Dear readers, you may find this hard to believe. But you are currently reading words written by a man who once almost became an officer of the Indian Administrative Services (IAS). And when I say “almost became”, I really mean that I applied for the exam, obtained a registration card, spent several weeks preparing for the exam, and then decided to never take the exam.
This was some time in 2002 or 2003. My memory fails me. But yes, one day, in a fit of fury, I ripped my registration card into shreds and flung it out of a window in my maternal grandfather’s house.
Instead, I applied for an MBA entrance exam. And then, having completed said course in management, I became a journalist. So everything has gone according to plan. Ahem. Cough.
I find the general Indian public’s sentiments towards IAS officers really quite fascinating. Every once in a while, there will be an online post or article or update about some young, bright, ambitious person somewhere in India succeeding in this competitive exam of all competitive exams.
“What a proud day!” people will say. “Your family must be so proud.” “You are the future of India.” “And that future is bright because of people like you.”
And then 15 minutes later, the same people will say, “This whole country is in the toilet because of bureaucrats. But there is no toilet! It has been stolen. The prime minister himself is working day and night, with hardly any sleep, surrounded by little more than a few camerapersons and the odd peacock. And yet these babus will destroy everything.” Et cetera.
Which means that the ideal period of any bureaucrat’s career in India, at least in terms of public appreciation, is that brief period between clearing the exam and joining the actual service.
So, why did I fling little slivers of the UPSC registration card out of a window straight into a cow shed? An explanation is warranted.
As many of you may have already gathered, I was a very diligent student in my childhood. I worked hard, rarely got into trouble, and while I never consistently ranked first in class, I was never ranked lower than 10th. I struggled with mathematics, a terribly outdated discipline in the age of calculators, but I was very good with languages, excelled in the sciences, and was really quite world class in organic chemistry.
All the elders in my family always made it a point to keep me on the straight and narrow. One “uncle” in particular would tell me things like “never lie”, and “always follow the rules”, and “always be god-fearing”, and “don’t do anything Jesus would not” and so on. Every single time we met, his first question would be “why don’t you go to church today?” or “I hope you are reading the Bible every day, Sidin” and some such.
All of which was fine. But then one day someone told him that I was preparing for the IAS process. Immediately he came over, ushered me into a room, and then shook my hand. “Very good, Sidin!” he said. “This is great news. Once you become an IAS officer, you can finally do some important things for me.”
Dearest readers, he immediately rattled off a long list of the shadiest things I have ever heard. From real estate deals to banking scams to passport fraud to... Let’s just say that these were all things Jesus would very much not have done.
Which is when the young Sidin realised something. “Oh my god,” I thought. “If I somehow managed to become some sort of civil servant I would spend my entire life fending off things like this! Oh no!” I secretly tore up the piece of paper and flung it straight into the face of an unsuspecting cow.
Readers, and I am particularly talking to all you children and youths, I think it is time we came up with a word to describe this conundrum. Where our elders spend their entire lives telling us to live moral, upstanding, high-minded lives, reading volumes upon volumes of moral science textbooks, only to encourage us to indulge in nothing but chicanery the moment we reach adulthood.
And that word is: sanctimoney.
Example sentence: “For 15 years, Thomas Uncle made me copy ‘Honesty is the best policy’ into my moral science notebook. Three days after I joined the bank, he called to ask whether I could ‘just slightly adjust’ his brother-in-law’s CIBIL score. Pure sanctimoney.”
Friends, youths, and children, have you been victims of sanctimoney? Have you had your uncles, aunts or grand-people segue from virtue to vice? What did you do? Did you end up becoming an IAS officer? If so, please send me an email. I urgently need some documents attested by a gazetted officer.
The writer helps early stage companies communicate better. He blogs at www.whatay.com.