The artful dodger

Take the recent calls I received from an irate bureaucrat objecting to my articles on IT, which, he claimed, virtually drove away potential investors from Punjab. Or the circumspect retired general I met in the course of one of my investigations, who asked me point blank: acirc;euro;tilde;acirc;euro;tilde;Whatacirc;euro;trade;s the use of these exposes? Do you think your article is going to change things? No one can change the system.acirc;euro;trade;acirc;euro;trade; With that he stubbornly refused to go public about his travails, fearing victimisation if he did so.

I was tempted to ask, if he were leading his troops in a war, where the enemy was far superior to his, would he order them to lay down their arms and surrender without putting up even a semblance of a fight? For, in pursuance of his irrefutable logic, to fight on in the face of tremendous odds would be sheer stupidity. The dear general and I had rather a heated exchange on the subject, in the course of which I was almost driven to tears of anger. It is my acirc;euro;tilde;acirc;euro;tilde;over-sensitivityacirc;euro;trade;acirc;euro;trade;, you see, a term urbane colleagues use to deny their own black sentiments.

Then suddenly the tenor of our altercation changed. The general discovered that my father had belonged to the same regiment as he. acirc;euro;tilde;acirc;euro;tilde;Youacirc;euro;trade;re part of the family,acirc;euro;trade;acirc;euro;trade; he exclaimed, acirc;euro;tilde;acirc;euro;tilde;so now you shouldnacirc;euro;trade;t write about these things.acirc;euro;trade;acirc;euro;trade; acirc;euro;tilde;acirc;euro;tilde;Iacirc;euro;trade;m my fatheracirc;euro;trade;s daughter,acirc;euro;trade;acirc;euro;trade; I replied, acirc;euro;tilde;acirc;euro;tilde;and he was known for doing his duty, regardless of the consequences.acirc;euro;trade;acirc;euro;trade; The poor general had nothing more to say. Except to offer me a placatory cup of tea.

But as I discovered, hypocrisy is not the exclusive trait of the middle and upper middle classes. Weeks later, I was returning from Shimla in a taxi, when the youngish driver decided to grace me with a recital of his opinions on life, policemen and, you guessed it, journalists. acirc;euro;tilde;acirc;euro;tilde;In the old days journalists would boldly rush in to expose wrongdoings, now they stick to easy, soft stories,acirc;euro;trade;acirc;euro;trade; he remarked. Then he pressed on: acirc;euro;tilde;acirc;euro;tilde;Is it true that you all go to do bold stories, accept large sums of money and then donacirc;euro;trade;t do them at all?acirc;euro;trade;acirc;euro;trade;

He served up more nuggets of revelation as the journey progressed. Told me that he himself was the soul of honesty, but had an uncle back in the badlands of Uttar Pradesh whose sole occupation and a very profitable one at that was murder. So he, saintly Debi Prasad, had abandoned his crime-riddled village to live in clean, pretty Chandigarh. He had also resisted the temptation of working as a government driver even though this spelt unlimited free supplies of cigarettes and liquor because you had to acirc;euro;tilde;acirc;euro;tilde;payacirc;euro;trade;acirc;euro;trade; to get the job. With the wisdom of the proudly unlettered, he opined that education was a waste of time, because to get a job in India all you need is money. And he was now the proud owner of two plots and one house in Chandigarh plus many acirc;euro;tilde;acirc;euro;tilde;acresacirc;euro;trade;acirc;euro;trade;in UP. It was my turn to be speechless.