To Commute or not to Commute

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No, this is not about the wisdom or otherwise of renting your apartment near your workplace in Hyderabad.

This is about a gentleman called Rasik (I forget his surname).

During my University Days, one of the raging questions was the definition of ‘gentleman’ in the Indian context. Everyone knows the definition of an English gentleman (just look up OED).

Our social structure being so different than the English, the definition ought to be ours own.

I thought that the Hindu Indian gentleman is aptly described by: a ‘gentle’ man.

None of my classmates agreed it could be that simplistic.

But Rasik was a thoroughly ‘gentle’ man. During my 40 years in the Physics Department at IIT KGP, I never saw him lose his cool. He never was found drunk.

Since he was almost permanently posted in the X-ray Research Labs, I met him rarely; except when the Jumbo 10-day all-day ritual of JEE Spot Valuation was on in the Second Year Lab on the Second Floor for a decade or so.

Rasik was the permanent Tea-Provider. DB and myself used to join the Mela not for making good money (which we never did), but just for enjoying the Jamboree Picnic spirit.

Rasik guessed our jolly mood and was doling out Subsidized Tea every hour without asking.

I knew he was a good singer of folk tunes, because he was humming whenever he was free (indeed during his Farewell, which happened a few years before mine) he was asked to sing and he did oblige.

A few days before his retirement, I happened to visit the Physics Office one quiet noon when he was alone with Didi who was egging him on to sign the ‘Commutation Forms’.

He was declining to do what everyone without exception was doing.

Didi was explaining that by foregoing Y Rupees of pension per month, he would be getting 100 Y Rupees as a lump sum, which if he Fixes in any Bank, he would be getting the same Y Rupees per month as Interest; and the Principal would be intact forever (those were the golden decades of ‘tight money policies’ of the GOI and a stable whopping Interest Rate of 12% on FD).

Greed!

Rasik refused to listen to the details.

His logic was simple:

“Didi, if the Government (Shorkar) is offering a crazy (pagla) Scheme like that, it is for their own good; not for my good. No, thank you!”

He stuck to his guns and turned out to be one of the few who didn’t commute!

He said he needed his ‘Full Pension’ which he would like to enjoy and be rid of dependence from his children whom he didn’t trust an inch. And mush less the GOI!

By the time I retired, the Bank Interest Rates sank to 6% and Didi’s logic went phut!

And I am sure the ‘Commuted Amount’ which Didi said would be ‘intact forever’ would go to the Corporate Hospitals of Hyderabad, which will put me in ICU and refuse to discharge me till my PF, Commutation Amount, Leave Salary, Gratuity, my son’s savings, my daughter-in-law’s savings and my wife’s ornaments all go up in smoke; and then they would also offer loans with easy EMI’s to keep my brain-dead body clinically alive.

When we were young staying in the IIT Hostels, whenever any of our colleagues used to go to the B. C. Roy Hospital for admission, the others would sing in chorus the popular Film Song ‘O, Jaane wale, ho saketo lout ke aanaa!).

Same with the Corporate Hospitals of Hyderabad.

I don’t know what happened to Rasikda.

I do hope he is enjoying his Full Pension!