Fwd: peudal lords
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Pradip Pradhan
May 16, 2013, 12:20:02 PM5/16/13
to samukhya, social-watch-group, odishasoochanaadhikarabhiyan
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From: samal akshaya <akshay...@rediffmail.com>
Date: Thu, May 16, 2013 at 9:37 PM
Subject: peudal lords
To: pradipp...@gmail.com
Cc: pr_m...@yahoo.com
Feudal Lords
It was a grievance day in Rourkela . A day for the public to be heard by the collector. One of the few chances public got to exercise their rights. But weather a common citizen is truly aware of his rights or not is a great question that is yet to be answered. Since past few days the rise of mercury had been record highest of the year. The temperature today was likely to shoot up to forty six degree centigrade even before noon. There were a few molded chairs strewn around for the visitors in the corridor of RDA conference hall. The luxury of only a few ceiling fans was available there. The space was ungenerously demarcated as a waiting space for the visiting public. Outside the RDA building along the road, under a tree, there waited a sizable crowd from the neighboring leprosy colony to meet the collector. Soon the sun will be overhead blowing fire and the roadside trees would have little to offer to the bystanders. Mercifully people here are used a lot of unkindness. There is no cribbing, no protests. Whatever you get from the almighty, sarkar, is like god’s gift.
The RDA conference hall is all air conditioned. That’s where public hearing is generally scheduled. A huge oval table adorns the centre stage inside the hall with a dozen cool mineral water bottles for the officials. Swivel chairs of different order and characters are arranged around to emphasize the hierarchy of governance. It gives the impression of an emperor’s durbar like the ones you might have seen on the silver screen.
The Collector arrives at eleven .He walks in like the great emperor that befits the plush interior. Before this moment nobody seemed to have had any clarity about the collector’s agenda for the day. No official would really answer any question about his schedule. It was all a big mystery! It ought to be like that!
After waiting in that scorching heat for a good length of time, finally the citizens get to meet the collector who was in the company of many big officials. The air smelt of power and authority. It was, kind of, a frightening atmosphere. The hearing was over in time, in a hurried dismissive way. There was moment of silence. Somebody gently suggested, ‘would not it be proper to provide a chair to the aggrieved person while he is saying his prayer; besides providing drinking water for the public in waiting among many other things’. Though the collector agreed to provide a proper waiting space and drinking water, the chair in question was denied. ‘They will never leave the chair and there will be no end to their grievances,’ was the collector’s logical conclusion.
It reminded me of my village in the then undivided Cuttack. During the initial fifty years of my life none of my contemporaries had even seen a junior OAS officer in my village soil, leave alone the collector. In such a context, meeting the collector then would be considered a life time achievement for just about anybody .The collector was the Omnipotent to serve the public. Like God almighty he was omnipresent too but did not have to be visible to ordinary mortals like us.
Times have not really changed. As for the authority, of course, the decision to make people comfortable during public hearing of grievances does not make sense. How can a man with stars in his eyes, who has waited under the scorching sun for hours, leave the lord so easily? Of course this could be his only chance to ask for everything he needs, to register all his grievances at one go.
Why offer a chair to a man who is trying to catch the last straw?
From: samal akshaya <akshay...@rediffmail.com>
Date: Thu, May 16, 2013 at 9:37 PM
Subject: peudal lords
To: pradipp...@gmail.com
Cc: pr_m...@yahoo.com
Feudal Lords
It was a grievance day in Rourkela . A day for the public to be heard by the collector. One of the few chances public got to exercise their rights. But weather a common citizen is truly aware of his rights or not is a great question that is yet to be answered. Since past few days the rise of mercury had been record highest of the year. The temperature today was likely to shoot up to forty six degree centigrade even before noon. There were a few molded chairs strewn around for the visitors in the corridor of RDA conference hall. The luxury of only a few ceiling fans was available there. The space was ungenerously demarcated as a waiting space for the visiting public. Outside the RDA building along the road, under a tree, there waited a sizable crowd from the neighboring leprosy colony to meet the collector. Soon the sun will be overhead blowing fire and the roadside trees would have little to offer to the bystanders. Mercifully people here are used a lot of unkindness. There is no cribbing, no protests. Whatever you get from the almighty, sarkar, is like god’s gift.
The RDA conference hall is all air conditioned. That’s where public hearing is generally scheduled. A huge oval table adorns the centre stage inside the hall with a dozen cool mineral water bottles for the officials. Swivel chairs of different order and characters are arranged around to emphasize the hierarchy of governance. It gives the impression of an emperor’s durbar like the ones you might have seen on the silver screen.
The Collector arrives at eleven .He walks in like the great emperor that befits the plush interior. Before this moment nobody seemed to have had any clarity about the collector’s agenda for the day. No official would really answer any question about his schedule. It was all a big mystery! It ought to be like that!
After waiting in that scorching heat for a good length of time, finally the citizens get to meet the collector who was in the company of many big officials. The air smelt of power and authority. It was, kind of, a frightening atmosphere. The hearing was over in time, in a hurried dismissive way. There was moment of silence. Somebody gently suggested, ‘would not it be proper to provide a chair to the aggrieved person while he is saying his prayer; besides providing drinking water for the public in waiting among many other things’. Though the collector agreed to provide a proper waiting space and drinking water, the chair in question was denied. ‘They will never leave the chair and there will be no end to their grievances,’ was the collector’s logical conclusion.
It reminded me of my village in the then undivided Cuttack. During the initial fifty years of my life none of my contemporaries had even seen a junior OAS officer in my village soil, leave alone the collector. In such a context, meeting the collector then would be considered a life time achievement for just about anybody .The collector was the Omnipotent to serve the public. Like God almighty he was omnipresent too but did not have to be visible to ordinary mortals like us.
Times have not really changed. As for the authority, of course, the decision to make people comfortable during public hearing of grievances does not make sense. How can a man with stars in his eyes, who has waited under the scorching sun for hours, leave the lord so easily? Of course this could be his only chance to ask for everything he needs, to register all his grievances at one go.
Why offer a chair to a man who is trying to catch the last straw?
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