Tuesday, May 22, 2007

To Babus and Bibijis

I hate them.I know hate is a bad word and should only be used for people like Chandan Singh and Rahul Roshan.But I really hate them.More than I hate the wise guy named God. The targets of my poisonous hate are these bloody "sarkaari" indian government offices or "daftaris" which have been serving the public, as they would like us to believe. Love of Jammu's life all his fool the world skill which he mastered in their offices be it our College office or University office or Railway Office... Ladies later.Men first.The men behind the rotting files on the shaky tables chew paan with open mouths, smoke cigarettes , drink tea / coffee endlessly, and some even bring in their radios and listen to altaf raja songs at the office. The men are mostly middle aged and have their hair dyed jet black with some locally made dye like " kala jadoo" or “black diamond” or something. They generally have yellow teeth because of their tobacco eating exploits .And mostly commute using shaky scooters or public buses. They get this delightful gleeful twinkle in their eyes whenever some female walks into the office. Yeah. They are just so frustrated of their equally frustrated wives that any female would do for them . Even the sweepress is good enough for an occasional flirting session. The men of the office jostle to attend to the female while the male visitors are subjected to that “why-don’t-u-die-rite-now “ look and told to wait. OOOO don’t remind me of that viva day when I was put in a team composing of heavy weights like Chris, Shweta Mishram and Deepti…I hated being a guy that day and for many days to come…coming back to our babussss one of the major sources of "job satisfaction" for these desi dhakkans is to harass some educated guy( Ok I exclude myself from here) and thus grab the "see-my-power-u-mr.educated ?" category satisfaction. The women gracing these government offices are more irritating than kareena kapoor in "Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham".These 40-50 year olds blotch their lips with colors as gaudy as daler mehndi's turban's. Their big drooping bellies complete with their stretch marks peep out and they generally tend to have huge waistlines due to the sedentary nature of their jobs , made all the more sedentary due to their own sedentary nature. The handbag is the integral part of the armory of such women and they like to carry an umbrella to help them protect their imagined fair complexion from the sun. They feel that wearing sleeveless blouses makes them look as irresistible as Julia Roberts, if not more.They have this affinity to improve efficiency by multitasking office work with chores like slicing ladyfinger, potatoes, kheeras and other vegetables.The winters favorite is knitting half sleeved brown sweaters for their grumpy husbands. The “challenges” at the job include proving “my bittoo/raju/pinky/whatever is so smart ...he can dance all those hrithik’s moves, or in Saas bahu serials who is the tormentor and who is tormented ” . Another feature which marks winter time is the wide availability of oranges and peanuts. And these eatables leave off their legacy in the form of orange skins and peanut shells which can then be found sprinkled liberally all over the office till the gang of sweepers decides to take a break from playing cards and move off their bony asses. I have developed such a harsh and venomous opinion of these great institutions based on my experiences at my school office ,the bus pass office , the college administrative office, the Nagpur University office , the colony telephone exchange and the colony electricity department complaint cell to name a few ,triggered off by another of desk hopping sessions at one of these damn offices recently. I know that some good men and women work at these temples of inefficiency too. I do feel for them .But then forgive my narrow mindedness, I just incapable of changing my opinion about these places.

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