Reading between the files, ex-bureaucrat’s style

Raaja Bhasin

Decades ago, like thousands of others, I too appeared for the civil services exam. I cleared the main written exam (supposedly, the tough part) and flunked the interview (supposedly, the easy part). Some measure of being shown the door may be attributed to asking the interview board if ‘they wanted to know what I knew, or what I did not’. This would be taken as ‘insolence and insubordination in the making’, is what wiser friends and despairing family told me later. As far as I was concerned, it was just a simple question that required a simple answer. However, that sentence saved a lifetime of being the proverbial round peg in a square hole; the cost was of some years of cushioned comfort.

Many of my friends, who joined government or the uniformed services, have retired or are on the cusp of doing so. Some took to their professions like fish to water. Others are still dodging sharks – while a few, unhesitatingly, joined the hungry ranks of those gnashing seaborne terrors. Some of those that have retired, now anxiously wait to be recognised and acknowledged. A few, now out of bureaucratic confines, seem to have found their true calling.

Avay Shukla superannuated a few years ago as an Additional Chief Secretary in Himachal. As in the case of some others, to the best of my knowledge, he was not followed out by a phalanx of cloak-wearing and dagger-bearing former colleagues who wished to block provident fund, pension and other sundries. Of the things we had in common, was a love of reading, of nature and of its more than generous bequests to Himachal. His blog is something, I and several others, follow avidly. It has all the ingredients that a good blog should have — it informs, it is wonderfully written with a delightfully caustic pen and, it is ruthlessly honest. Of course, one may or may not agree with the writer’s take on the subject at hand.

Hits the stands

Shukla has just compiled a collection of short stories. After a few false starts, some news of the book’s arrival, and finally Spectre of Choor Dhar: Tales from the Mountains was here. His earlier book on trekking in the high Himalaya was already on the shelf. As far as reading this ‘Spectre’ was concerned, it protected me from some real-life ones and cocooned sanity for a few crucial hours in crowded Delhi. I was back in the hills. And I enjoyed every moment of it.

For those who have been familiar with the workings of the government where I have often been a bemused or shocked bystander listening to stories over a whisky, of which our protagonist, the ‘sutradhar’ of this book, Yadav, the retired Chief Secretary, would approve, they will find several incidents and somewhat recognisable characters that once walked the corridors of power. This collection of 10 stories is largely set around conversations held among former or serving government officials and the occasional businessman. They take place in a club where the adage, ‘fiction is sometimes truer than the truth’ comes to life. Do keep in mind that there was a time in the not so distant past, foibles in the backseat of an Ambassador car had their limitations. What with the driver with half an ear and one eye in the mirror tuned to the back; that he drew an allowance from the Intelligence Bureau was common knowledge.

Autobiographical touch

Each of the stories has a somewhat different theme, but all are connected with an aspect of Himachal and many of them, as Shukla says in his ‘Introduction’, have a touch of his own life-experience or are substantially autobiographical. In all, obviously culled from his decades in government, the hypocrisy of the powers that be and of the individuals sent out to carry out their orders is all too apparent. His great love for Himachal and its uncomplicated rural people flows out of each page. The descriptions are often factual — this is the trekker speaking — the height of the mountain and the length of the path. Then, this is softened by the legends and lore that surround these lofty heights.

To try and précis the stories will sound a loud spoiler-alert and these are best left to the reader. But this slim volume is something I will recommend to every person who cares about our state and certainly, to everyone who has a role in looking after it. But I do have a point to make — from what I recall, a certain gentleman preferred dark rum to single malt.

(The writer is an author,

historian and journalist)