Bureaucratic Entanglement

For the past few days, I was there alone, naive, verdant and affected. Against the most insidious of the machineries of this great malfunctioning country, but for some placebo effect, the outcomes have been surprisingly far less catastrophic. The Bureaucracy. It was present more daunting than ever in one of its most crapulous manifestations, BSNL. The Bored Senile Nefarious Legion, pathetic de-acronym job on my part, but hell do I care, they stood for all that for me and more. The innocent 'request' was for an internet subscription, whatever happened to the customer relationship and servility. Perhaps I am being an idealist. In their dingy workshops, they fabricate the most impervious systems in this world, inert to change, to sedition.
In the BSNL office, with innumerable clusters of moth eaten files, covered with a stubborn patina of dust and so to say abeyance. The very arrangement, or the lack of it, was a testimony to the counter productivity of the institution. If there was a vacuum cleaner so invented that would challenge even the most obstinate of the dust, our sarkari offices are there for a letdown for the claimers. The sweating officer incharge, was sitting, though a little more patient than other in the kin, was blithfully ignorant to the relentless ringing of the phone. Another vestige of the falsification of the 'at your service' flattery painted even more carelessly. Collectively, the head office of the feckless firm was looking like a warehouse, with rags adorning the floor, you get the fleeting feeling that you are in a tent house. It took me an hour to get myself to be rude enough to fight myself out of that cacaphony of other crapulous junta around. Strange ways of functioning there, rule one came as a soft admonishment, "Push enough and be vehement enough to get yourself to be heard. Those people aren't going to help you in any way. To Hell with them." In this period of tryst, the officer was half the time on the phone and the rest was a bashful display of self absorption.
This led me to filling up the necessary documents, deposition of money. The labyrinthine queue, replete with people of all shapes and sizes, with the hankeys and shirt sleeves at overdrive, the summer was almost adding insult to the injury. In all of the tumultous two and a half hours of the sordid affair all was done, which consisted of filling up the form and getting the receit. For the rigorously bruised self respect, I came back with a compensation that I will get to blog from my couch within a day or two. But, the inevitable 'but' is a staple of this decrepit organization. First three days went in hope and fading away of it. When with a sprightly heart I used to gaze at the 'This page cannot be displayed' message, that I could soon cross the protocols of the world wide web, repaid in sweat and anguish. But the smile was constantly dampened, when three days later I was standing again in that forgetful place. Till it went out, giving way to a rebellious rancor. But still you know that it wouldn't help you, only you would be the cardinal sinner in the eyes of the almighty officer, being a subject to his spurious wrath. With empty assurances, I came back everytime. It was close to a week now. And I had stopped looking at my system, even switching it on and gazing at the 'server not found' window. I peeked up, squinted my eyes with a gnawing sense of inadequacy, the seventh day, was when I put on teeka and left my home.
Getting down to the fixated venture of working up the 'connections', I found a person to go with me and be my advocate, to curry favor, bearing the facetious grin of familiarity, he asked like a personal concern, damn, he was good. That was alleviating though for the time being, thinking that would serve the now desperate purpose, I returned. But like a cursed creature, a dunce at timings, I couldn't comprehend their definition of two days. The next day was a moment of truth, the ultimate reckoning. Its me and me alone. None else. I was terse and forthcoming. This time holding my volume, I intoned the matter. And through the babu's protean gaze, I caught his scanty brain's ability to make his thick spectacled eyes focus. He said, curtly, "No orders yet". I realized the point at once. I had come in knickers, so maybe that would be enough to get his volatile arrogance to spur up. I was spurned. Compromised. With an intention to come with a phone call from his boss, I left for their other branch. But the appurtenance of the 'but ' come again. To my utter disgust, the epochal orders had been issued the same day. It struck me like a brick. The whole week I was being manipulated like a jackass, made to shuttle like a guinea pig on the tread mill, running around in circles, with such a heinous insensitivity, that it made my head to spin. With growing unrest, I stormed out of the Spartan building, to go back to square one, putting all the effort to a wistful ineffectualness. That moron officer reacting in his standard, corner-of-the-eye look, meanly dismissed me to some other person. This turned out to be the same person I had been trying to make myself heard for the past week, only were we dealing with the hindustani mannerisms of 'bhaisahab', 'suniye' etc. Back to square one, told you.

With another temporizing assurance, I held myself with a determination more immovable than Himesh Reshammiya's cap, I insisted on leaving until he was ready. With great pains, he managed to move his perverted arse out of his cavern. And within half an hour, after the necessary technical earthing glitches did I get a constant line, and for a relieving change, my Internet Explorer didn't show 'Page Not Found' this time. I hung my head down in mollification and smiled with a sense of achievement. It was high time I faced such a demanding facet of our needs, and in god's name I wouldn't forget how this realization came, when a mundane procedure underwent metamorphosis from the pressures of inefficiency and corruption, into a veritable battle of truth.

This post is commemoration to all I underwent in the past week. With each passing day, my efforts unsubstantiated, it was a charge to allay my bruised ego that I refused to surf from some meek terminal.
Beuna Fortuna.