“Saar, OC Nandkumar wants to talk you, says it is urgent,” one homeguard from the Sub Divisional Control Room came and informed. It was Sunday evening, the sun had set but it was not totally dark as yet. I had just finished watering the marigolds and a few croutons on the lawn of my house in Tamluk, Midnapore.
I got up, went to the phone of my bungalow office only to find it dead, not quite uncommon during those days of manual exchanges .
“ Ok, I am coming over to the wireless room, “ I said and took a minute to slip into a track bottom and reached the Wireless sub control, hardly 75 yards from my house. The operator, immediately cleared the net with an “All please wait , all please wait” bark and soon put me across to SI BK Mondal OC Nandkumar .
There had been a communal riot in area under Sutahata PS in the adjoining subdivision, and the Addl. SP had asked for one section of force to be deployed from Nandkumar PS to set up a camp. I gave instructions for despatch of the same, a hybrid composition of four National Volunteer Force personnel and 3 constables under an ASI.
As I was about to leave, BK Mondal cackled again with a compelling energy and urgency.
‘ Saar, what to do with these two people ?’
‘Who?’
‘Saar, these two , Esh Pee shaheber driver and security guard,’ he whispered into the wireless.
‘And where’s the SP saheb?’
‘Bodo saheb is not with them.’
With a great effort I suppressed my bewilderment , anxiety, a few cuss words and politely enquired as to how these two shadows had managed to land in the police station without the Superintendent of Police.
He bleated incoherently, just told that they had been disengaged with the Bada Saheb about two three hours ago at near Chandipur and had now come to the police station.
‘Sir , they are feeling very nervous.’
Bloody hell, the Security Guard and Driver’s nervousness was the last thing that was bothering me. What the hell has happened to the SP I was wondering.
‘Where’s the SP, I hope he is safe?’ I demanded, throwing all caution to the wind about airing such things on the air as taught to us at NPA, Hyderabad .
‘Sir, CI saheb has taken him to Midnapur,’he immediately updated my Missing Person query.
'Were our people at fault?' I asked out of my self-preservation instincts . I had no intention of being hauled up as a rookie SDPO about the sorry conduct of my officers which had uncoupled the top most district police officer from the comfort of his car, shield of security and trappings of authority.
The OC assured me that we were not at fault. So I told him to ask if the SP’s driver felt confident enough to drive back to Midnapur without any apprehension of a heart attack, or committing a stress related accident.
Soon he answered , ‘Saar , eraa jete paarbe.’
‘Let them go,’ I said and left the Wireless Room.
On that note I returned to my house, a bit shaken. Surely there were misgivings about this cadre I had been allotted. One had heard about police unionism in Bengal, stories about heckling of senior officers. But even in my wildest imagination, I never thought that these fellows would leave an old SP on the road and scoot away.
The following evening, I went to Nandakumar to meet the CI and enquire in detail. It emerged that after having having an early lunch, the SP, with his driver and security guard, went to hold a personal enquiry in Khejuri, a block situated on the coast, once a thriving port from where Raja Ram Mohan Roy had set sail for England , famous for having the first post office made by the British in India, the Cowcolly (Koilkhali) Lighthouse which was the first under Calcutta Port Commissioners and a mosque built by Afghan rulers in 1662. He could have easily returned to Midnapur from there ,but decided to proceed to Kolkata via Chandipur, Nandkumar and Tamluk and then catch the NH-6 from Mechada . SPs are supposed to be touring officers as well, and he decided to live it up to that.
As he approached Chandipur Bazaar, he was held up in a traffic jam as happens in most highways narrowed in Bengal by haats, shops, van rickshaws, the odd party office and possibly an electric pole. He instinctively sent instructions on wireless to OC Chandipur to come and clear the jam. But OC Chandipur did not respond, a very flustered SP and his security guard laboured to decongest, then went to the police station and gave him a severe tongue lashing.
However, after having gone hardly a kilometer from Chandipur PS,after Narghat Bridge, the SP's driver and security developed an urgent need to pee. Permission granted from SP, they ran across the road ,maintaining the distance which hierarchy informally but firmly ordains. Now coughing and piddling are extremely contagious, the urge is transmitted in a jiffy. It soon infected the SP, and he quietly slipped away. Meanwhile, after a quick bolt action, the SP's staff rushed back and drove away in the black Ambassador with tinted glasses. Nothing wrong with their trained response, except that by that time the SP had not come back to the car, and it was a car with an empty backseat that they drove, for about 70 kilometres till Debra when the security guard realised, as he turned around to hand over a vial of homeopathic globules, that the SP was not in the car!
Meanwhile, CI Nandkumar, who had heard the SP’s call to Chandipur regarding the traffic jam, and quite bewildered to hear the SP’s unannounced presence in his jurisdiction, got into his jeep and drove towards Chandipur.. As he was driving down, he saw a man wave and shout at him. It would be an understatement to say that he was surprised to see a lone bald , spectacled man resembling the SP , walking briskly . He stopped, he confirmed , he was appalled. There was no sign of the SP’s car, he was sweating, and shorn of any trappings of authority, looking harried. The CI thought probably the SP had escaped from some hungama in Chandipur and braced himself for an earful from the SP at the sorry state of affairs in his AOR or Area of Responsibility . But soon he could make out from the muffled, but very eloquent, mumble from the SP that there had been an error of judgement by his own men with devastating results.
‘CI saheb, help me get a private from Nandkumar More.’
Nothing bigger can happen in the career of a Circle Inspector than to rescue his SP from such a mess, , no finer story than this to tell his grandchildren and the CI beamed at his achievement. For CI Nandkumar, a timid man man who had all along suffered at the hands of women- as son, as husband and as father- this was his macho moment. He took the SP to his office in his jeep and sent out the OC to arrange for a private taxi for Midnapur, and while the car was being arranged, took the advantage of circumstances and requested for bring provided with a secretariat table and an almirah for his office.
The CI’s request was , of course, granted by the SP who wanted to settle this personal debt promptly from his official resources. He accompanied the SP to Midnapore, deposited him in his house and returned triumphantly. I thought that would have been the end to this horribilis incidens. But no, it was not to be.
We reached the SP’s bungalow office, the SP was in a lungi and genji, his pet dog and a kitten were sitting near his chair, very imperious, and looked at us as trespassers intruding upon their time.
Within ten minutes, we told him about the Panskura OC’s shenanigans, and after extracting an assurance to start a departmental proceeding against him, we were served tea and cream crackers. The SP was served again, but he shared it with his pets.
And then it happened. Out of the blue, the Addl SP said,’ Sir , I believe you were greatly inconvenienced that day,’and stopped for the effect to sink in.
It doesn't take much time for this to sink in a man who had been more than greatly inconvenienced just a week ago. But with great fortitude , he just said, ‘haan.’
‘Sir, I was wondering that when the PO was Chandipur, why did you go to Nandkumar for help?’ the Addl SP enquired.
PO?Place of Occurrence? Used in police term as to denote the scene of crime, documented as a sketch map in case diaries? A very unfortunate term to describe a place where your SP was divested of his symbols of authority . But who can stop such a person when he is on a roll.
The SP looked at him a bit irritably, and so did his pets.
“ You have been Addl SP of Tamluk for lesser number of months than of the years I have spent as SP here. I bloody well know that the place was hardly a distance from Chandipur PS,’ he snapped, though a bit mildly.
‘But tell me, just a few minutes ago I had asked OC Chandipur for help to clear the traffic jam. The fellow had not only not come to the bazaar, he was sitting cross legged in a mufti, shaking his right leg and reading Pratidin when i went there. The whole thana looked like as if they had not even heard about instructions. I gave him left , right and centre and walked out.”
“Now tell me, with what face I would have gone to him hardly 10 minutes of this berating?
“Amaar ki authority thakto?”
I also imagined the scene of SP shouting, uttering profanities rightfully expected from such a wounded authority, and of OC Chandipur,mumbling his defence, blessed with a voice that was heavily nasal, a sound box which had a preponderance of of female vocal folds, an ever uncertain throat and a full tooth missing in the front that allowed air to pass causing all sorts of confusion to the listener- and fear of spit spray.
Such a lucid explanation in public administration- I thought the Addl SP would be satiated, but I had clearly miscalculated..
“ Sir, it must have been an arduous walk to Nandkumar. It is a long stretch,” he said, with an expression of post facto concern.
'Mai ri , 'I squirmed, from where does he remember a word like arduous , evocative of so much pain and nightmare.
I thought the SP would throw us out. There is limit to needling. But displaying great sang froid, and grabbing an opportunity to philosophise, he said,
“Tumi jano,aami jokhon haat chhilaam, amaar chaar ti shikkha holo.”
‘When I was walking, I learnt four lessons,’ he ‘bilingualled’ for his two abangali subordinates.
I was speechless . How come this gentleman learns lessons from seeing his car walk away from him without his permission. People have been known to lose their wits in similar circumstances and here was this fellow inding nuggets of wisdom in such abundance as one would small unripe mangoes that carpet the ground after a kaal baisakhi or nor’wester.
The Addl SP turned towards me and gave a triumphant smile, as a vindication for his due diligence in the matter of SP, Piddle and the Car Dribble.
“ Sir no. 1?” he enquired quickly asked lest the SP change his mind.
“Ek number holo je je kono ghotna ghot te paare. Any thing can happen. Never in my 26 years of service I thought that such a thing can happen.”
It struck me as simple but profound, and provided the right traction for Addl SP’s curiosity.
“Dui number ,sir?” he prompted.
“Dui number holo je je kono ghotona tomar songe o ghot te paare. Any such incident can happen to you also, don’t think that such a weird thing would never happen to you . “
This great exposition of the ordinariness of one’s existence was a unique lesson for people like me steeped in their exclusivity and uniqueness, of Jesuit education and covenanted police service. It dismantled one’s ego, the self deprecation was so earthy that now even I longed for more.
My immediate superior, his huge appetite for wisdom whetted by these two nuggets, was in an epistemological trance. He cupped his hand , as if he was holding a microphone, and almost thrust it towards the Sage .
'Number three?’
'Teen number holo je you must always carry cash on your person. You see, I don’t carry cash with me, give Rs 100 to my security guard and when the amount is spent , he comes back to me. Imagine, I had no money, I couldn’t hire a van rickshaw, nor get into a bus.'
This was a real shikkha I said. IPS officers usually considered it infra dig to personally get down and buy cigarettes or cup of tea or some eat, and would normally let the security guard do on a reimbursement/ adjustment basis. Usually, they hardly needed to pay for anything though there have been instances of a few insisting to pay for an aath anaa cup of tea. I also did the same, handing over money to Amit , my security guard. It was a habit I learnt from my Phupha, who unlike me was a teetotaller and hadn’t had , right till his retirement as DGP, Bihar, the benefit of serving under an SP like mine with such profound, life changing experiences.
“Number four, sir,” was duly announced.
‘Number four holo, ‘ and he permitted himself a smile , ‘that you should be physically fit to walk ten kilometers.’
Absolutely illuminating. We IPS officers hardly walk , and not used to walking on a highway, walk fearfully, always away from the edge of the road, shuddering with fright whenever a truck rushes past. Walking ten kilometers during those days was never advised by any training SP.
The SP continued , ‘ jokhon Bhogowan dekhlo je chheleti r shikha hoey giyechhe, when God saw that the ignorant the boy has learnt his lessons, he sent CI Nandkumar to rescue me.’ He stopped, and smiled, his teeth shone, and even his eyes, minus one glass eye, lit up at at the denouement.
I was moved, amazed, spellbound. This indifference to vicissitudes of fortune , to pleasure and pain, this acceptance of Fate and Knowledge , their identification with Reason- I doubt whether Zeno of Citium could have explained Stoicism so well.
I thought on this note of Bol Siyavar Ram ji ki jai and all’s well that ends well, I would just get up , salute and walk out. But sometimes, a tongue used to talking cannot remain silent for long. And such a tongue, inspired by an eloquent reductionism of SP of explaining such a complex phenomenon as narrated above in such simple terms, was animated in situ. Suddenly I started up, startled. I heard a voice resembling mine.
“Sir, very nice of CI Nandkumar to have come and rescued you, otherwise had you reached Nandkumar PS in mufti, the sentry wouldn’t have even recognized and allowed you in,’ I heard myself say.
I thought it was a very incisive comment, it had logic and empathy, and I deserved to have this comment, made as the youngest officer present there, commended by the SP , appreciated by his pets, and tolerated by the Addl SP for speaking out of turn.
The SP looked at me and snapped, ‘what very nice! Had the CI Nandkumar not come, you fellows would have never come to know about this story.’
SP’s don’t normally say ‘’Get Out’’ to IPS officers, but every person knows when to leave. There is a silence, as sudden as it is intimidating and indicative. We got up with a shuffle and saluted and turned around. The pets came out to ensure that we had left.
