Seshan’s right, we’re a tribe of prostitutes, says Pirzada

‘‘I’d done nothing illegal. I’d never imagined I would be jailed though some well-meaning people did warn me of a sinister campaign being launched against me.’’

On January 22, an early morning knock proved that warning correct.

‘‘I knew Vigilance officials meant business the moment they stepped in, the way they seized my computers and searched my apartment.’’

Jail was a nightmare, one that he has documented in his diary. So was the interrogation. ‘‘They started at 6.30 am and continued until 2.30 the next morning.’’ And then again the next day.

This continued till January 25 when he began to vomit blood. ‘‘Even then, they took an hour to take me to a dispensary. My family had to arrange for a van.’’

He wasn’t prepared for this brutality. Nor was his lawyer Denesh Goyal. ‘‘It was a breach of his fundamental right,’’ says Goyal.

Jail was a learning experience. ‘‘I realised how I was more fortunate than those who didn’t have anyone to bail them out.’’

It also gave his idealism a battering. ‘‘It was like a flashback. I remembered my old teacher Dr Suhas Chakravarty at St Stepehen’s who tried so hard to dissuade me from joining the IAS. ‘Use your brains to adulterate ghee instead of signing on the dotted line’ he told me.’’ It brought back memories from his early days in Tamil Nadu when a colleague told him how his accessibility showed the others in a poor light.

At times, jail was sheer hell. ‘‘At one point, I thought I was gone.’’ Pirzada is bitter about the silence maintained by the Punjab IAS fraternity. ‘‘I knew there would be no upheaval, but I did expect a murmur… I guess the former CEC T N Seshan was right when he called us a tribe of prostitutes,’’ he quips even as his wife and family hasten to sush him.

Ask him about his much-feted innings as chairman of the Punjab State Electronic Development Corporation (PSEDC) and he shrugs. ‘‘I am no engineer, I have no IT background, I was merely doing my duty.’’ But he did it with passion. ‘‘God knows how many e-mails, phones I made. When in the US for a month, I used to begin work at 6 in the morning and continue till well past midnight.’’

Even then, the red-tape always came in his way. He tells you how his efforts to auction 50 acres of land to IT companies came to a naught. ‘‘Two US-based companies did come forward, but they walked out of the deal when we gave them letters of intent instead of posssession. Even today 80 per cent of the electronic estate is lying vacant.’’

His wife, who’s been pleading with him to check himself, finally bursts into tears: ‘‘Why don’t you stop? Haven’t you got into enough trouble?’’