'Honourable Mr Speaker, sir, with your permission . . . this truly is a season for celebration. Centenaries, anniversaries, birthdays-may I remind the chair at this juncture that mine falls on January 14? Not that far away, particularly when compared to my centenary . . . this doc.u.ment in my hand is an advance copy of a pamphlet that is to be circulated for publication in the major regional newspapers and journals in my dear const.i.tuency of Madna. It purports to be the Official Programme of Action for the Fourth of November, the Official Birthday-like many of us in this House, she too has two, one official and another, usually preceding the official by a few years, actual, birthday-of the Mother G.o.ddess of the Future. I skip over the other hysterical appellations bestowed on Madam Aflatoon-particularly since my colleagues in the Treasury benches wouldve coined some of them and do certainly use all of them in their daily morning prayers-and come to what precisely is going to happen on that glorious day.

'One: The Regional Forest and Transport Minister has announced that the Forest Department will dig fifty J-shaped tanks in various forest lands for wild animals to quench their thirst at. If the tanks by any chance prove to be death traps for some of the larger animals-elephants, for example, his Department, the Minister elaborated, will request the Department of Environment to arrange for fifty mobile veterinary units to visit the tank sites every day.

'Two: The Minister for Urban Transport has proclaimed that fifty women-presumably J-shaped-will be licensed to operate motorcycles as taxis in the regional capital. Men can ride pillion, he stated, on payment of a fixed fare. Any eveteasing will be most severely frowned upon . . . Three: The high-yielding tamarind trees that the Sapling Research Inst.i.tute has developed and that produce over two thousand kilogrammes of tamarind per acre, the Agriculture Minister declared, will be rechristened Jayatirind and planted in fifty acres of land in different districts in the region.

'Honourable Mr Speaker, sir, Four: Each of seven unnamed Ministers has promised to publicly eat fifty clay pots filled with mud. One of them, incidentally-the Ministers, that is-has been found to be HIV positive. It is not yet known whether their act of penance on a day of universal festivity will please Madam Aflatoon-or indeed whether it is a true expression of contrition and not simply an irresistible addiction to mud. The official version states that they are sorry-and want to show it-for having earlier celebrated the actual birthday of the Protective Angel by rolling down all the six kilometres of Cathedral Road, right up to the Gokul Nath Temple, where theyd had their ears pierced and had prayed for the speedy entry into active politics of the Birthday Girl.

'Five: Ms Kathipalari, a chairperson of a Regional State Corporation, has promised that she will lead a-and I quote-"bevy of naked virgins decently covered with neem leaves"-to the Har Har Mahadeo Temple at the crack of dawn of the fourth of November to invoke the heavens into-and I quote again-"making Madam the permanent Prime Minister of the Welfare State" . . . May we take the last to mean that the palace intrigue amongst the Aflatoons is at last official? . . . Six:-aaaargh! He had stopped then, using as a pretext the second paperweight thatd struck his shoulder. Clutching it, groaning softly, he had collapsed onto a bench, happy with his performance, quite certain that it would have equally pleased the lobbyists behind it.

Agastya of course wanted coffee and Dr Kapila nothing; while they waited for it, he asked Agastya whether he and Sunita had met recently. Just checking out the police report.

'No, I dont travel that often. Besides, the Gujarati venture capitalist and all that. Im of course flattered that Sunita remembers me and has told you that she wouldnt mind meeting me again, but I wouldnt raise my hopes, sir, if I were you. She probably means that itd be nice to chat over a drink.

'You drink far too much, if I may say so.

'Yes, sir. Dyou think that it-the booze, I mean-reflects the quality of my life, its quiet desperation, so to speak?

He hadnt ever regularly drunk in office hours before. He had picked up the habit from Kalra and Footstench who boozed in their office rooms because otherwise dealing with Dr Bhatnagar would have cracked them up. Agastya discovered that they were right; when drunk or stoned, looking and listening to Doctor Saab and his family actually became quite fun. When sober, however, hed feel depressed at the thought that Dr Bhatnagar, simply by being who he was, qua Dr Bhatnagar, had ruined and continued to ruin the health of all his office staff. Agastya had even wanted at times to write anonymously to the National Human Rights Commission.

Kalra kept the best booze behind his chair, locked in the official G.o.drej steel almirah along with the fancy photocopier paper, the extra packets of felt pens, tiny emergency polythene bags of breath-freshening cardamoms and cloves, and spare copies of Dr Bhatnagars electronically-typed curriculum vitae. Agastya had christened the G.o.drej almirah the office Efficiency Bar. He had also helped Dr Bhatnagars cv reach its present form.

'Agastya, in the past few months, youve begun to know me as a man of many interests, not the typical stuffy bureaucrat at all. Tell me, for my bio, under Hobbies/Recreation/Interests, how would you do justice to my-Ill be frank-myriad-faceted mind? . . . no, no, not immediately . . . here, take a copy of the bio away, reflect on it at home and give me a feedback by Thursday afternoon. Cant be rushed, you know.

Agastyad finally come up with: Reading, Writing, Golf, Walking, intelligent, stimulating Conversation, followed by long periods of reflective Silence. After Reading, Writing, hed had an urge to add Arithmetic, but had sternly controlled himself. Impressed but reluctant to show it, Sherni Auntie had okayed it the same evening.

In the career of the mandarin of the Welfare State, the Efficiency Bar bobbed up at some stage or the other. It had to be negotiated if he wanted an increment in his salary, a promotion-to get on, in short, To decide the matter, Administration usually checked, among other things, his annual confidential reports of the last five years. If the verdictd been Good or above in all five, the mandarind cross the bar.

So far so good, except that in the language of confidential reports, Good meant Ordinary/Average/No Great Shakes/Nothing to Write Home About/Hardly Efficient/Barely Pa.s.sable. There were usually five categories in which bureaucrats could place their subordinates, namely, in ascending order: Bad, Average, Good, Very Good and Outstanding. After fifteen years of written debate and counter-comment, Personnel, wishing to be positive, had changed Bad to Poor and Very Good to Excellent. Only the brave and demoniacally industrious civil servant, the sort who waded through files even on Sunday afternoons and didnt notice that his children snapped at him-only he ever used the categories Poor and Average to rate a subordinate, because when he did, Personnel freaked out and, having at last some work in hand, increased fourfold the sods paperwork. It deluged him with demi-official letters and printed annexures labelled Secret. Had he intended his grading to be retributive or corrective? Did he have any objection to the a.s.sessee being informed of his superiors estimate of him? Could it be presumed that for the a.s.sessee to be rated so, there must have been, in the course of the year, many occasions when he must have failed to deliver? On those occasions, had the demoniacally industrious superior officially informed his subordinate of his disappointment with him? Had the superior kept an official record, minutes of some kind, of all these occasions? If not, had he, the superior, any doc.u.ment or written proof of the year that his a.s.sessment was neither caprice nor malice? Personnel had to keep the welfare of its a.s.sessed personnel in mind, hadnt it?

To avoid being trapped into an eternal correspondence with Personnel, most civil servants therefore used the standard, unwritten, euphemistic code in writing the confidential reports of their subordinates, by which the slippery performer was judged to be Good and the disastrous Average. Everybody who spoke the language knew the code, of course, so that when names were being circulated for certain posts, one could insist on-if one wanted to, that is to say, depending on whom one wanted to pick-candidates with five Outstandings or above in the last five years. The grade above Outstanding did exist to fit into the language of the code those who were, simply, outstanding but who obviously couldnt be described so because-it may be recalled-in the language of the code, Outstanding simply meant Good. How best to describe the truly outstanding civil servant was left to the creative abilities of the Reporting Officer who, to make matters clear, usually began with: The a.s.sessee is more than outstanding, and then let himself soar, She is as stainless as steel . . . a veritable lion of the jungle . . . Yours Truly found her more utterly reliable than the Undersigned . . .

The code also operated to sniff out the odours of corruption. In the confidential report, one couldnt of course record: The a.s.sessee-b.u.g.g.e.rs been raking it in for years, so whats new? because then Personnel would make one regret it-at least till ones first crippling heart attack; instead, for the madly venal, like Chanakya Lala for example, those whose improbity had achieved the status of myth, so that one could construct proverbs and maxims around them-in the reports of civil servants like those, in the column marked Integrity (Use a Separate Sheet if Necessary), one was advised to write: Nothing Adverse on Record, which, for those who knew the language, meant, Boy-o-Boy! For all those bureaucrats about whose honesty one just wasnt sure, one wrote: Above Reproach as per all reports. Tradition hadnt bothered to dream up phrases for any other category.

Since the code was unwritten, it could at a pinch be ignored as though it didnt exist, which it didnt, officially speaking, being unwritten. Thus in the ease of Dr Bhatnagar, for example, his lobby would interpret his five Goods in a row to mean, clearly, that here was a candidate who was rock steady, persevering, not flashy, salt of the earth, absolutely. When valued along with his sound grasp of management techniques and his multidimensional range of Hobbies/ Recreation/Interests, his lavish dinners and his generosity with his office organization, staff and services with anyone who mattered-when thus viewed as part of a larger a.r.s.ehole, his confidential reports made Dr Bhatnagar a sure winner, a pole vaulter above any efficiency bar.

Like other characters of his type, he pounced like a gecko on a moth on any office case that Madam Tina had successfully brought to a close and that was therefore ripe and ready to redound to his credit. She reported directly to him four to five times a week, alone, behind closed doors, in sessions of half an hour each. Agastya didnt think that he pawed her. Kalra confirmed his opinion. 'Too scared, with Sherni just a hotline call away. Cant get it up but he leaks into his pants when he sees Tina and thats enough excitement for the day.

Dr Bhatnagar liked to listen to good news from Madam Tina, the success stories that could be transformed into a set of coruscating faxes. He left the c.r.a.p and the bad news for Agastya, naturally, he himself being so senior and all that. Thus, to him she would report, for example, that the Regional Industries Secretarys Laminated Security Pa.s.s for All Central Ministries had been signed just that afternoon and had been collected by her within minutes of its being issued, and that the Foreign Exchange Clearance for the Regional Tourism Ministers trip to the Reunion Islands had been sent by the Ministry of Finance to External Affairs that very morning and that yes, she had procured a photocopy of that confidential letter. For Dr Bhatnagars office, the most valuable news, naturally, concerned not the doings of the regional government in general but the personal fortunes of its more important individuals.

From the very first day, the office had made it clear to Agastya that Madam Tina was a wh.o.r.e. 'You should be informed, sir, Kalra had firmly announced the moment the door had shut behind her, 'that shes a P-R-O.

'Ah, I see, like our colleague with the foot stench, the same Department-though his toejam, I imagine, couldnt be doing very much for our image.

'No sir, hes our PRO, our Public Relations Officer, but Madam Tina is our prost.i.tute. We have only one. Its a small office.

'Whats her payscale?

'That of a Senior Office Superintendent. Shes received two out-of-turn promotions in the last three years. The rest of the office hates her. Youll receive many phone calls for her at your number. As Deputy, you should put a stop to it. A question of the dignity of office.

Sure enough, that first afternoon, Agastya had received a phone call for Tina, except that the caller had called her Mona. A harsh and very h.o.r.n.y male voice, as though he had his erect c.o.c.k in his other hand.

'Im deeply sorry to have to tell you, Agastya, welcoming a familiar feeling, had intoned, 'that Madam Mona left us this morning . . . no no, for her heavenly abode . . . a sudden heart attack in the room of a Member of the Regional a.s.sembly. Shed gone there for some urgent dictation . . . Im her ex-boss speaking. Weve just returned from the cremation . . . the office is closed for the rest of the day as a mark of respect . . . yes, so sorry . . . as a keepsake, would you like a speck or two of her ashes? . . .

Innocent that he was, hed never actually met a prost.i.tute in flesh and blood before. Of course, he wasnt quite sure about Madam Tina, and the two or three times that they met per week, he certainly didnt expect her to show him some cleavage or let her hair down with a sigh or rub her b.u.m against him or something; in fact, he didnt much mind when she cancelled their meetings because of 'urgent work that she had to chase up. For one, the files that she brought to discuss with him concerned the headaches stuck in Defence or Industries or the Cabinet Secretariat, certainly not the problems towards solving which he could contribute anything significant. For another, she was cute, well-mannered-she never failed to call him 'sir with every sentence-she smiled easily, making one want to say stupid things all the time just to see her teeth, she was anything but dumb-in fact, twelve times more efficient than everybody else in the office barring Kalra, and one afternoon, daydreaming behind his desk, Agastya had suddenly realized, while imagining Madam Tina in the nude, astride him, smiling above her shaved p.u.s.s.y and her small brown b.r.e.a.s.t.s and still calling him 'sir, that he was getting older and lonelier by the minute, and that maybe he should follow his fathers advice and marry before it was too late, because now he knew what too late could mean-a pa.s.s at a possible prost.i.tute, for example, made in the heat of the moment and the privacy of his room, would make things too late, wouldnt it, because slipping was so easy and welcoming, and once one had slid, it was too late to retrieve ones place-not because one couldnt but more because one simply wouldnt want to.

'Of course, one should marry in time, sir, theres a time for marriage, and a time for orgies, thus Agastya to Dr Kapila, to distract him from the intense scrutiny to which he was subjecting their lunch bill, 'to quote Ecclesiastes.

'This is most embarra.s.sing. Our lunch has turned out to be more expensive than Id expected-about a thousand rupees more, in fact. Its all that whisky that you drank, Im afraid. Ill have to borrow some money off you-that is, if you carry that kind of cash around. This is terrible.

'Yes, it is. It comes of hanging round, sir, all the time in high places. One loses touch with the gra.s.sroots. In your case, Id imagine that the problems compounded by the fact that you dont drink and that youre a vegetarian. Which is ironic, sir-come to think of it-that you continue to be a vegetarian even after youve lost touch with the gra.s.sroots.

'From your gibberish, I conclude that either you dont have the money or dont want to lend it to me. Well, say it straight out, man! Ive handled crises before! What about ideas? Dyou have any of those?

'Well, Ive my credit card.

Dr Kapila transferred some of his intense scrutiny to Agastya, who continued, 'Well, I mean, sir, dont you? I have one in lieu of a bank balance, if you know what I mean. Weve rented out part of our ground floor, you know, to the Regional Cooperative Bank-that scam dates from the era of the second Liaison Commissioner. The presence of the bank immediately makes Dr Bhatnagar a landlord and VIP in the eyes of its General Manager, whos a twenty-first-century cow-belt Brahmin-download, CD Rom, online and all that-and me a deputy landlord. How much Dr Bhatnagar hara.s.sed the GM, poor man, when he first called on Doctor Saab to offer him his credit card gratis-without the annual service charge, we being landlords and VIPs, you see. I havent used mine yet because they always swish off with it somewhere, dont they? That makes me insecure because the waiter leaves me with no receipt to prove that hes taken it. What if he returns, denies that he has it and presents me with the bill again? In our system of things in the Welfare State, one produces receipts and records for everything-to prove when your domestic cooking gas cylinder was last delivered at your doorstep and whom you telephoned on such-and-such date. To mistrust is much safer, more realistic and professional. It doesnt get you very far but all the paper that it generates makes you feel better, illusorily protected from the outrages of Fortune. Even when the records are faked and the receipts counterfeit, one still has a basis for writing letters and rushing off to court, for creating more doc.u.ments and dusty off-white files.

Outside the restaurant, while they waited for the chauffeur and car to discover them, Dr Kapila said, 'Its ridiculous that I invite you out to lunch and you pay. Ill write you out a cheque as soon as we return to the office. Or if you prefer, I can add the amount to your dowry. Thats why I kept the bill. You have thought of a dowry?

'Not the nitty-gritty, sir, not yet. But if youve decided to bequeath us your house, Id be inclined to say no, thank you, sir. Im not much of a suburbs person either. One always feels a long way from home.

'I should find out whether there are other contenders in the field for your fair hand. Mrs Bhatnagar reported to my wife quite emphatically that n.o.body so fars made any alarming moves. Just some postcards in your dak, I gather.

'Would you like to set up an Efficiency Bar for your prospective sons-in-law? Whoever drinks the largest number of gla.s.ses of fruit juice wins. Dals and vegetarian soups will be allowed but soft drink c.o.c.ktails frowned upon. Look, can you swing for me a transfer back to where the action is? Itll be so much easier then to wean Sunita away from the bosom of the Gujarati venture capitalist.

'Whatll happen then to the b.o.o.bZ programme here? Well, t.i.t for tat, let me see . . . but you havent answered my question about my compet.i.tion.

'It cant be compared, sir, rest a.s.sured, to the annual Public Service Commission exam to enrol wise men in the Steel Frame. In fact, theres only one old friend of my father, from his college days in Calcutta, whos been trying for the last several years for either one of his two grand-daughters.

'Well?

'As a first step, my father, the grand-daughters and I are waiting for him to die.

'Here it is. Thanks for the lunch. Can I drop you somewhere?

'Yes sir. Aflatoon Bhavan, if possible.

Where the Under Secretary for Demotic Drama has finished his tai-chi exercises and is sitting in the visitors chair before the desk, calm of mind, gazing at nothing. To his left and slightly behind him stands a suppliant, head bowed like those of the statuettes of the Magi in a creche. He is a Madna type whose face Agastya recognizes but whose name for the moment he cant recall.

Agastya to Dhrubo: 'Why arent you sitting behind your desk?

'For a variety of reasons . . . One: it gives me perspective. Two: from here-or elsewhere in the room-on the occasions when I do answer the phone, I can with perfect truth inform the enquirer that there isnt any response from the inc.u.mbents seat. Truth, you know, cannot be achieved by the weak. Three: Im not sure whether my seat isnt a piles-giver.

Dhrubo then turned to the suppliant and asked pleasantly, 'Is there anything that you wanted to ask me?

'Yes . . . I wanted to know why the funds that your Department used to give my organization, Vyatha, have suddenly dried up.

'Gand Mein! Vyatha, I see! . . . What are you there?

'Ive become the Number Two in the organization. You mustve received from me at least one letter a fortnight over the last two months. My name is A.C. Raichur.

'In the euphemisms of ones nonage, Number One was pee-pee and Number Two potty.

'Were still headed by Rajani Suroor.

'Rajani Suroor . . . He often used to grouse that everybody else in his organization had the capacity of a lazy cretin, that the only thing that all of you were any good at was cooking the books. I suppose I mustnt speak ill of the comatose. Frankly, I dont think Vyathall get any more money from us until Suroor wakes up. Theres n.o.body left here, you see, to push and chase your file. I could, I suppose, but I simply dont have the time.

'But howll I survive?

'Would you like some more tea? If you order it in your room, its more expensive and the service slower, but the teas better.

Dhrubo pressed a buzzer on his table. Save for a rack that held six rubber stamps, the table was scrupulously bare. A comradely silence, while he and Agastya gazed benignly at Raichur.

Dhrubo to Agastya, while continuing to look at Raichur, 'So how are things with you, friend?

'I am being plagued by my neighbour in the Transit Hostel, a Srinivas Chakki, to join him to foment a revolution.

'Ah yes. The plague. He once used to share this room with us.

Suddenly the door crashed open, as though itd been kicked, and a large, bilious-looking monkey squatted in the doorway, right arm extended to prop the door open, munching peanuts with the other.

'Hahn, Boss, three teas please, mine without milk and sugar. The monkey departed without a word.

'Acute staff shortage, I see, Dhrubo.

'Yes. A combination of b.o.o.bZ and the Ministers office, which has been gobbling up staff like the giant in Jack and the Bean Stalk.

'When I was last here, I couldnt help being struck by the large number of one-limbed, blind and deaf and dumb Cla.s.s IV staff.

'Or is it only the lumpen, the Depressed Castes and the backward cla.s.ses that lose their limbs and their faculties in accidents or at birth? How many one-armed, one-legged, Brahmin senior civil servants do you know? And are they any good? Do they-can they-deliver the goods? Does it matter if they cant? Because isnt it enough that the goal-of having a one-armed senior civil servant-has been achieved? Please dont ask me these questions. Reserve them for the Under Secretary of the Kansal Commission-a Brahmin incidentally, four-limbed but with thick bifocal spectacles, though they havent yet decided whether they should reserve any Welfare State posts for the myopic. They could, you know, logically. The more sat upon you are socially, the more likely you are to suffer from other disabilities-of education, health, poverty-and surely the State should try to help you to the extent that you are disadvantaged. But if you ask me, we should first pump in all weve got into creating aware minds in healthy bodies, and then give everybody a level playing field.

Giving up, Raichur meanwhile had dropped into a vacant seat and sighed explosively. His breath carried to Dhrubo, whose nose twitched. A faint grimace distorted his fine features. 'Garlic for breakfast and lunch, I see-and smell. Dragon-like, your breath, absolutely. Probably excellent for your blood pressure and your bowel movement, garlic, but it wont help either you to widen your circle of friends or Vyatha to prise some funds out of us. I shouldve told the monkey-had I known earlier, had you exhaled those noxious fumes at me in good time-to crush a dozen cardamoms into your tea. Hes resourceful and quite helpful when in the mood. He was bequeathed to me by my ex-peon, Shri Dharam Chand, who was a tremendous a.s.set, madly corrupt and madly competent-and had sedition brewing in his head all the time.

'For instance, in one of the General Staff Meetings last year, Dharam Chand startled everyone by wanting to know why Aflatoon Bhavan had separate loos for Women officers and Women Staff, and Men Officers and Men Staff, and why the Welfare State should officially discriminate amongst its citizens in the matter of their bodily functions. I, as Official Spokesman of the Officers Cadre, had pointed out that from the stink in the entire building, one couldnt really tell the difference between a conference hall and a canteen, leave alone an officers loo and a lumpen loo-and that the stink was part of the Official Strategy for Equality. Anyone whos visited our mens toilet on this floor wouldve seen that the number of the Physically Challenged amongst its users is rather high. That is Dharam Chands doing. Either we have Equality or we have Reservation. So he successfully led a campaign to reserve one lumpen loo only for the PCs. G.o.d knows where the non-PC lumpen staff goes for its ablutions-perhaps into the almirahs that line our corridors. Then, to an agitated Raichur, 'Was there anything else?

'Sir, I-my family and I-have become beneficiaries-creations of the Welfare State. We-Vyatha-signed an agreement with you to receive a certain sum of money every month. We submit every quarter to you a report of our activities and our accounts. Even though weve been headless for a while, we continue to flap our limbs about on schedule. Weve planned our activities for the next six months and sent you a copy for your final approval. We invite the Department-the concerned Under Secretary and above-to all our functions, theatre events, street happenings, protest shows and drama festivals. We also keep you informed of our weekly meetings. So I dont understand why the udders dried up. Do you disapprove of the programme? We can do a street play around the opinions of Mr Dharam Chand, if you wish. Were already working on one on the life and times of Rajani Suroor-itll be ready by the time he either wakes up or pa.s.ses over. Weve left the ending open.

'Whos your Chartered Accountant? I cant quite make out from the signatures in the accounts. Is it your mother or your wife?

'My mother. Ive time and again implored her to use her maiden name but shes both-if youll pardon me-stupid and obstinate.

Dhrubo relented only when Raichur began to weep, finally proving himself to be one of the worlds losers. 'Stop crying and snivelling, dont be silly . . . Dhrubo opened a drawer and handed Raichur from it a sheet or two of off- white paper. 'Here, blow your nose, wipe your tears. Ill see what I can do. Deputy Financial Advisor Mrs Tutrejas off to Ulan Bator early next month to coordinate an exhibition on Gotama and the Non-Violent Tradition. Thats when well slip the file through. As a last resort, Im afraid that I mightve to request you to arrange a fire in one of the rooms.

Patiently, Agastya waited for Raichur to stop blubbering in simulated grat.i.tude over Dhrubos hands (that he didnt release for close to a minute for fear that he wouldnt appear thankful enough). It never ceased to astonish Agastya that there was nothing in government that could not wait, nothing. Whenever somebody pressed for urgency, his hackles rose. Because then there was even more reason to wait. For the urgency was always to warp the rules to do somebody else a favour in return for a consideration or another favour. Be honest, Raichur, change the rules and the game, and redefine discretion to include dishonesty. Our consciences will then rest, our hearts wont go thump-thump each time we note the possibilities of the fast buck in each file, so fewer cardiac arrests, substantial economies in medical reimburs.e.m.e.nt. Oh how often had he wanted to quit! Except that every time that hed drafted a letter of resignation, a Pay Commission had been set up to hike his salary up by a millionth of a fraction. A raise, as Jesus said, is a raise. One cant, you know, leave ones mothers lap. The outside world is much less funny and far more wicked. Out there, all of them would trip head over heels over the lowest efficiency bar.

Firefighting on a War Footing.

To lessen the awesome amount of paperwork in the Welfare State, as a last resort, one government servant does sometimes request another to arrange a fire in one of the rooms of an office (not in his own, naturally, for that would be conduct unbecoming of him). A great many files are disposed of in this way. Numerous instances of this style of decision-making spring to mind-the Aflatoon Tower blaze of 1973, the Non-Aligned National Centre conflagration of 1977, the Senapati Place catastrophe of the same year, the Millennium Plaza disaster of 1983 and, of course, the Vesuvian eruption at the TFIN Complex that the Welfare State took twenty-one months to recover from.

The burning down of the last was special mainly in the magnitude of the calamity. For the rest, like its predecessors, it provided, while it lasted, terrific entertainment to hundreds of spectators and after it had charred itself out, goaded the government to review for the tenth time the existent firefighting measures in its buildings.

In the corridors of Aflatoon Bhavan, it will not be easily forgotten that to house some of their countrymen who had swarmed into the capital for the event, the organizers of the OYE OYE Happening had finally set up Camp One in the car park of TFIN Complex. Public Works had objected vehemently and recorded in a series of rapidfire confidential exchanges with the Department of Culture and Heritage that the entire happening was a grave security risk to the building.

There were thus some four hundred ringside witnesses to the conflagration. The chosen visitors whod never seen a washing machine before hadnt ever seen such fireworks either. They gawked, wide-eyed with wonder and joy, their fireside entertainment abandoned, as the vast electric circuitry of the building gushed, at one corner, a shower of red, blue and green sparks that lasted half a minute, hissed menacingly as the fire careened down its wires and explosively spat out fifty metres away a large gob, a burning ball, that shot up some feet into the evening sky before descending in slow motion to smoulder and trigger off other pyrotechnics. Quite a few of the spectators believed initially that the fireworks were part of the official programme, were more awed by their grandeur than by the sightseeing of the day, were impressed by the thoughtfulness of the organizers and mentally noted that while they were there, they should explore the possibilities of other junkets. A loud collective gasp was heard right across Camp One as, all of a sudden, the windows of the east wing of the ninth floor belched out, alarmingly like a dragon, a huge tongue-like banner of fire. One of the representatives of the district of Madna, none other than A.C. Raichur, who by one of the campfires had been providing a Vyatha play with the background noises of a typically crowded lane of a red-light area the morning after, and whod been distracted from the production of the sounds of women screeching at their kids by thoughts of Vyatha and how it could be milked-A.C. Raichur was distracted from his reveries by a deafening explosion from somewhere high up in the building that really sounded like one storey collapsing on to another, and that was accompanied by enormous, dense, noxious, infernally hot clouds of smoke and burning debris that whooshed out of the windows like the fallout of a revolution in h.e.l.l. It impressed him so much that it was only on the day after that the idea popped into his head to include in his repertoire of simulated noises the impressive sounds of the father of all fires eating up a state-of-the-art building.

The thrilled crowd milled about uncertainly, drawn to the spectacle by its grandeur and at the same time repelled, even frightened, by its fierceness. In the glow from the flames, the faces looked aroused, happy, smiling, like those of children in Disneyland. The visitors stole glances at one another, bonded by the shared excitement. Not one countenance expressed shock, horror or sorrow at the awesome destruction of a national treasure. Naturally; it wasnt theirs.

By the time the fire brigade and the police turned up to organize and spoil things, a group of musicians from the eastern region, fired, as it were, by the conflagration, had begun to thump out an irresistible foot-tapping rhythm on their drums, enthusing others in turn to clap their hands, shake a leg and chant along. Thus, for the visitors, the burning down of TFIN Complex became an enormous, memorable campfire experience, for which, at dinner the following evening at the Gaj.a.pati Aflatoon Sports Stadium, with giggles and nervous simpers, they profoundly thanked the Prime Minister.

'My G.o.d, exactly how primitive are we? Dont we have firefighting systems in our buildings? Alarms, that sort of thing? Or are they all-all those hundreds of them-meant to be ovens? Grill, Bake, Toast and Barbecue? Answer me, cmon, Im waiting.

'Youre asking the wrong person, sir. Even while conversing with the Prime Minister, the Public Works Secretary continued to be as suave as silk, all white coiffure and expensive aftershave. 'It may be recalled, sir, that despite the best efforts of my Department, Routine Maintenance of Welfare State Property has not been centralized with us. It remains the responsibility of the administrative or residing Ministry.

He was still smarting from his visit to TFIN Complex the evening before. Hed received a confused phone call about the fire from the Disaster Management Cell of Home Affairs at about eight p.m. andd decided to drive down to the site in his private Maruti car without waiting for an hour for the official white Amba.s.sador. Two kilometres away from the building, the copsd stopped him and forced him to turn around. Naturally, seeing his car, theyd refused to believe that he was who he was. Dazed and hurt, hed cruised around for a bit, gazing at the vast glow in the night sky that had looked as though the night lights at the sports stadium had suddenly turned orange, the crowds in the streets rushing towards the spectacle, and had distractedly wondered whether he could get some tea somewhere.

The ancient demand of his Department to maintain all the official property of the government was a routine empire- aggrandizing move to which Bhuvan Aflatoon acceded after the father of all firesd burnt itself out. In the first phase of its Revised Firefighting Measures Programme, Public Works proposed an additional budget of nineteen crore rupees. After an intense skirmish, Finance sanctioned one and a half.

On the buildings directly under its control, Public Works began the firefighting programme on a war footing. Their manoeuvres looked, sounded and felt like war too. At the Praj.a.pati Aflatoon Welfare State Public Servants Housing Complex Transit Hostel, for example-one of the first to be taken up-work on the alterations to the different wings of the six buildings began within four days of the Prime Ministerial order and actually went on, without pause, day and night, for weeks. The jokers in Public Works said that the Transit Hosteld been declared Top Priority because the mistress of the Departmental Secretary stayed there, and surprise inspections of work in progress enabled him to officially visit her once a day-over and above, that is, his regular lunch-hour a.s.signations. He was an indefatigable man. It is true that his mistress, a short-haired, short-tempered, widowed a.s.sistant (later Deputy) Financial Advisor, Mrs Minu Tutreja by name, stayed in Apartment C-308, but the real reasons for the choice of the Transit Hostel as one of the first ten properties to be dealt with were: 1) that it was large; lots of money could be shown as having been sunk into it and n.o.body would notice-this was a crucial factor because the end of the financial year loomed perilously close and they still had this monstrous budget left, and 2) that it was full of people, legitimate occupants even at night; it looked good that the government thought first of the welfare of inhabited buildings.

Fire extinguishers had always-since time immemorial, as it were-hung on the walls of the corridors, unnoticed, unchecked, nooks for geckos, a formal stipulation in some munic.i.p.al bye-law; they obviously werent meant to combat anything. The revised firefighting measures were altogether more ambitious. They proposed the construction, beside the veranda of every fourth flat, of a one-metre-wide wall that, from the ground floor, would stretch right up to the eighth. On the outer faces of these walls would be fixed three rows of water pipes that too-naturally-would reach up to the heavens. To these walls-and to all the strategic corners of the hostel-from the six gates of the complex, zig-zagging across the lawns, would be laid lanes of tarmac wide enough for the standard fire engine and for a total length of twelve kilometres. The new walls and pipes would of course be painted and appropriate signs put up.

Ferrying sand, gravel, drums of tar, bags of cement, bricks, pipes and stone chips, trucks roared into the Transit Hostel by day and night, at four in the afternoon and three in the morning, shattering the sleep even of the sozzled. With each arriving lorry, the entire population of some twelve hundred public servant families c.o.c.ked its ears to wait for the h.e.l.lish engine to calm down to an idle growl-it was never switched off-and the incessant babble from the everpresent labourers-the shouted questions, hails of greeting, the cries of annoyance and whoops of incomprehensible glee-to again become audible; then the clink, clang and clatter of the sides of the truck being unfastened, followed by the infernal din of drums of tar simply being pushed off the vehicle, or the steam-like hiss of sand streaming down. Even at three in the morning, some families could be spotted on their verandas, breathing deep the fog of dust that hung over the entire complex like a curse in a fairy tale, and dazedly watching the construction simply because they couldnt sleep-not only because of the noise, but also-as February slipped into April-the heat. There was hardly ever any electricity because the contractorsd tapped the mains for their construction work. Besides, the numerous fires thatd been lit all over the lawns to melt and mix the tar, sent up shimmering waves of heat that seemed to drift in through the doorways and open windows to settle on ones wet skin like a warm shawl. Were one philosophical, one would admit that watching the leisurely-but steady-rhythm of the workers was lulling, and that one could rest as in a daze, with eyes blinking and smarting, observing the road-rollers that trundled up, down and all over the lawns with the ponderousness of elephants, like childrens cars from some primitive giants amus.e.m.e.nt park; the bidi-smoking masons with towels wrapped around their heads, who materialized like magic outside ones sixth- floor bedroom window, stopping their regular slapping of cement on brick to ask-quite politely-the housewife on the veranda for a drink; the buckets of water being hauled up by precariously-knotted rope from the cement tank by the car park; the hammocks made out of old saris in which slept the infants of labourers whose drying drawers, vests, lungis and saris dotted the gardens like corpses after a skirmish.

Before the invasion, the lawns had been fairly green, with lush gra.s.s and tastefully-placed bushes of hibiscus and jasmine, ideal for burp-releasing after-dinner promenades. However, save for the occupants of C-401, Dr Srinivas Chakki and of A-214, Agastya Sen, no other inhabitant of the Transit Hostel seemed to really mind-or mind enough-the degradation. Karma, tolerance, maya and all that, no doubt. Some of the residents actually welcomed the change. The eight-to-fifteen age group, for example, obsessed with cricket, went mad with joy at the sight of all those walls coming up, each with three parallel, perpendicular, perfectly-centred pipes and an even asphalted surface leading up to it, to boot. Some of their parents too, tired of squabbling and scrambling for parking niches for their cars and two-wheelers, were overjoyed at the unexpected quadrupling of available tarmac surface. The support systems as well of the Transit Hostel-the vegetable and fruit vendors, for example, who for lack of s.p.a.ce had had to park their handcarts just outside and around the gates, narrowing the pa.s.sageway down to the width of one car, causing unimaginable-but permanent-chaos, resembling a fishmarket set up on a crowded railway platform, only noisier, with angry horns and yelled curses being exchanged like gunfire on the border-they too were happy with the largesse of the Welfare State. Thus, within a matter of a few months, when the walls and the pipes were up and the lanes for the fire engines all neatly laid out, one could glimpse, on a Sunday morning, fierce cricket matches crisscrossing one another, like life on a citys roads viewed from far up in the sky, being played out amongst cars, two-wheelers and handcarts parked all anyhow, sprawled out, as it were, like sunbathers on a s.p.a.cious beach.

Agastya was an illegal occupant of A-214. That is to say, the flatlet had been allotted to him three years ago during his tenure in the Ministry of Labour. When hed been transferred out to Navi Chipra, hed simply forgotten to surrender it to the Commissionerate of Estates. 'Surrender is the verb officially used to denote the rest.i.tution of government property to the Ministry of Urban Affairs. It is in keeping with the idiom of general hostility in use amongst different departments. No one anywhere had noticed Agastyas lapse. The records of the Estates office were at that time being computerized. The consequent chaos had helped cases like his considerably.

Even though he was aesthetically revolted by the renovations to the Transit Hostel, he, being an illegal occupant, felt at the same time a bit removed from all the turmoil of building construction. He was a bird of pa.s.sage; when things became insupportable, he could always take wing.

'But things became insupportable a long time ago, objected Dr Chakki to his att.i.tude outside the Mammary Dairy milk booth at six in the morning on a fine day in April. 'What is left of the body politic if its steel frame takes wing? We must fight the rot on a war footing. Prod the middle cla.s.ses awake.

'Im upper middle cla.s.s, I hope. What about us?

For them all, as a first step, Dr Chakki wished to spread the word. Firefighting too was best begun at home. Since he was on leave and dangling between two posts, Agastya helped in the drafting.

Anyone whos ever lived in this hostel, surely the ugliest building-pure Public Works-in one of the suburbs of h.e.l.l (complained Dr Chakki in the letter that he sent to the Minister and to a dozen newspapers, and a copy of which he endorsed with compliments to Mrs Minu Tutreja of C-308, with a humble request to push the plaint with all the clout at her command), will testify that on the good days, that is to say, three times a week in the monsoon, all the flats on the third floor and above get water in their bathroom taps from six to six-thirty in the morning and from six-thirty to six-forty-five in the evening and in their kitchen taps from five-thirty to six-fifteen in the morning and from four- thirty to five-fifteen in the evening. On the bad days, that is, for the rest of the year, the taps of those eight hundred-and-fifty-plus flats are as dry as the mammary glands, so to speak, of an old desiccated male of the species. Those less-fortunate residents have worked out a deal with the inhabitants of the first two floors; they haul buckets of water up in the mornings, when the pressure is strongest, by elevator when theyre in working condition, and up the stairs or by rope or knotted saris from their verandas when theyre not-which, naturally, is very often, this being h.e.l.l and electricity being as rare amongst us as statesmanship and honesty. Each bucket of water costs three rupees. It will interest you to know that w.e.f. January 1 next, the rate will be made more specific and scientific, i.e., three rupees for twenty litres of water or, if you prefer, fifteen paise per litre. Payment in kind is officially discouraged because it tends to cloud the clarity of the exchange.

Of course, youre well aware that in most offices and schools, when a latecomer is asked why he isnt on time, his perfectly genuine reason, that he stays on the third-floor-or-above of the Pashupati Aflatoon Transit Hostel and that he spent three hours that morning hauling water up by bucket, is not accepted. This fatheaded att.i.tude of government needs to be reviewed, or water provided to all of us, whichever is simpler.

Our Welfare a.s.sociation also wishes to propose that our elevators be converted to a manual pulley system that will function exactly like a well and for much the same purpose. I enclose with this letter rough but reliable sketches and diagrams of the minimal changes mooted in the two lifts in each residential block. Their weights-with and without buckets of water in them-have obviously been taken into account in our plans. The counterload suggested is our litter. We consider the proposal a rather fine example of Appropriate Technology, well adapted to need and availability. Gastero In, Garbage Out.

Blueprint C provides the overview of the plan. It was truly inspired architecture that originally placed the garbage chute of each building right beside the lifts, because now connecting the two will be a piece of cake. Of course, at the moment, the chutes arent very popular with the residents because they-the chutes-all choked up some five years ago-somewhere between the third and fourth floors in Wing B, thats for sure. A dead body, insist our oldest inhabitants, of a chowkidaar who was far too drunk to distinguish between an open elevator and the chute with its lid raised; of course, to be fair to the dead, one doesnt have to be intoxicated to be confronted with the problem. But hes there, maintains the pro-chowkidaar lobby, because the stink bears him out. Which isnt being fair-again-to the march of time, because-naturally-the chowkidaar hasnt prevented the stuffed polythene bags from landing on him, even though at the same time his stink has deterred some of my neighbours from getting close enough to the chute to open its lid to junk their rubbish. Thus, on each floor, the entire corridor area around the chute has become an awesomely-colourful garbage dump, each plastic sac-if you permit-like a faded, puckered, birthday-party balloon resting on the vegetable sc.r.a.ps and banana peels that have burst their skins of polythene and with time come to resemble the good earth. Aaaaaarrgghhhhhhh, gags the unsuspecting newcomer as he exits from the lift, that is to say: Where in heaven have I arrived? h.e.l.ls refuse dump? What this place needs is a b.l.o.o.d.y sweeping flood.