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Some people, especially those in politics, behave as
if they are too great to have any contact with the ordinary folk. And they can
get on with whoever comes to power on top irrespective of their ideologies and
principles. Sanjay was one such person. He occupied some high places in Sawan
school [see previous posts, especially P
and Q]
merely because he knew how to play his cards more dexterously than ordinary
politicians. Whoever came as principal, Sanjay would be there in the elite
circle.
He seemed to hold most people in
contempt. His respect was reserved for the gentry. I belonged to the margins of
Sawan society, in Sanjay’s assessment. So we hardly talked to each other.
Looking back, I find it quite ludicrous to realise that Sanjay and I lived on
the same campus 24x7 for a decade and a half without ever talking to each other
except for official purposes.
Towards the end of our coexistence,
Sawan had become a veritable hell. Power supply to the staff quarters was cut
off most of the time merely to harass those who still stayed back. The vast
majority of people had abandoned the campus. Students found admission in other
schools and a big chunk of the staff was driven out by RSSB. [Those who are
new in this space are advised to read previous posts to know what RSSB is.] Water
supply was cut totally and a truck brought water from which we were supposed to
fetch water. No one ever knew when the truck would come and where.
I was one of the few who had stayed
on like Sanjay waiting to see the end of the game being played by RSSB. Sanjay
had already become a right-hand man of the RSSB management and he put his
signature as the Staff Secretary on the dotted lines of the termination of
services of his colleagues. He was a traitor, in my view. And then one day I
told him that.
It was a torrid evening of June 2015.
June in Delhi is hell. The atmospheric temperature rises well above 40 degrees
Celsius. Imagine life without the fan and water. How did people survive on
Sawan campus? Sheer will power, I guess. I lost my will power one evening because
it was strained beyond its limit.
One former student visited Maggie and
me at our staff quarters and his shoes left a lot of stain on the floor all
over because of the debris of the bulldozed ruins outside on which he had
walked to reach our residence. We were staying next to the residence of another
staff whose charming daughter was the real reason of this boy’s visit to us.
Maggie and I ignored the ill-concealed overtures of his romance that went
beyond the boundary wall that separated our flat from his beloved’s.
Maggie and I had other things to
worry about. No power at home. Water was scarce. I gulped down a drink of
whisky without water after the boy left and we cleaned up the place as best as
we could. And then I walked out of home with the intention of relieving my
stress with a walk on the verdant road towards Bhatti Mines. But the crowd near
the water tank stopped me. Some kind of repair work was in progress. It was all
just a show. Mere sham meant to mislead the people. And Sanjay was the leader
of the show. His very presence there infuriated me. I told him without mincing
words that he was nothing better than a management’s stooge and a traitor to
his colleagues.
I received a show-cause notice from Pranita the next morning. It
accused me of threatening a staff member with murder. A copy of the complaint
submitted by Sanjay was attached. He had made the accusation of the
murder-threat. I snickered as I read the whole thing. “It’s my word against
Sanjay’s,” I said. Surprisingly, Pranita’s answer was: “Just write a reply for
the formality’s sake.” My reply was not a formality, however. It was my
resignation letter along with that of Maggie’s. It wasn’t possible for me to
live with people like Sanjay. I could have endured Pranita more than an
invertebrate like Sanjay.
On my last evening in Sawan, nevertheless,
I went to Sanjay’s flat to bid goodbye. I intended to leave the school that I
loved without a bad feeling in my heart. But Sanjay refused to meet me. His
wife told me that he wasn’t free to meet me.
Unfortunately, Sanjay was not one of
his kind. There were a few other staff members like him who switched their
loyalty just like chameleons changing colours. All of a sudden, some of the
staff members became devotees of RSSB. They started attending the Satsang.
These same people were very vocal critics of the godman and his gang earlier. Now
they were singing the cult’s paeans and playing shameless games with people
like me who were highly vocal against the cult.
The last I heard about them was that
RSSB helped them find jobs after Sawan was closed for ever. I never came across
such abominable people who sell their very souls for the sake of trivial
personal benefits before or after this phase of my life. These same people
swore against the cult a year later when they realised that the help given by
the cult was a mere drama played in order to get these people out of the
campus.
Who you are in public is a test of
your convictions, Criss Jami said. Who you are in private is a test of your
integrity. In Sawan I came across quite a handful of people who possessed
neither convictions nor integrity. It is such people who mess up the planet in
the final analysis. They are loyalists without loyalty to themselves.
PS. I'm participating in #BlogchatterA2Z
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Once you were taking class in Media room and this how you started off- " We Indians are big bastard! , we preach everything but we practice nothing." I think this statement was very apt for some of the teachers of Sawan. Not bastard though, that is too harsh for a teacher but they were not less than snakes. Even snakes would have some moral ethics to follow. What was more disturbing to see that even female teachers would indulge in character assassination of their counterparts.
ReplyDeleteI shouldn't have used that word too, right? But I know that certain incidents triggered my moral indignation so much that I'd lose control over my words occasionally.
DeleteRegarding the politics that happened on the campus because of the staff, I intentionally avoided touching that much. There is politics everywhere. I worked in four institutions none of which was free of that plague. Where three or four people gather, there will inevitably be politics. Homo sapiens are a political species, if nothing else. In a residential campus where people live together 24x7, more politics happens. Inevitable. But I do agree with you that some sort of morality is expected of teachers and some of our people lacked that.
I feel sorry for those people. Sometimes. He was more concerned about remaining there than about what he believed. Or, perhaps, he didn't believe in anything and all that he had was the stability of a job.
ReplyDeleteIt is quite likely that he didn't have any particular conviction. Unless egotism is a conviction!
DeleteHari Om
ReplyDeleteIndeed, you might well have called this person The Serpent! There are plenty of such personalities about, sadly. YAM xx
You used the right epithet for him. When I joined the school, I was warned by a reliable person to be wary of "snakes" and this man was one of them.
DeleteMurder threat, Ra*e threat, Caste threat - these are akin to a schoolboy's complaints of a stomachache. Simple to state, challenging to demonstrate. Working for an organization that contradicts our ideologies can feel suffocating.
ReplyDeleteSanjay was no more mature than a school boy!
DeleteI have lived through the trauma that you describe in your stories. Reading your blogs is both painfully beautiful and haunting. While I admire the way you articulate your thoughts, it takes me back to the dark days of my life. Years later, I would face more personal tragedies, but this is something I can never erase from my memory, as much as I would like to. I have woken up to the sounds of bulldozers demolishing buildings, watching from behind the mesh door of my house. People were falling one by one, and eventually, we knew our turn would come too. I vividly remember the moment I glanced back as my car approached the main gate for the last time. I could see so many things I was leaving behind: my childhood, my teenage years, and a significant portion of my adulthood, all gone in an instant.
ReplyDeleteFor people like you who grew up on that campus, the fall of SPS would certainly be far more traumatic than for me. It is like annihilating one's past, the beautiful childhood and growing-up stage. Those who brought about all that pain will never understand it, however.
DeleteWow. That last line sums it up. Wiseasses like to say that only those who adapt survive this dog eat dog world but there's reports that some species of chameleons are going extinct. 👀 Also, That table is a great way of displaying the posts. I'll try to recreate it on mine!
ReplyDeleteNo extinction for that species, Careena. They only mutate and grow stronger.
Delete