Yesterday we had been to the local sub-registrars office as we (the children of Lt.Col. S.A.Maria Dass) wanted to release our share of the inherited property over to his wife and our mother. All this because my father failed to make a formal will!
The sub-registrars office was a typical Indian government office. A shabby run down home converted to an office with second hand furnitures, plastic chairs and bits of paper strewn all over the place. On one side of the wall hung a huge portrait of Gandhiji with a Sandalwood garland decorating it! I never understood why they have this, were they hoping somehow that they would finally learn what Gandhiji stood for just be looking at his portrait! It really escapes me why these government officials make such a spectacle of themselves!
There is a huge idealogical difference between the man in the portrait and the men working below the portrait. The man in the portrait stood for truth and honesty, he denied himself the pleasures of life to serve the people of this country. The men below the portrait stood for the ultimate corruption eating into the fabric of this country like wood borers! A stark contradiction! I wish these men could at least not be such hypocrates.
The sub-registrar through her pimp demanded a sum of 6000Rs to do her work! We pleaded with her that this would be too much to pay for a widow who lived on her husbands meagre pension. But, she stuck to her guns and said that she needed that amount as it gets distributed to everybody. Everybody, implied "everybody" from the pimp, to the neta!! We parted with the amount for fear that our job wouldn't be done, finally becoming a part of the organized corruption run by "everybody. The goons extract hafta, the police extract hafta, the government servents extract bribes thats no different from a hafta, and all these people operate on the fear of helpless people!
A few people like my father didn't easily give in to such fears. I still remember how he used to boldly walk into the chairmans office and tell him, "I am from the Army. I fought the most severe wars to defend people like you and I never asked for more than my salary!". That was usually enough to bring down the most strict IAS officer's to their knees!
There is one humble request I would like to make to all serving and retired defence personals. Please don't corrupt the Indian Army. The Indian Army is a prestigious institution and my father lived to uphold its honour and glory to his death. He stood for the true gunners moto -
"Sarvatra Izzat-O-Iqbal” (Everywhere: With Honour and Glory).
He hated the Army for what it was becoming! He couldn't come to terms with the politics and corruption wrecking the foundations of this great institution!
Friday, October 31, 2008
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