Indian Societal Satire. Want to Gain Recognition?

Heard about daredevil Naveen Kumar?  Apparently, he got up one fine day and said to himself – ‘ah what the heck, let me spice up my life by cracking some walnuts’.  MY chosen way would be to crack open a bottle of Old Monk if my life needed spice, but then being open minded, I opened my mind and said to myself – ‘ah what the heck, each to his own’.  However, even if I, and I assume you for that matter, ever got into a walnut cracking mood, we would accomplish this simple task using nut crackers, or at the very least, a hammer or a sharp knife. But not daredevil Naveen. For some unfathomable reason, he decided to break said walnuts using his head! Yes, that’s right, he used his head to crack not three, not five, but 273 walnuts in under a minute!. A quick back-of-the-envelope calculation told me that that works out to 4.5 walnuts demolished PER SECOND. Now I will forgive you if you think I’m joking. But no, I’ve never been more serious. You can  read all about this, what should I say, concussion inducing feat, here

Now why would Naveen do that? I did some thinking and I’ve come to the conclusion that if ever there was somebody deserving of blame for daredevil Naveen’s behaviour, it is one Mr Maslow. I’ve been given to understand that our man Maslow was a genius in psychology and as per him, ‘Esteem’ ranks somewhere near the top in the hierarchy of human needs. What daredevil Naveen gathered from Maslow’s theory I guess, is that if one is craving recognition and respect, think walnuts.  Accordingly therefore, the methodology chosen by daredevil Naveen, viz cracking nuts using his nut, while inimitable, was only, in his mind, the natural thing to do.  Tenzing for example, did not suddenly jog off towards Mt Everest as a post dinner digestive. Ben Johnson did not decide to add to his already exceptional speed with some supplements during the Seoul Olympics, just on a whim. Columbus did not set off for ‘India’ because he had a fight with his wife.  They all, like our daredevil Naveen, did what they did, for yes, recognition.

Actually, we all love recognition. Seen any self-respecting babu (Indian speak for bureaucrat) sitting without the mandatory white towel on the back of his chair? Not because white represents peace, truth and purity as our naïve founding fathers perceived, but because it accords, strangely, recognition.  

Scientists/researchers seek recognition via peer reviews, athletes by showing their prowess on the sports field, actors by tickets sold, daredevil Naveen by cracking walnuts. But I guess the ultimate form of recognition for our babus is seeing one’s name emblazoned in public spaces. Now India is by any yardstick, a large country. But even a large country has only so many public spaces; roads, bridges, govt buildings, museums, etc. And babus must jostle for space with other far more numerous and far more powerful seekers of recognition, namely our ‘jan sewaks’, our ever so humble politicians. 

We are a nation of 1.4 billion people, blessed (un)fortunately with six national parties, 56 state parties and about 3000 unrecognised parties (whatever that means). Assuming for a second that every party has say, 100 members (BJP claimed in 2019 to have 180 million. It may well have 200 million members now) we have a LOT of jan sewaks seeking recognition. I am meandering a bit here, but in the last general elections about 550 million citizens cast their vote. Considering that about 30-35% vote share is adequate to win an election, it is little wonder that the BJP romped home winners.

Umm, where was I? Yes, babus. For the anonymous babu therefore, putting up one’s name anywhere needs some ingenuity as most of the real estate has already been taken up by our jan sewaks. Take my beautiful city of Hyderabad as an example. One may know that Hyderabad is home to the Excise Academy of the State of Telengana. (You will also recall that the Academy was recently in the news for garnering Rs 2600 crores for the government exchequer just by selling liquor licenses alone. Yes, 2600 crores without a single bottle sold!).  One day, the Director East (FAC) feeling perhaps that his hard work over the years needed to be recognized in some form, thought it would be nice if his name could be prominently displayed somewhere. And what could be more prominent than a spot near the main entrance of the Academy itself? His name etched there would be seen by all those thousands of unfortunate supplicants who ever have to step into his domain for some mysterious work or the other.

But his plan needed to overcome two small hiccups; cause firstly the Academy as such, wasn’t new. It had been in existence long enough to resemble most other government buildings in its outward appearance – caused no doubt by our general allergy towards repair and cleanliness. More confoundingly, it already had a foundation/inauguration stone in place. Replacing that with another would, he rightly surmised, reflect poor taste.

While lesser mortals like me would have been flummoxed at this boomerang thrown by life and remained ‘recognition less’ as a consequence, the Director remained cool as a polar bear’s nose. I guess the respective training academies that our babus go to, pay considerable emphasis on problem solving, lateral thinking, out of the box solutions, etc. All our Director had to do was give the matter some concentrated thought and out he came with this marvelous solution in seconds (please see image below).

Tell me if the headline isn’t arresting – “Inauguration of the signboard of the Excise Academy……”!!! I am particularly impressed to note that the good Director is a team man who did not want to corner all the glory for himself alone. He magnanimously added the names of the Joint Director, the Assistant Director and for good measure the Chief Drill Instructor too. I’m sure if the board had been larger, it would have figured the name of the signboard painter too……