination (CSE) and Engineering Services Examination (ESE)—an old habit dressed up as a shiny new plan. To rub salt into the wound, the buzzword ‘IRMS’—already a term that managed to mean everything and nothing at once—was not discarded but cynically retained, as if to convince everyone that this was not a retreat, but rather a strategic tweak. Officers will now flaunt their departments, thinly disguised as sub-cadres, with labels like IRMS (Tra...

Ah, here I stand, the valiant recipient of the never-ending WhatsApp parade, bearing the  relentless onslaught of festive fervor. One would think that each digital greeting might warm the cockles of one's heart , but alas, it only heaps bricks upon an already inundated soul. In the words of Antony in the bard’s Julius Caesar, “...Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war!...” —only here, the dogs are pixelated gods, goddesses, one holy figure after another, and of course, candles and lamps, storming forth in hundreds with gilded frames and music that reverberates from a realm Mozart himself dared not tread.   Must I truly prime you to sympathize with my hapless plight? Perhaps so. Recall, if you will, my earlier outpourings on this very theme—the chronicles of my bewilderment as I braved the relentless onslaught of well-meaning wishes, reproduced at the end for those interested to gauge my cup of woe. But lo, these humble laments seem as whispers to the wind, for they have...