Memories of an ordinary Indian :: 28 :: Jabalpur (Part 1)

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Mable Rocks at Bheda Ghat, near Jabalpur

I was out of Raipur within five months as I was asked to proceed to Jabalpur to hold the charge of the divisional headquarters there. I spent around a couple of days with my brother at Bilaspur and then caught a train. My brother had already talked to the Collector Girish Buch and I was supposed to stay with him till I made my own arrangements. Girish, a bachelor, was there at the station to take me to his house which was bungalow in the Civil Lines. As I got off the train he told me that he was under orders of transfer and that he would leave within a day or two. His replacement was AS Das whom I knew as he was my batch-mate.

Girish, bless his soul, died rather early. He was excessively fond of anything made of tomato; juices, soups, curries and things. He was a very good soul. He had certain personal peculiarities: he would bicycle down to the office even though he had a spanking new black Standard Herald parked in the garage. The car’s seats and everything were wrapped in plastic. The car would run only from the garage to the porch and back again to the garage in the evening. I never saw him driving the car during the few days I spent with him.

As soon as Das came over he told me there was no question of my moving out. He said “let’s stay like we did in Mussourie”. My accommodation problem was thus solved – at least for a few months. And we had a great time together. On Sundays we would go to the Narmada Club and play billiards while sipping beer with sausages. Prem Nath, the film actor and brother in-law of Raj Kapoor, used to be playing on the other table. He was at a loose end as for sometime during that period when he had a lean time with no films on the floor.

Jabalpur (Anglicised version was Jubbalpore) was earlier in the erstwhile British Indian province of Central Provinces & Berar. On reorganization of states in 1956 it came under the state of Madhya Pradesh. The town was more or less the geographic centre of India. Strategically well located it was  at one time was a big cantonment and also had an ordnance factory. It had an engineering college, too, where some of our friends studied and built up their flourishing careers in the country and abroad. I met two of them in Washington during our visit to the US in 1998 The predominance of army officers resulted in the Narmada Club being run and managed by the army. The manager was a British Indian Army man called Dungey – a happy go lucky type but quite strict in enforcing the Club codes, whatever they were.

 At Jabalpur I had to take care of postal operation of three districts: Jabapur, Mandla and Balaghat. All were spread over the Satpura Ranges. All the three were relatively backward with Balaghat and Mandla the most backward. Jabalpur was a little more prosperous, the other two were tribal districts with little trade and business or industry. And yet we had to open more and more post offices as the Department was on an expansion mode. Village post offices would be opened even if these were not able to earn their keep. We just went through the motions as there was no alternative; it was a political decision.   

The most important office opened during my time was the Jabalpur City Post office. The proposal was pending for almost twenty years but as generally happens in the government for one reason or the other the proposal remained dormant. This time, however, I decided to push it through. A building was suggested and we quickly met in a rent assessment committee and recommended the rent as approved by the Financial Adviser. The proposal was sent to the headquarters at Bhopal which approved it. After some days I was asked to take all the documents relating to the jurisdiction of this office, the way it as cut out from its parent, to the PMG for him to have a look.

The PMG was the same man who was sizzling hot against me at Raipur. Before meeting him I took everything to the Director, Mohammed Umar Khan, a terribly decent man, to apprise him. In the meantime SP Gulati, an APMG and a downright “chamcha”, asked me to seek a date for opening of the office from the PMG. I was not in favour of an inauguration but since he was so insistent I agreed.

A few minutes later the Director and I trooped in to the PMG’s chamber with magnified maps and statistical and all other relevant information. The Director took upon himself, to my immense relief, to explain the details. The hot-headed old man found he had nothing to better the proposal and asked me the date on which I would inaugurate it. I was watching the proceedings quietly and progressively my temperature was rising as I saw the old man making no move to ask the Director to sit down. It was very discourteous of him to keep a senior officer standing before him. I thought I would never have this man as a guest to open the office. I forgot all that Gulati had told me and blurted out a date. In a rare gracious move he asked me to get in touch with Mr. Khan if I needed additional funds for anything. I said I would do that and collected all the material to scoot out of the room.

As the date for the opening of the office approached, I think it was 20^th March 1967, I was inundated by phone calls from the lower functionaries of the PMG’s office.  All of them by turn told me that the boss had not received an invitation to inaugurate it. I told them I didn’t believe in inaugurations and that the office would just start functioning which, in any case, was the priority. He, it seems, was waiting for a gilded invitation card. I realized how publicity crazy he was. On the 19^th he sent the Director to look up the arrangements. He was more than welcome. But then, one must point out such were some of the officials at high level who missed their profession in politics where they could have had inaugurations of smallest thing to their heart’s content.

* Photo of Bheda Ghat taken by Bandana Bagchi

(To be continued)