Among My Own, and Proud: Recognition that Rings True

 

I recently wrote in this blog,

https://anindecisiveindian.blogspot.com/2025/09/awarded-rewarded-and-thoroughly.html

that there are many folks like me, sporting a few half-plucked feathers in our caps, who periodically get invited to be both honoured and humiliated at the same time. Honours for lesser mortals like me are like confetti, pretty, harmless, and soon swept away or worse still, like those glittery party-balloons that hover for a while, bobbing smugly above your head, and then, at the precise moment you try to look dignified, they slip, explode, and leave you with a face full of helium and the smell of fried samosas. My many experiences involved an invitation to be both bedizened and bemused, lauded and at once mortified in public, a ceremonial two-step I’ve come to call “the garlanded casualty” waltz, a dance I now perform with the grace of an arthritic ballerina and the resignation of a government file. I have, therefore, with time, become a trifle philosophical too and learnt that it was ‘much ado about nothing’, as warned by the Bard’s Lear, not to get trapped in receiving honours and awards, “O, that way madness lies. Let me shun that. No more of that”.

But not all this theatre is farce. It was with some trepidation — and after the usual local enquiries that citizens of my sceptical tribe perform with the delicacy of a customs raid — that I accepted an invitation from Mr. P.K. Jain, Director of Jain International Trading Organization (JITO), Lucknow, a community of Jain industrialists, businessmen, and professionals committed to shaping the future of the society, to be honoured, albeit with many others. That carnival turned out to be a graceful affair. No LED face-screams, no impostor photographs, no manufactured drama. Just a dignified ceremony where the hosts remembered that courtesy is a craft and not a checkbox. For once, honours did the thing they are supposed to: they acknowledged labour, not lubricate vanity. Thank God for small mercies—I was gratified.

Before I go further, let me bring in some words, Antony’s in Julius Caesar, “The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones”,  and Griffith’s in Henry VIII, “Men's evil manners live in brass; their virtues We write in water”.

Well, my great-uncle Shakespeare seems to have got it partially wrong as what happened to me next was a reversal of what the Bard would have people do. I am still not interred and something seemingly good was going to live in brass.

Mr. Akella Venkateshwar, a senior colleague from Railways, who had left Railways early to join the corporate world, and who is presently the President of All India Retired Railway Officers' Association (AIRROA), invited me to join their GBM on 18^th October at Secunderabad, to be honoured as a member of their Achievers’ Club. AIRROA was formed in 1985 to protect the interests of retired railway officers and has expanded its membership across India. Headquartered in Secunderabad, it has significant membership in the Secunderabad area, and it is no parochial jamboree; it has reach, memory, and the gravitas of people who have spent lives building things that keep the country moving.

It's not always that a railway organization, official or demi-official, decides to invite me; they tend to keep away as that’s what  political correctness demands. It has happened occasionally but on a lower scale here and there. This was much bigger. To be recognised there was bound to feel different, less about the dais and more about the company that would animate the honour.

So there I was, treated with great dignity and fondness and I spoke at length on how the work matters more than the bouquet, often derailed, like the inherent right of a true railwayman. I also related two donkey stories about the ephemeral nature of the chair, one about retirement and the other about futility of getting stuck in the trappings of particular postings. The first tale was about a humble donkey, entrusted with the sacred task of transporting idols of deities. As once he traversed through quaint villages, people would bow their heads in reverence and even worship, and the donkey fancied that the adoration was meant for him. He basked in the glory of this perceived respect. However, upon delivering the idols to their sacred destination, the owner set him off on the return journey, loaded with vegetables. This time, the donkey was met with indifference. The simple creature, unable to comprehend the lack of attention, and a bid to recapture the spotlight, began to bray loudly, only to incur the wrath of the villagers, who thrashed him in frustration. We are all such donkeys. (We railwaymen, too, occasionally bray when attention wanes, though mercifully, the villagers now use social media instead of sticks.) The reverence we had received was not meant for us, but for the burden of the chair that we occupied. Bereft of this burden, we should abandon this mindset and enjoy life with this new understanding, as there is a lot still to do in our remaining years.

The other donkey story. Well, readers, that one may ruffle some feathers so I reserve it for a one to one conversation, if and when we ever have it.

Permit me at this stage to recall these great words of Herbert Hoover, former POTUS, and, with apologies, replace “Engineering” with “Railways” and “Engineer” with “Railwayman”, mixed with some obvious license but I hope it jells.

“Railways is a great profession. There is the fascination of watching a figment of the imagination emerge through the aid of science to a plan on paper. Then it moves to realization in metal and energy. Then it brings jobs, elevates the standards of living and adds to the comforts of life. That is the railwayman’s high privilege. The great liability of the railwayman compared to men of other professions is that his works are out in the open where all can see them. He cannot bury his mistakes in the grave like the doctors. He cannot argue them into thin air or blame the judge like the lawyers. He cannot, like the politicians, screen his shortcomings by blaming his opponents and hope the people will forget. On the other hand, unlike the doctor his is not a life among the weak. Unlike the soldier, destruction is not his purpose. Unlike the lawyer, quarrels are not his daily bread.

If his works do not work, he is damned.  No doubt as years go by the people forget which railwayman did it, even if they ever knew. Or some politician puts his name on it. But the railwayman himself looks back at the unending stream of goodness which flows from his successes with satisfactions that few professions may know. And the verdict of his fellow professionals is all the accolade he wants.”

And the verdict of his fellow professionals is all the accolade he wants! A few candid confessions: yes, when Train-18 (Vande Bharat) became a matter of public conversation, I was asked, sometimes not kindly, whether the government had “rewarded” me. I would quip, truculently, that the reward came in a fabricated vigilance case that taught us patience and cost some team members’ careers bruises, temporary for some, permanent for others. That answer pleased some as their modest intellect would get a satisfying tang, dismissing the repartee as sour grapes. Today I prefer to say plainly: whatever the official record, the esteem of fellow professionals — those who have walked the ballast, argued over the plans, sweated for the deadline — is the real gift. AIRROA’s gesture was that gift, and for it I will remain ever grateful.

And if the Bard’s “O, that way madness lies” worries us, we should not let the theatre of honours turn us into actors in our own lives. Let us be the stagehands who built the set, content if the curtain falls with no one remembering our names, pleased that the play ran well. Thanks to those who remember the work, to the gracious hosts who do honours without, mercifully, the customary insult, and to the donkey who keeps us humble.

Remember, it is all about taking control of our hearts, without complaints, as this heart fellow would always crave for something or the other, as my young uncle Ghālib has told us:

Tañgi-e-dil kā gila kyā ye vo kāfir-dil hai

ki agar tañg na hotā to pareshāñ hotā

Thank you, AIRROA, for affording me this rare and genuine relief. My cup of joy, for once, is full.

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