Page 57 - Love Story of a Commando

Perhaps he never existed!
One day I got a call from my Kashmiri link, a powerful bureaucrat
back in Jammu and Kashmir. He said he wanted to come over to the Mumbai
headquarters to manually enter some data into the servers and also wanted to
perform a quick inspection of the ongoing operations. He sounded stiff and
asked me to pick him up directly from the airport and head straight to the
data server building after that. I was about to ask him other details, like if he
required a hotel room, vehicle, etcetera, mostly out of courtesy, but I realized
he had cut the line rudely.
I stared at my mobile phone in disbelief and then put it away with a
sigh.
Government officials, from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, project a
uniformity and there hardly exists any cultural difference in their modus
operandi. There is an uncanny resemblance in their work ethics and
professional attitude. They can make you feel small, insignificant, and
intrusive all at once. These are some gifts the British have left us to deal
with. These kind of bureaucrats are obsessed with the kind of democracy
dictated by their organization. The space for new ideas and innovation is
lacking which could have been easily created if the basic set up of running
the country with government officials would have relied more on interacting
with the common people than directing them and calling it rules and
regulations.
Doesn’t it sound more authoritative than democratic?
I asked my company to provide me a vehicle as it seemed like a bad
idea to pick this arrogant person in a taxi which was the most I could afford.
His flight was to land by 11 a.m. at Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport,
which meant that I needed to start by 8:30 a.m. from my place in Colaba to
be there on time. Mumbai roads could get pretty congested during peak
hours.
The humid weather and killing traffic, with all the honking and
chaos, did not help either.
After getting stuck in traffic for some good twenty minutes, I
managed to reach the airport an hour before his arrival. The domestic flights
arrive and depart through Terminal 1, which is still lovingly called Santacruz
airport by the locals. Fondly remembering its old glory days several years
back. There were a few nice bakeries and coffee houses outside the airport
and I decided to savour some airport snacks, loudly anticipated by my
growling stomach.
I had skipped my breakfast in a rush to reach the airport and now was
the time for some quality snacks. I ordered one whole wheat sandwich along
with an espresso and picked up the Mumbai Mirror quite happily. All this
was an early morning luxury for a corporate professional. But bad days can