Part – II

Ire of gods and sorrow of souls

Section 1: Punishments of goddesses

Goddess of Osiyan

Tiger and pups

Someone drove me to Osiyan in early morning when I visited Jodhpur in summer ’94.  I purchased ingredients for my ritual and worship of Chamunda at the foot of the hill   before proceeding to the temple about a hundred and odd steps above the base of hillock. The priest exchanged my coconut with an unmarried girl during the worship possibly on the command of the goddess, I felt. The occasion of my worship marked a betrothal ceremony in the Hindu tradition. The deity tied herself with me through her medium for a future assignment known only to her.

Many years passed without    any incidence after my visit to Osiyan and ceremonious contact with the goddess. Chamunda let me not vanish from her eyes, however; I was  only unaware about the plans of the goddess in future. Nothing related to Chamunda came to my notice, however, as the years slipped one after the other till 2002.

Unexpected information was before me in mid-2003 about likely re-employment of mine on a higher post in ONGC five years after my retirement. C&MD had desired the appointment of Vigilance Chief in ONGC after evaluating a chosen few top managers already retired from job. I was one of them.  A man working in the health department of my organization informed me about strong possibility of my appointment as Vigilance Chief due to excellent health record at my credit.

On September 23, 2004 an officer working under me before my retirement talked to me from Mumbai. He was in the Vigilance department on the post of Deputy General Manager, and it was not difficult for me to make out the status of papers regarding my appointment. These were at Mumbai for enquiry by the person on line.  On October 10, he was at Dehradun and wished to brief me on the subject. I restrained him from doing so in view of a protocol requirement. I did not want him to inform the Corporate Management of ONGC that their message about my appointment has reached me. The top had a plan to judge me through my behavior after the information was with me. Corporate bosses wanted me to feel deeply obliged by a reappointment on a higher post after years of retirement; and, expected me to act like a docile pup – wagging its little tail and licking their feet.

I remembered of a vulgar simile about pups still lingering in my head with all its repulsiveness. Dr. Pravin Togadia, a firebrand speaker of Hindu learning, compared members of a national political party of India as pups around an Italian Bitch in his speech of 2002 impliedly. I often felt like extending the simile of pups to the Indian Bureaucracy and Managers in the government and semi-government services after more respectable logo of ‘His Master’s Voice’ became extinct. Opinion poll # 242 of March ’07 by India Today logged 81.13% YES in response to “Is the UPA Government shielding Bofors-accused Ottavio Quattrocchi?” The percentage, in my interpretation and assessment of the poll results, also reflects approximately the percentage, magnitude and number of pup-minds in the bureaucracy and corporate management of government companies. 

There was another attempt from the Personnel Department of ONGC on November 23, ‘04, hinting more clearly through a low rank officer of Hindi Department that I could be an officer in ONGC if I contact the top of my company for my assignment of going on tour to Chennai in February ‘05.

  The Corporate Management of ONGC had misjudged me, I felt. I was a scientist, not a manager in grain. My decision was: I will not respond to overtures from the pups of the company unless the organization followed a respectable protocol of informing me. Result was on the expected lines; my name did not figure in the list of senior appointments in January ‘05. Exercise to induct a tiger as pup in ONGC commencing in Mid-2003 came to an end.

Desire of the then C & MD and Director (Personnel) to see me as a pup scuttled my appointment. They did not know that they were dealing with a man betrothed to Chamunda of Osiyan. Such a person could only be a yellow feline with black stripes, full of contempt for the pups in government companies who were trying to lure him for a senior position through junior officers killing standard protocol.