Bureaucrats and Meetings

Always in a meeting
by Punam Khaira Sidhu

Call any bureaucrat on any given day, during office hours and chances are that the PA will tell you that the public servant is in a meeting. On one occasion, a friend recounts calling at hourly intervals to be given this stock reply every time. The business of government is evidently run through meetings and if the average babu is not attending one locally, he is off to Delhi. More business liaisons are forged in the Shatabadis connecting Delhi with State capitals than in offices. Political leaders, babus, all under one Shatabadi roof, break bread with businessmen, literatti and chateratti/causeratti, in the serene comfort of the Executive Class. Warmed croissants and paneer cutlets are downed over business plans and orange juice. Meanwhile, the all-important PA naturally informs the public that the ‘Sahib Bahadur’ has gone for yet another, yes you guessed it: ‘important meeting’! All this while, decisions affecting peoples’ lives and livelihood remain in animated suspension.

All-India heads of departments meetings are occasions for batch reunions and networking that can help plan great LTCs. Several days and many meetings are spent preparing for these meetings. It would be safe to say that if such a meeting were cancelled it would probably be more productive in terms of savings effected from the cancellation, than any item on the agenda. Savings would include expenses incurred on air fare and TA/DA claims, electricity, rentals for Vigyan Bhavan, mineral water, working lunches and the stationery: slip-pad + pen combo given away at these dos.

The latest set of meetings involved free travel, free board, lodging and local sightseeing, where the bureaucrats for a change, were placed higher in precedence to even the all powerful Ministers, i.e. as Election Observers. The results of the general elections were evidence that the observers played a vital role in ensuring that the elections were conducted both freely and fairly. But significantly, several airlines bottom-line should have received a healthy boost with EC’s “watchdogs” criss-crossing across the country to take observer meetings.

There is a Westminster joke that in meetings politicians take hours while bureaucrats take minutes. Hence back to home base, after the meetings, there are the “minutes” to record and circulate because, “He who keeps the minutes calls the shots”. Post meetings there are implementation and status reports to monitor, but only until the next ‘review’ meeting. It helps that bureaucrats work for an employer without a balance sheet. No other organisation has an inflating debit side without any corresponding addition to topline or bottomline: partly the reason why most States have yawning budgetary deficits.

Theodore Zeldin (1994) said that an opportunity is wasted every time a meeting has taken place and nothing has happened. But bureaucracy can make even business “best practices” come a cropper. That’s why, it is still believed that an opportunity is created everytime a meeting takes place!

Three Generations of women

Theme for a dream
Punam Khaira Sidhu

MY grandmother is 80. She lost my grandfather when she was 45 and has since raised and settled seven children, and 15 grandchildren. One might think that she has done her duty and deserves to live life on her own terms. But no; we expect so much of our elders. We expect them to devote their sunset years to helping us to achieve our goals, without ever asking if they too have a dream, pending fulfillment. My grandmother’s life is, selflessly, focussed around our lives. Her days are filled with prayers for our well being, she phones in to ask after all her children and grandchildren, and is always available to help us out of tight corners. Is she happy? I don’t know.

My mother is 60. After we, her three children, left home, she went through a severe case of the ‘empty nest syndrome’. She had been a housewife and kept a beautiful house and garden, and looked forward to my father’s retirement. My dad, thus far refuses to retire. He looks forward to going to work each morning with a bunch of vibrant young men and women. Of late, my mother has come to terms with her circumstances and her emotional needs. She is an active member of her several social clubs and kitties and often plays Mahjong from 9 to 5 with a set of ladies. The house, and garden, are efficiently run but not the focus of her life. She is working towards self-actualisation and tells us not to be judgemental of what she is doing. Dad was alarmed initially and told her that a woman’s place was at home and not as he put it in his Majhail slang, to wander like a guachi gaan (lost cow). Mom laughingly told him that she had always done what was expected of her and now it was time for her to do what she felt like. After all, isn’t that what he did?. Score one for my mom, the enlightened Indian woman awakening to her own aspirations. She deserves to have some fun. Is she happy? She’s getting there.

While observing the changing power equations in my paternal home, I saw the delightful movie Calendar Girls on a DVD loaned from the British Library. The movie, is based on the true story, of the residents of Kettlewell, a small village in the English County of Yorkshire. It tracks the efforts of the local WI (Women’s Institute) members to raise funds for a leukaemia charity by posing for an artistically nude calendar. The movie is heartwarming as it details how the endeavours of the women impact on their families and relationships. The women beautiful in their wrinkles and pearls and far from perfect bodies, find themselves unlikely celebrities. They are even invited to Hollywood, receive lucrative endorsements and collect over 578,000 pounds to fund a new wing of their local hospital and leukaemia research. Later they are back to WI’s boring routine and politics. But each one fulfilled with their fantastic achievement and the fun they had doing it.

After seeing the movie I recommended it to my mother who also works with a cancer charity. I also laughingly suggested that the volunteers could perhaps raise more money through something a little more adventurous than selling greeting cards. The dressing down I received still has my ears burning red.

Whether they recognise their own aspirations and follow them my grandmother and mother are my real ‘Calendar Girls’. My generation would not have tasted the fruits of education, careers and financial freedom without their steadfast support. One can only exhort them from my privileged position to go ahead and paint a picture or learn to sing or dance or even to swim or sky-dive or just go do what they want and have some fun doing it. Because in the end as the Yorkshireman who died of leukaemia and to whom Calendar girls is dedicated said, "Women are like flowers, every stage of their growth more beautiful than the last but the last phase always the most glorious, before very quickly they all go to seed...

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On the Wings of Family and Faith

On the wings of Family and Faith
by Punam Khaira Sidhu

It is not unusual to have rambunctious arguments in progress, in a home with one teenager and one 11-year old. Real acrimony is generated when I ask my young ones to assist me with some religious custom. My sons usually want an answer to what its nexus is with their everyday existence. They will usually retort, “Mom, Science tells us there is no God.” “Know why India cannot take her rightful place despite all the IITs and IIMs and riding the BPO wave? …..Because our socialisation drags us right back into the dark ages with puja and path.” “Where else will you find a society that worships machines (Vishkarma) rather than productivity? Having expended his teenaged angst, my son will usually do as he’s told but in weathering that little storm, I reinforce two important Indian values, family and faith in the almighty.

In time, the boys will appreciate that it is not the degrees or IQs of the doctors, engineers and the ubiquitous NRIs that has scripted many a “India Shining” global success story, but the EQ ie the Emotional Quotient of these Indians. EQ rooted in the time honoured Indian values of family and faith imparts the winning edge to all these players. Witness the Gujaratis, Marwaris and Banias’ legendary business families and the unique Indian business model: the family owned, professionally managed, corporation. Family and faith are the “It” Indian values.

Prayer binds the Indian Family. Much before the dramatic Tele-Mandirs glittering with icons or the ‘Tulsi worship’ in Balaji Telefilms sumptuously crafted ‘Saas’ serials there was, in most homes, a small mandir placed on a cupboard shelf or a tiny puja room. The family gathered in the morning and evening to pray. It was a ritual for some and a deeply felt expression of faith for others. But it was a practice that set the tone for the day. The family collected together, automatically reinforcing family ties. Arguments, tantrums just melted away as everybody joined in the recitation of the holy scriptures followed by “tilak” or “prasad”.

Even as the Left parties dwell on the absence of a security net for Indians, it would not be out of place to observe that life even below the Poverty Line in India is infinitely preferable to that in a country with superior development indicators. Employment, Roti, Kapda, Makaan, and capital for business, are all provided by the family. A family, where children have both parents, the sage influence of grandparents is a security blanket that no welfare state can provide.

Even as a new government takes over the reins, increasingly the average citizen is coming to terms with the realisation that if civil society is to flourish and we are to check the corruption associated with an all-pervasive State machinery, then every Indian has to rely on himself : Self-reliance rather than “Sarkar” is the secret to “India Shining”. And self-reliance is the temple built on faith and family.

Kool Kakajis from Hot Malwa

Kool Kakajis from Hot Malwa
by Punam Khaira Sidhu

LIKE the “Yuppies” and the “Puppies” the “Kakajis” are a very typical genre of the Malwa region of Punjab. You can spot them a mile off, tall, bearded and clad in snowwhite “Pathanis” paired with Nike or Adidas open-toed sandals. They sport bling-bling gold “Karas” and the very latest in toys for boys; iPods, Handhelds and Mobiles.

The colour of their turbans is usually indicative of their political affilitiation but that’s only until they don golf caps to tee off at the Golf Club.

Sartorial preferences apart, they have a very distinct lifestyle too. They are raised on vast farms in the Malwa heartland, in large joint families, by surrogate Mothers-cum-Nannies who, usually survive several generations and call both the Grandfather and the Grandson by the same euphemistic epithet: “Kakaji”.

Raised in large joint families, Kakajis are the quintessential boys who never grow up. Responsibility is dispersed; hence its not a sought after trait. Life is simple and easy as only inherited wealth and largesse can make it. Schooling is typically in the hill boardings, Sanawar and Doon being particular favourites.

It could be followed by the occasional degree in Commerce or Law, usually in the royal division. Education is not a priority, but a certain savoire faire and some old school ties and networking skills are desirable. After all, someone has to manage all those “killas” (acres) back in Bathinda, Faridkot, Muktasar et al.

Kakajis are usually into a lot of male bonding rituals such as “Shikar”, cockfights and “kabutar” (pigeon) flights etc. While they may not actually get down and dirty, they are responsible for introducing some of the most enlightened and modern agricultural practices in the country. They also display a natural flair for affairs of the State and that’s where the colour of their turbans and their old school-tie affiliations come in rather handy and make politics the next logical progression.

They typically have three homes, one back on the Farm, one in Chandigarh, where the wives take turns to attend to the children’s education or even just catch up with the city life and, of course, the mandatory summer cottage in the hills, to escape the vile Malwa “loo”.

Their cars now truly reflect both their preferences and bank balances. MUVs for the farm and the long dusty commutes from the Malwa heartland, and spiffier cars for city driving. They switch with facility between “thet” (colloquial) Malwai,Punjabi peppered with the choicest expletives to the Queen’s English, each language spoken with the perfect accent. But the same proficiency cannot necessarily be attributed to their written word in either language.

This is the season when the Kakajis flock to Chandigarh. You can see them in their signature “Whites” on the Sukhna Lake, in multiplexes, and in the clubs, accompanied by their little Kakajis who are back home for the

summer vacation and enroute to the Cottage in the hills or for the Sanawar/

Doon Founder’s Week. They are gentlemen of leisure who have travelled the world, but their food of choice is still “Kukkad”, whether its served up as butter chicken with “Nans” or on pizza a la Pizza Hut. So when you hear them call out to each other as “Baiji”, you’ll know it’s the Kakajis at work @ killa.network.

Army Brats Club

Army brats club
by Punam Khaira Sidhu

AS my sons grow older, moving home or schools is anathema to them. “Please mom !”, they plead, heart in their woebegone eyes, “.. can’t think of life without my friends,……” teachers, grandparents and a huge clan of buas and uncles who spoil them silly. I can almost see my husband, mentally, postponing a much debated career move.

We were different of course. We moved with the luggage, from Pune to Bhuj and Hyderabad to Darjeeling and every place that my father was transferred to. Hostels were never an option. Not when you knew that career choices would eventually take you away from the family. Hence the answer to the question, ‘Where have you done your schooling?” is usually in double digit, plural.

Transfers always came at inopportune times. They also coincided, sadly, with significant milestones in life. Events like school sports days, annual days, school captain elections, freshers’ reception and seniors farewell, convocations et al, so very significant in a child’s life, just passed us by.

After the final exams, when it was time to stand tall and claim laurels for academics and sports, it was also time to help mom pack and label the luggage. Just when one was due to win the school captain’s election unanimously, it was time to move on. Welcome to the Army Brats Club, ABC, stringing together kids, all across the length and breadth of the country, in sacrifices as poignant as those made by their soldier dads.

It’s never easy either moving on or moving in. Children have a strange way of bonding in groups. These groups form early on and breaking in is extremely difficult. It affects children in two ways: they either become complete extroverts or withdraw into lonely introverts, who shun friends and attachments finding solace in books or hobbies, which thankfully, can travel with them. Most kids learn to be tough, carrying on with the business of life, albeit with a lump in their throats. Slowly places and people cease to matter. As long as there is mom and dad, brother or sister and the warmth of well loved books and furniture, it becomes possible to call any place “Home”.

Life is tough but not all melancholy either. There are advantages: new places, fine cantonments, new cuisines and cultures, new languages to learn, excellent sports facilities, and the possibility of a new start every three years. Along the way, Army brats also pick up some sterling qualities. Coping with change and striving to keep up the grades, teaches adaptability, and concentration. Confidence and creativity comes with the varied perspectives of travel, and exposure to different cultures across the country. They develop without exception a desire to excel and a strong sense of self-esteem which is built as kids try and establish their identity, in each new school, starting out as the underdogs trying to make a dent in the status quo. You have to believe in yourself, or perish.

Malwa versus Majha

Malwa versus Majha
Punam Khaira Sidhu

IT was after the “Anand Karaj” at my wedding, when the Baratis and the Kudiwallahs break bread together and bonhomie prevails, that I heard my father say: “We Majhails did not marry our daughters to Malwais”. Not having lived in Punjab for the better part of my growing years, I did not then understand the connotations underlying that remark. Having been married to a Malwai for the last 12 years I now do, and what can I say except, “Vive la difference”.

The river Sutlej runs through Punjab. Historians refer to the region west of the river as the Trans-Sutlej, and that east of the river as the Cis-Sutlej. This division corresponds roughly to the Majha-Malwa divisions. Majha is the ‘Bari Doab’ area that lies between the Beas and the Ravi. The people living in Majha are referred to as the Majhails. The Malwais are the people who live in the area that lies between the Sutlej and the Jamuna. Majha is essentially the area encompassing Lahore, present day districts of Amritsar. Gurdaspur and Pathankot. Malwa lies spread over Ferozepur, Faridkot, Patiala and Ludhiana. The traditional divide manifests itself in linguistic, culinary, cultural, psychological and sociological differences.

The linguistic differences were what struck me first in my Malwai marital home. ‘Taqi’ is window in the Malwai Punjabi and Khirki in Majhail. “Mure” is in front of in Malwai, “agge” in Majhail, “sumbharna” is cleaning up in Malwai as against “safari” in Majhailese. “Bhalna” is “to search” in Malwai as against “labhna” in Majha. Linguistic differences apart, you know a Malwai when he asks for ‘Dudh-patti’ while a Majhaili asks for “cha” at teatime.

But the major difference is psychological. Malwais are shrewd strategists, practical and farsighted: their heads rule their hearts. The Majhail acts before he thinks. His heart rules and he is impulsive rather than practical, an idealist who can be passionate about his causes. Both Malwa and Majha have thrown up leaders who have left their mark on Punjab and a keen rivalry has marked their interactions. The royal families of Patiala, Nabha, Faridkot and Jind from Malwa while Jassa Singh Ahluwalia, Maha Singh Sukerchakiya and his son Maharaja Ranjit Singh, and his generals Hari Singh Nalwa, Desa Singh Majithia, Attar Singh Sandhawalia, and finally Sir Sunder Singh Majhithia from Majha fashioned the fabric of present-day Punjab, pre-partition.

Post-partition, think Majha and the images that loom large are Master Tara Singh, Pratap Singh Kairon, a political Science graduate from the University of Michigan, and Gurnam Singh, Gopichand Bhargav and Comrade Ram Krishan. Maharaja Yadavindra Singh, Gyan Singh Rarewala, Parkash Singh Badal, Harcharan Singh Brar and Giani Zail Singh are only some of the many Malwai statesmen. There are many whom the constraints of space do not permit me to name. But the luminaries I name best illustrate the Malwai versus the Majhail psyche comparison.

And finally encapsulating the traditional Malwa versus Majha rivalry, there’s a humorous tale about a Malwai Brigadier and a Majhail Honorary Captain. They met long after they had served together. The Malwai proudly informed the Majhail that he had three sons one of whom was a Major General, another an Air Vice-Marshal while the third was a Commodore in the Navy on the verge of promotion. The Malwai version has the Majhail reluctantly informing that he had three sons too. One recently out on bail, another doing time for alleged drug peddling, while a third was facing charges for 107/151 Cr PC for apprehension of breach of peace.

The Majhail version ends a little differently with the Majhail informing the Malwai that he too had three sons, one a Major General, the other an Air Vice-Marshal while the third was a Commodore in the Navy on the verge of promotion. “But I hope you know that I never married”!! .............. Long live the Majhails and the Malwais and long may they connive and compete.

The Sardarji in the Bulb and his Sardarni

The Sardarji in the Bulb and his Sardarni: a love story
Punam Khaira-Sidhu

IT was in the winter of 1994 that we first met Khushwant Singh and his Sardarni Kaval Malik. A party had been arranged in the Canal Guest House at Amritsar for the “Sardarji in the Bulb”. Due to escort him was the then Director General of Police, Mr Kanwarpal Singh Gill. These were the “ men who commanded huge TRP” much before Ekta Kapoor’s “soaps”. Both men had a larger than life image, a taste for fine scotch and a certain weakness for women. The women invited must have viewed the evening ahead with some trepidation. It was a full house. Everyone invited attended. The security accompanying the Director General of Police (DGP) was intense. The circuit house swarmed with gunmen. Those were the days of bulletproof cars, walkie-talkies and sub-machine-guns ; terrorism cast a long shadow.

When the chief guests arrived, KPS Gill did not disappoint. At 6½ feet, clad in formals, he was every inch the DGP in mufti. The famous visage, caricatured in the bulb, identified the nondescript Sardarji dressed in a rumpled Pathani suit, accompanying him as “the Khushwant Singh”. Also accompanying them was a lady, slim, well maintained, dressed in loose salwars. Her grey hair was worn simply but elegantly. She had that indefinable air of breeding and refinement, that clung to her like a fine toosh, sensed even when not felt. She had a calm unpretentious manner. When she spoke she looked you directly in the eye, listening more than talking. She enjoyed her glass of whisky. It was much later that we learnt that she was the lesser known “Kaval Malik, Khushwant Singh’s wife”.

As the evening progressed I remember thinking how little truth there was in media reports about Khushwant Singh. He was no womaniser or drunkard. He is in fact a scholar, widely read with a fine repertoire of anecdotes, jokes and urdu poetry. He enjoyed his drinks, he had two that evening and almost took a third, until his wife reminded him that he was over his limit. He politely declined it then. His manners were impeccable, even after he had downed his quota of drinks. He spoke to the women, but with a lively sense of curiosity. He was like a sponge soaking up nuggets of information, and his memory would have put a man half his age to shame.

He shared an easy air of companionship with his Sardarni. Their affection for each other had a tangible identity but there was also a clearly defined independence; each occupied separate space. This was a couple whose marriage had traversed the uneven terrain of life and matrimony and weathered the rocky spots.

Amritsariâs are a people with a taste for good food and good life. In the good old days, Lawrence Road did not sleep till way past midnight. But in 1994, bomb blasts and kidnappings were still fresh and there was a virtual curfew after 9 pm. A walk after dark was still not fashionable in those times. Khushwant Singh was, however, determined, security risks notwithstanding, to walk down the Lawrence Road like in the old times. It was a security disaster. My husband Karan Bir Singh Sidhu, then the Deputy Commissioner at Amritsar, and all the district and police officials walked on eggshells down Lawrence Road, with fingers and toes crossed. But I believe that Khushwant Singh and his Sardarni Kaval extended the curfew deadline that evening for Amritsar. It was the beginning of the end of terrorism.

We met with Mr Khushwant Singh and his family again when they visited Amritsar, on and off, to donate a substantial sum to the energetic Dr Inderjit Kaur’s Pingalwara foundation. We met again, last year, on his trip to Kasauli. He spoke with regret about his Sardarni’s affliction with Alzhiemers. He was deeply disturbed by what had become of his “beautiful tomboy”. She could not speak or remember much. “I am not comfortable leaving her alone or with a nurse, so I don’t travel much now”, said Mr Khushwant Singh. He spoke also about his son and daughter who set aside domestic priorities and willingly took turns to nurse their mother, when he travelled to meet his professional commitments.

When the news reports about the Sardarni having left behind her grieving family made it to the newspapers, they also carried a message from the Sardarji. He wanted to be allowed to grieve privately for his wife. While allowing Mr Khushwant Singh the time and space to grieve for his companion, this piece is dedicated to his Sardarni, whom he has described in his writings as his “gawky schoolmate at Modern School Barakhamba”. She blossomed into a beauty, whom the Sardarji fell in love with and wooed and won in a Quaker Hostel in Buckinghamshire.

His famous liaisons notwithstanding, Khushwant Singh was a man a little in awe of his fiercely independent wife. He relied on her to bring order into his life. She was ill for quite a while, and did not speak much after her affliction with Alzheimers. But theirs was clearly the classical case of true love “in sickness and in health... till death did them a part”, a companionship of 62 years. They were married in October, 1939.

I thank Mr Khushwant Singh for permitting me to share in print my memories of a brief encounter with him and his Sardarni Sahiba.