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Father and I used to travel from our village Muthukur to the town Nellore, 12 miles away, fairly frequently. At Muthukur we had only one post office and a sole red post box in front of it. But as we walked along the streets of Nellore I used to see several red post boxes in various stages of decay and dilapidation...relics of the Second World War maybe. Some had rusted tops, others dented sides and yet others tiny holes in their bottoms.
And I asked Father how to decide into which boxes I should insert post cards and envelopes...the process of pushing in the letters always hurt my hands...I had to stand on tiptoe and insert the inputs into the hole and ensure they cleared what felt like a maze of iron chains.
Father gave me the recipe:
"Any post box that has a lock on it is sure to be cleared...use it...no lock means the box is defunct"
That was sort of a golden rule that worked...Govt of India was too poor then to invest on locks for unusable boxes.
When I joined IIT KGP there were no 'lockers' in the Departments or the Establishment Sections. IIT was a small place with little bureaucracy. Each Department had a peon (whatever he was called...like Office Attendant). And there was this Dispatch Register.
The job of the peon was to open the Office in the morning before anyone came in and lock it in the evening after everyone had gone out. In between he had to carry circulars, envelopes, and other messages to other Departments (including the Registry and the Director's Office). Our clerk would address the envelope, give it a long-winded serial number like IIT KGP/Phy/Ac/ Feb/Goddammit/106, and enter it in the Dispatch Register into which the envelope was inserted and hand it to the peon who would carry it to the concerned office, deliver it, get the receiving clerk's signature and carry the Register back...it was an awesome duty since most envelopes were bombastically marked 'Confidential'.
This wholesome practice went on till about 1980.
And from about 2000, the workload of the peon got reduced drastically. This was due to the advent of e-mail. All Departments acquired PCs and the clerks got wise how to receive and send e-mails.
The Registry had its own massive server and its e-mail id went like:
"gmail@iitkgp.ernet.in"
This gmail has nothing to do with the modern Google Mail...no...it just stood for General Mail. The purpose of the gmail was to send official communications of general interest from the Administration to the Departments. But it had an Administrator who would scan the mails for propriety...for, pretty soon announcements of Birthday Parties and Melas like Club Fests and Holi Milans used to appear in our gmails.
Till the Administrator was rebuked and transferred and a new one appointed.
Between 1980 and 2000 was what I would call the Golden Era of Lockers.
This was the period when the number of departments, centers, halls, and sections of the bureaucracy suffered an explosive inflation, and the old system of Dispatch Registers and Peons got unwieldy and inadequate. So all of a sudden there appeared everywhere, including in all the departments, a huge array of Godrej almirahs split up into various pigeon holes like 12x6 with slots for inputs, each with provision for a latch and lock. Even a nonentity like me had a locker on which I put up a lock for the heck of it.
The Administration equipped itself with a vast array of lockers with holes for each and every Section, Department, Center, Hall which it had to deal with. All these monsters were centrally located on the 4th floor of the Registry. Every Section of the Registry used to dump its messages into the various slots throughout the day.
The job of the Peon of each Department and Center got reduced to making only two visits to the Registry Lockers to clear them out and hand the contents over to his clerk...one in the morning and one in the afternoon.
Whenever I used to walk along the corridors of the Registry's Jumbo Locker Array, I used to notice that every department and center had put a lock on its locker...except the Dept M whose locker was at the bottom. And the peon who had to clear it had to bend or squat in order to open the lock, clear the contents, re-lock it, and carry the goods. Maybe the chap then had a pot belly or arthritis or whatever...anyway it had no lock, sort of mocking the other 40 odd lockers.
Late one evening I was on a family visit to our then HoD, Prof K's Qrs...we were then family friends...meaning our wives were friends. And I found Prof K somewhat distracted and tensed up. During our chitchat I detected from his general and vaguish remarks that he was hypertensive if his headship would be extended for another term or no...the then Director kept everyone on their toes till the last minute.
And Prof K looked like waiting with bated breath for the morning to dawn and get to 8.30 when his peon (who had the Physics locker key in his pocket) would fetch the locker contents that carried the good news or the bad as ordained by Gods.
It was 9 in the night...and I excused myself for a few minutes. And scooted to the Admin Locker Complex, squatted before the M-locker, and rifled for the fresh input circular announcing the fates of various HoDs under consideration for extension or termination.
And found the open notice and read it...and the news was good.
I then carried the piece of paper to Prof K's home and congratulated him showing the thing. He heaved a sigh of relief and my wife asked his wife for a Party.
And Prof K asked me how I could get a copy of the 'secret' circular when the Physics Locker key was with Kanta Rao...and I said:
"Never mind...give it back to me...I have to excuse myself for another ten minutes"
And ran back to replace the blessed notice where it belonged...in its open dump.
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Father and I used to travel from our village Muthukur to the town Nellore, 12 miles away, fairly frequently. At Muthukur we had only one post office and a sole red post box in front of it. But as we walked along the streets of Nellore I used to see several red post boxes in various stages of decay and dilapidation...relics of the Second World War maybe. Some had rusted tops, others dented sides and yet others tiny holes in their bottoms.
And I asked Father how to decide into which boxes I should insert post cards and envelopes...the process of pushing in the letters always hurt my hands...I had to stand on tiptoe and insert the inputs into the hole and ensure they cleared what felt like a maze of iron chains.
Father gave me the recipe:
"Any post box that has a lock on it is sure to be cleared...use it...no lock means the box is defunct"
That was sort of a golden rule that worked...Govt of India was too poor then to invest on locks for unusable boxes.
When I joined IIT KGP there were no 'lockers' in the Departments or the Establishment Sections. IIT was a small place with little bureaucracy. Each Department had a peon (whatever he was called...like Office Attendant). And there was this Dispatch Register.
The job of the peon was to open the Office in the morning before anyone came in and lock it in the evening after everyone had gone out. In between he had to carry circulars, envelopes, and other messages to other Departments (including the Registry and the Director's Office). Our clerk would address the envelope, give it a long-winded serial number like IIT KGP/Phy/Ac/ Feb/Goddammit/106, and enter it in the Dispatch Register into which the envelope was inserted and hand it to the peon who would carry it to the concerned office, deliver it, get the receiving clerk's signature and carry the Register back...it was an awesome duty since most envelopes were bombastically marked 'Confidential'.
This wholesome practice went on till about 1980.
And from about 2000, the workload of the peon got reduced drastically. This was due to the advent of e-mail. All Departments acquired PCs and the clerks got wise how to receive and send e-mails.
The Registry had its own massive server and its e-mail id went like:
"gmail@iitkgp.ernet.in"
This gmail has nothing to do with the modern Google Mail...no...it just stood for General Mail. The purpose of the gmail was to send official communications of general interest from the Administration to the Departments. But it had an Administrator who would scan the mails for propriety...for, pretty soon announcements of Birthday Parties and Melas like Club Fests and Holi Milans used to appear in our gmails.
Till the Administrator was rebuked and transferred and a new one appointed.
Between 1980 and 2000 was what I would call the Golden Era of Lockers.
This was the period when the number of departments, centers, halls, and sections of the bureaucracy suffered an explosive inflation, and the old system of Dispatch Registers and Peons got unwieldy and inadequate. So all of a sudden there appeared everywhere, including in all the departments, a huge array of Godrej almirahs split up into various pigeon holes like 12x6 with slots for inputs, each with provision for a latch and lock. Even a nonentity like me had a locker on which I put up a lock for the heck of it.
The Administration equipped itself with a vast array of lockers with holes for each and every Section, Department, Center, Hall which it had to deal with. All these monsters were centrally located on the 4th floor of the Registry. Every Section of the Registry used to dump its messages into the various slots throughout the day.
The job of the Peon of each Department and Center got reduced to making only two visits to the Registry Lockers to clear them out and hand the contents over to his clerk...one in the morning and one in the afternoon.
Whenever I used to walk along the corridors of the Registry's Jumbo Locker Array, I used to notice that every department and center had put a lock on its locker...except the Dept M whose locker was at the bottom. And the peon who had to clear it had to bend or squat in order to open the lock, clear the contents, re-lock it, and carry the goods. Maybe the chap then had a pot belly or arthritis or whatever...anyway it had no lock, sort of mocking the other 40 odd lockers.
Late one evening I was on a family visit to our then HoD, Prof K's Qrs...we were then family friends...meaning our wives were friends. And I found Prof K somewhat distracted and tensed up. During our chitchat I detected from his general and vaguish remarks that he was hypertensive if his headship would be extended for another term or no...the then Director kept everyone on their toes till the last minute.
And Prof K looked like waiting with bated breath for the morning to dawn and get to 8.30 when his peon (who had the Physics locker key in his pocket) would fetch the locker contents that carried the good news or the bad as ordained by Gods.
It was 9 in the night...and I excused myself for a few minutes. And scooted to the Admin Locker Complex, squatted before the M-locker, and rifled for the fresh input circular announcing the fates of various HoDs under consideration for extension or termination.
And found the open notice and read it...and the news was good.
I then carried the piece of paper to Prof K's home and congratulated him showing the thing. He heaved a sigh of relief and my wife asked his wife for a Party.
And Prof K asked me how I could get a copy of the 'secret' circular when the Physics Locker key was with Kanta Rao...and I said:
"Never mind...give it back to me...I have to excuse myself for another ten minutes"
And ran back to replace the blessed notice where it belonged...in its open dump.
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