Pardon me for reproducing here a large citation which well encapsulates what I propose to write. The writings hereunder are a collection of information from all sources, I give you all an option to believe, disbelieve or doubt as you like.
I like jokes because they are unserious ways of saying serious things. They get past our defences. What we can laugh at, we can face. What we cannot laugh at, we often deny. There is little doubt that something has gone wrong among the many things that have gone right in today’s world. We can say what it is. In pursuit of progress, we are losing the script.
Our world is moving at breakneck speed, but we are not quite sure where we are going. We are living in a transitional age, and continuous change is among the hardest thing for human beings to bear. Small wonder that ours has been called the “The Age of Anxiety” or, in the title of Francis Fukuyama’s latest book “The Great Disruption”. There are times when we feel like the fabled Russian politician who, getting up to address his fellow parliamentarians, began his speech by saying “Friends, yesterday we stood on the edge of the abyss, but today we have taken a great step forward.
Jonathan Sacks, Celebrating Life: Finding Happiness in Unexpected Places
How independent could be an Independent Bureaucrat of yore?
There was an Indian Civil Service (ICS) officer, eleven years my senior in service. As an Assistant Commissioner when in Bombay, his British Deputy Commissioner asked him to open the door of the car when ladies wanted to sit in. He refused to obey, saying that if they wanted equality, they should themselves open the door.
He got his first independent posting in an area most primitive in the subcontinent where the wearing of fig leaf alone was considered to be the most gentlemanly dress. This ICS officer started wearing fig leaf and adopted all the customary practices of the local people. Very soon he was conferred the highest honor by the people who prefixed Bhagwan (God) to his name.
On his transfer to Pakistan, he was posted in the South of the country. He wrote a report highlighting the problems of peasants, locally called haris. Since that time, the word Hari was prefixed to his name substituting the prefix Bhagwan.
He had two guests staying with him at different times. One was my colleague who had received training with me in the UK in 1953. In the morning he was told that he will have breakfast only after having a morning walk with the host. They went for a walk. My friend estimated that after about five miles he collapsed. A car had to be brought to take them back.
The immediate boss of the Hari happened to be my Commissioner when I was serving as a Deputy Commissioner. He narrated a number of events, one being that Hari brought raw vegetables for his lunch which they were having together. He would pass on his collection to the superior, and slide over superiors’ lunch for his own consumption. The superior had to make quantity adjustments over time.
I enjoyed his narration of events, views, and thoughts but always kept a distance because of his unpredictability. He narrated his one experience in Cairo where he stepped in to replace a pallbearer, as is the practice in the Indian Sub-continent. He was not replaced at all and had to carry the corpse to the grave which proved too trying for him. I verified this fact from an Arab and he confirmed that there hired people are put on this duty.
He also told me that Japanese people took great pride that they have no strong abusive words in their language. He mentioned that he had collected a large number of them and confronted an elderly educated man on a train journey in Tokyo. The Japanese was shocked and surprised at his knowledge.
He was of the opinion that all the children in Punjab want to know why their parents always talk in Punjabi but they insist that their children talk in Urdu. I tried my best to find an answer to this but failed.
After remaining Member Board of Revenue for a few days he met me and said: “Shafi, I consider the judges deserve more pay than what they get”. I asked him what made him think so. He said that hearing the lawyers the whole day is an ordeal because after hearing them for a few hours he felt like throwing something hard at their head. I did not tell him how each judge has his own method of dealing with this problem making sure that he never had anything hard or of weight within his reach. I was reminded of the fact that great effort was made to treat service as a Member Board of Revenue as qualifying service for appointment as High Court Judge but it did not get approval from any quarter.
He once created a furor in Lahore by leading one of the congregational prayers in the local language, but he did this after the prayers had been performed in the usual way.
Experiences of a Lifetime 