But who’s paying the bill?

I could never get the opportunity to latch on to the DG’s entourage. More influential people always managed to beat me to it. Nevertheless, once, accidentally, I had the privilege to travel with one of his deputies, designated marketing executive (ME), to Mumbai. ‘‘Where will you stay?’’ he asked me on the plane. ‘‘With my brother-in-law on the Malabar Hill,’’ I answered honestly. ‘‘On the way, why not have a drink with me in the guest house?’’ he threw the temptation at me. I could not escape. Next came an invitation to lunch at the Taj. How could he afford to visit these expensive places? It was not for me to question. I succumbed.

The guest house was a posh affair stolen from the Arabian Nights. It belonged to a well-known drug manufacturing company. ‘‘How much do you have to pay for this?’’ I asked the gentleman. ‘‘Nothing,’’ said he, ‘‘it is a small courtesy. How are you placed tomorrow?’’

I was well placed. I had to see the rough-cuts of some half a dozen films on health in the Films Division. From there, the gentleman had me picked up and transported to the Taj. The Director of Health Services, Government of Maharashtra, and two of his deputies were also present at the lunch. So was a bigwig in immaculate dress from the same pharmaceutical concern that owned the guest house. It was not for me to inquire how much the bill was. Who paid it? Of course, it was not the ME. Nor any of the officials from Maharashtra. Someone else. Who? I could never know. But I could guess.

No link, perhaps, between that nauseating episode and the fact that big companies finance officials’ trips abroad. Nor any link between that and the factoid doled out by the WHO recently that twenty per cent of all drugs being sold in India are fake.