THE DEPARTMENTALS AND MISHTER SHO HAI

A few days ago, the results of Departmental Exams of IPS officers  appeared in the Whatsapp IPS West Bengal Group of my phone. From Pankaj Dwivedi to Harikrishna Pathak. Two officers had passed completely, for the others a few remained to be cleared.The message just took me back to days over twenty five years ago, of writing those exams in alternate cycles of  Calcutta’s muggy May and wonderful winter. The exams were held biannually at the WBPSC Bhavan which had been recently constructed -  old timers talked about sitting in dimly lit halls somewhere near Sealdah for those departmentals.

These bi-annuals were welcome breaks from the mundane world of district training as officers got a week's leave to come to West Bengal’s capital city , hole up at either at Hungerford or Kyd's Street, talk about their SPs and DMs, prepare something about the exams and most important of all,  strategize about seating arrangements. These visits  were occasions to unwind and explore what was then called Calcutta ; the chicken rolls at Kusum's; the Mutton Rezala at Nizam's;  the many restaurants  and street food joints in Park Street, Free School Street , New Market and  Kyd's Street  ; the  cinema halls Roxy, Globe, Metro, New Empire and their bars.

Backpackers roamed in large numbers, attracted by its cheap hotels and abundance of drugs , in the historic Sudder Street whose ambience had once electrified a precocious Rabindranath Tagore to pen a long poem Nirjharer Swapna- bhanga about a century ago. Once Mrityunjay and I even went to a modest roadside restaurant styled Vishwa Hindu hotel near the examination centre at SP Mukherjee Road where we were surprisingly attended upon by female waiters , and soon realized that the restaurant was just a front , the place actually witnessed more activity and customers during the night.

The "lady wives" ( as the wives are called in many uniformed services parlance)  got to know one another better,  did a bit of shopping on the side , mostly in and around the Chowringhee and for many, including my wife, who came from cities where ogle, brush and cat calls greeted women in public places, Calcutta appeared much safer and civilized in its attitude towards women. Bonhomie among batchmates used to be strong during those early years of service before the rat race of professional rivalry would come to affect it, as is common in most organizations.

The departmentals  did not affect the inter se seniority,that is the seniority within the same batch like the exams at NPA, Hyderabad,  and so were not taken up that seriously,  but since failure could  push back promotion for upto an year if not cleared within the five- six times,  they were  not  ignored either. It meant not being promoted as an additional SP from SDPO after completion of four years of service ( and in my batch two out of seven , or was it  three, had an extended six months as SDPO). No less important was the fact passing meant a jump from Basic Rs 2200/- scale to the Senior Scale of Rs. 3000/- scale , a very handsome, eagerly awaited pay rise in those difficult days.

The exams consisted of papers in Accounts and Law ( with books and without books) and a language paper, and it was compulsory for non- Bengali officers to pass  in Bengali which consisted of three parts- Written, Oral or Viva and Dictation. Officers who passed all papers at one go were also rewarded with an extra increment, like the ones who underwent a vasectomy after two children. The Bengali paper for abanagalis deserves a separate narration, and I would do it shortly.

It was on a warm July in 1990, just after the taxing Passing Out Parade practice session at the National Police Academy, Hyderabad when I opened  a mail my batchmate Zulfi had received from Government of West Bengal informing about the results of our first departmental held the previous December. We were a batch of seven from West Bengal cadre , and there were results of six of us. But surprisingly there was no mention of my name. I thought there has been an oversight, and I would chase it up once I returned to Bengal after finishing the second phase of training at Hyderabad.

After about three months I got the chance. I had gone to the West Bengal Telecom HQ, having been called over for certain matrimonial enquiries ( more about it later ) , and after being done with it, and also having collected all information to be written in my tour diary,  I hurriedly went , without even changing to  civvies,  to WBPSC Bhavan. The lift took me to the sixth floor where the concerned section was located, and at four in the afternoon, I was quite surprised to see a few persons working. The babus had not quite expected an IPS officer to come in ceremonial uniform  and make enquiries about departmental results. The dealing assistant was just too overwhelmed  when I explained my problem in a manner that was short neither on agitation nor animation. He also seemed to be in agreement with my apprehension that someone had blundered.

'Boshun,' he offered me a chair,  and  went to open a dull green coloured almirah from which he took out a file and a register and started looking up for my results, turning the over pages with his spit coated middle  finger. I also craned my neck to offer help. After sometime, he located the relevant page, read something with furrowed eyebrows, then looked at me deeply , asked me to settle back in my chair, rubbed his eyes,  and after allowing for the phosphenes to fade, exhaled . I thought he was going to tender some apology for an oversight which he had just detected. I prepared myself to be magnanimously forgiving, straightened the creases of my frown and promptly wore a smile.

'Mishter Sho Hai, the results are sent to candidates who have either passed completely or partially, but as per the rule, no communication is required to be made with candidates who have not cleared a single paper, ' he started to explain the rule position, as most clerks do before they deliver the punch. But for people who are used to deliver the punch through the impersonal letters and telegraphic signals,  the sudden emergency to deliver it personally to an agitated and flustered IPS officer in ceremonial uniform  was too much, and Malakar Babu waited for me to infer and grasp the enormity of the mishap.

'So I have failed in all the papers?' I asked, betraying no emotion of my disbelief. He nodded, words failed him at my quick realization,  and in sheer gratitude for my composure , he drew up a long and sad face  to join me in my personal grief.

'Mishter Sho Hai,' he said in a voice brimming with sympathy and encouragement,' chinta korben na, if this time you have failed subjectively, next time you will pass subjectively '. I got up as I  felt no need to discuss the subject anymore, and it was just as well as  I could see from the corner of my eyes that some other clerks were walking towards us, and would probably subject me to more ridicule.

I ran down the six floors without waiting for the lift, and, shelved my plan to visit New Market, and instead asked Barrister Singh to drive straight to  Barrackpur and look up my friend Sanjay Chander who was recuperating with a long plaster over a leg fractured in a law and order situation which had turned violent at Gourisankar Jute Mills.

He was delighted to see me, and as I narrated the PSC experience, his pain considerably lessened, as pains normally do in the face of bigger pains. I cleared all my papers except written Bengali in the second attempt, and passed Written Bengali even before Bankim Chandra Ramesh. But for quite some time , my wonder had not diminished even one bit as to how I managed to flunk each of the papers till my my first Superintendent of Police enlightened me , a year later, with a sublime piece of truth - Je kono ghatna ghot te par e or any thing can happen. But about that Mahabodhi session some other time.