Oh, the Pleasures of Sin!

Two rather funny incidents concerning government officials come to my mind and looking back at them I can't help smiling.
The first happened when I boarded the night train to my hometown when I usually board a reserved compartment forsaking the unreserved one which is smelly and unhygienic. Malayalees are a conscientious lot and they adhere to rules no matter how slight the risk of being in the wrong. So following the rule, be a Roman In Rome I usually ask the TTE for a reservation to Kottayam from Kochi trading my unreserved ticket for a reservation, though the distance is almost negligible and does not really warrant a reservation and usually the TTEs turn a blind eye to those who board the reserved compartment on this short trip. Most often it happens that the TTE asks me to first get into the train, but I never see him again!
This night the TTE was an old fatherly gentleman who had alcohol on his breath. I approached him and asked for a reservation.
Come with me he said, and I followed him like a meek lamb.
Pointing to the Air Conditioned coach he asked me to board it. I protested saying I wanted just an ordinary reservation, not an A/C.
He patiently explained to me like a father admonishing an errant child that there was not much difference in the fare of an air-conditioned coach and a regular one.
I decided to humour him and boarded the train.
A few minutes later I saw the old gentleman again. I paid him the difference in fare, and to my surprise he asked me- Do you want a receipt?
Nonplussed, I said as you please, then hesitantly, 'yes'. Don't worry he said, pocketed the money, and trundled off without handing me the upgraded ticket, maybe to find a seat to sleep off his intoxication.
I could almost sense Anna Hazare turning over in his sleep.
The other incident happened when I went to a government office in search of a gazetted officer to attest my identification proof. On entering I was told that all the officers were in a meeting, and I would have to wait.
As I waited near the security guy's desk a cup of what looked like black coffee was sourced from the meeting hall. The security smiled contentedly, as if this happened regularly during the meetings, took a sip of the evil looking decoction and mumbled, Really good strong stuff! And he smiled at me as if he was sharing a dirty joke with me.
I had a faint feeling that all the officers at the meeting were having sips of black coffee laced with alcohol. In an official business meeting! In the presence of female employees!
That turned out to be true. When I met the officer for the attestation, I caught a whiff of alcohol on his breath. The coffee had indeed been laced with liquor! The conclusive hint was that the government beverage outlet was just opposite this government office, and maybe the alcohol was a business complement.

A deed in turn, deserves another!

This is a strange story of both deceit and honesty.
The other day I misplaced a couple of monetary bond ceritificates at work. Next day when I returned to office they were not there. I strongly suspected the night cleaning staff of being responsible for the disappearance, but I decided it was of absolutely no use to anyone else other than me, so there was no need to worry.
I even arranged for duplicates to be procured, from my agent. No money lost, but some tedious paper work to be redone.
That week I did not make my weekly pilgrimage home. But something else turned up at home instead, travelling 150 kilometers in the process.
Monday morning, a week later, my father called me up saying that a couple of bond papers with my name on it had been posted from a bank in Trivandrum, the city where I work. It turned out some good Samaritan found the bonds by the roadside a few kilometers away from where I work. He saw my name and address on it and dutifully handed it over to some officials at the nearest bank. The bank officials promptly sent it over by mail to the address on the certicate, and woah! the lost was found!
Obviously whoever had come across the bond had decided it was of no use to him and discarded it. But the amazing part of the story was that a government bank official(government officials are notorious for corruption and laziness) had taken so much trouble to return the lost papers.
I was dumbfounded when Dad related this story over the phone.
This was not the first time that a bank official has come to my rescue; call me scatter-brained, but I had the ill luck once to leave my pocket diary in the bank premises after a transaction.
The bank manager noted that my permanent address and phone number were scribbled on the book, and he promptly called home.
That time too, Dad called up saying someone at a bank had called him over a misplaced notepad. I was abashed but promptly went over to the bank office and was repossessed the notepad. Call that efficiency and honesty! Then I had thanked the bank official profusely; but in the incident of the lost and found bond papers I am only aware of some faceless people each performing a good deed in his turn knowing well that no reward was in store for him!
I too have done my share of good deeds. I once found an ATM card on the floor of an ATM kiosk. Without a second thought I handed it over to the bank officer at the bank. And I have no doubt that the bank officer would not have passed it on to the rightful owner.
As they say pass on a good deed, and it will come back to you.

Birth of a SalesMan

We have all had a brush with salesmen. You find them selling lottery tickets, mobile phone subscriptions, credit cards, bank loans, even safety pins and rubber bands; they promise you everything under the sun.
While travelling by the evening train to my hometown on Saturdays,I happened to come across a very astute salesman selling CDs which he claimed contained every single legal form you would ever need in your life - right from passport application forms to legal documents for your dying will. Presumably he had downloaded the online forms from government sites and burnt them onto CDs and then packaged them neatly in sealed covers with his photograph on it and a blurb saying that he held the patent for the contents within.
He started his promotional address with a challenging question - how many on the train had travelled to the state capital just to get hands on a legal form they needed for some urgent procedure or an application form for a government job?
With his CD, he claimed all that would stop. Every single form under the sun was now available on his CD- his patented product, he repeated. If the customer did not have a personal computer they could visit the nearest DTP center (found at every nook and corner of my home state mostly in the business of printing wedding cards and promotional brochures) where they could get a printed hard copy of the soft version.
Clever move I would say. Lots of people do a lot of unnecessary travel in their lifetime just to procure a necessary legal form - since the government is not yet so tech savvy and printed forms are the norm. If forms are available online, you wouldn't know the site to download it from and even then they were subject to frequent change and get outdated at a whim.
I saw things in a different light.
Procuring the government forms are only 10% of the pain. Forms are subject to frequent changes, almost once every year, as I mentioned earlier.
But the main headache is filling up these forms. The entries on goverment forms have very ambiguous and dubious titles which only the scribes sitting outside the goverment forms can discern and fill. If you attempted filling government forms by yourself, you would have to fill a couple of them until you came up with one which you presumed had all the correct entries. Even then, there was always the risk, that when you got back to the office to submit the form, the clerk in charge would dismiss your application with a shake of his head pointing to some entry which was wrongly filled in your carefully filled up application, and ask you to re-enter the details on a fresh form making you lose your time, money on a new form and more importantly losng your position on the never-ending que where you were. Filling up income tax return forms, filing for a fresh passport or a PAN card are big headaches that most would gladly pay an agent to fill up, paying a king's ransom in the process.
The salesman was playing up on those fears and he did get quite a lot of customers- many of them quite well educated, mostly middle aged gentlemen and old couples. when the salesman added that some young budding entrepreneur could also set up a small business just printing those forms from the CD and selling them to needy people who would otherwise would have to travel to the concerned government office to procure it. Some country bumpkins thought this was a good idea to make a quick buck(you see employment is still a big problem in my native state), and a few more CDs were sold.
I saw this partiucular enterprising salesman every single Saturday evening when I travelled home, for a couple of months, until one fine day, he simply vanished - perhaps sensing his game was up, afraid to face the ire of the more frequent travellers on the train who might have seen through his scheme guaranteed not to fail! These entrepreneurial salesmen!

Man Versus Machine

Sorry for the delay in posting.. My posts were going through several beta versions :-)
What spurred me on this topic of Man Vs Machine was after I had the experience of losing a sizeable amount in an ATM transaction.
Just as my cash was about to pop out the ATM machine went dead.
I checked my balance at the nearest ATM and found that the money that I had not recieved had been debited from my account.
After several visits to my bank I found that they had found that there was no record of the transaction in the ATM logs, none on the website that keeps record of all these transactions and absolutely no proof that I had actually got the money, the money was dispensed or whether the ATM machine simply had a mind of its own.
At the Branch Manager's office, who happened to be a graduate in computer engineering, I told him my sad story and on cue he told me one of his sad stories.
"I don't know why they introduced computers in banks in the first place", he started. "Ever since we have been plagued with network failures.. blah.. blah.. blah.... In fact even I have also lost some money. I even know which account it went to, but I can't do a thing about it."
Since the cash I had intended to give to a certain person wanted it immediately, I decided to deposit the money directly to his bank account. As soon as I entered the branch, I found chaos inside. A large group of people were milling around the cash transaction windows but not a single transaction was being done.
Eyeing me accusingly(I was decorated with one of those access tags software engineers hang around their neck while at office), one of the distraught ladies behind the counter exclaimed once more to added effect, "The systems have hung up.. You will all have to wait till we get back the network." And she got up to do her thing, which all government employees are known to do when they get or make some spare time- she went off for a cup of tea, and possibly an early lunch.
At the LIC office..
I had dropped down to my regional LIC office to get some personal work done. Me and the branch manager were in earnest discussion on how I could proceed with a certain transaction, when he was interrupted by one of his subordinates.
The guy said agitatedly "The good lady's husband has died and she wants the record now. Unfortunately the computer..."
A smile played on the manager's lips as if a death was one of the good things that happened in his office.
"You could get that detail if you do this," he said, turning to his computer. He opened a site, clicked on a link and bingo, there was the information.
The computer was playing truant, but this old man who headed the office had learnt enough of the loopholes to beat the machines at their own game, though he most probably didn't know a thing about the software! That was probably why he was the branch manager. Beating the odds!
I need not mention the mayhem at the railway reservation counters when the network goes down. The wisest thing to do would be to return home and come next day with a prayer to the network gods on your lips!