All that glitters is not gold

By Desaraju Surya
Vijayawada: “If you are not making (earning) at least Rs 50 lakh a month, you are an idiot.”
This was what a relatively young IAS officer had to tell his fellow babus at a grand party he hosted upon his transfer to New Delhi on deputation to Government of India service very recently.
Apart from his batchmates, many of his junior IAS officers attended the party, hosted in the IAS Officers’ Association premises in Hyderabad. The joyous babu’s impulsive remark virtually flummoxed the fellow bureaucrats as the former was “till then” considered a rather upright officer, given his “successful” (pun) track record. Some junior babus tried to draw inferences to their senior’s remark while some others wondered how brazenly one could exhort others to tread a slushy path.
“I heard he comes from a very rich business family. Why still does he have such a lust for wealth,” a junior IAS officer wondered.
The IAS officer in question, during his junior stint in the late 1990s, told me that he joined the service only to fulfill his father’s desire. “He (father) wanted me to become an IAS officer and so I am here. Once I complete my stint as a district Collector and Magistrate, I will call it quits,” I remember him telling me. And, he always used to speak high about Swami Vivekananda and his lofty ideals. He had read the Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda many a time and, in fact, even suggested that I read it. (Though I subsequently purchased the volumes, I haven’t yet read them. It’s a different matter).
During our interactions quite regularly, the officer would also recount his experiences in his previous stints as a bureaucrat. All this, coupled with his style of functioning, has left in me a rather ‘very good’ impression about him.
Years passed by and thereafter I met him on not more than four or five occasions – the notable one being in the house of a former Chief Minister. And, as he began approaching the end of his collectorship, I increasingly thought he would quit IAS very soon and genuinely felt that an “able and upright” officer would not be available for public service.
Another IAS officer, considered the aforementioned’s ‘Chela,’ however sought to allay my apprehensions and asserted that his “boss” was a “typical bureaucrat” and would never leave the service midway.
Between all these, there were many stories related to the officer’s dubious practices of making money. His foray into the booming real-estate and other issues became a point of debate not only in the bureaucratic circles but also in the media, though nothing much was reported about it actually. The kind of impression I had established on him made me discount any talk of wrongdoing on part of the officer and my assumption was that he was filthy rich enough to be corrupt. Since I look at life only in a particular way (largely positive), it did not take much time for my false notion to be broken.
And once that IAS party remark came to my light, I was left with no other option except to accept the harsh reality.
It’s time for me to wear a new set of glasses to look at things in the right perspective.