Coffee break sessions are generally very enriching. You talk gossip. Inside the company & outside it. But sometimes there are boring discussions on business as well. I don't enjoy the former too much. It creates unnecessary negative energies which can be more fruitfully utilized in work. During one of the discussions some intelligent people broached the topic of micro-financing for rickshaw pullers. Basically the idea was that of investment in an investment/ saving vehicle for these poor chaps. I was told that these days, Insurance companies were making a killing with this kind of concept. I did not believe it. My argument was that somebody pulling a rickshaw had too many obligations to begin with - a rent to be paid to the rickshaw owner, some borrowed money to be paid back, rent, daily food & more importantly some remittance back home. It is unlikely that after so many liabilities, the man would have sufficient money to save.
My assumptions have often been steam rolled whenever questioned. I guess that is the way with most assumptions. So, When I talked to a few rickshaw pullers, there was in fact some saving tendency in them despite all the compulsions that engulfed them. I was stumped as usual.
So, I happen to visit one of the top Public Sector Banks. No, it was not that I was on a leisurely stroll, but wanted to collect the statement of my education loan, which I unfortunately had taken from them. The office opened at 10:30 am. I happened to reach the place at 10:00 am, only to find a few people enjoying the morning tea. When I told them that I was in a hurry & had to rush to office after doing the needful. I was answered, " Arey Bhai, whats the hurry? chai to aane do, phir pakode...statement mil jaaegi, jaldi kya hai??.." I wish I could record the conversation & play it before their maverick CMD. But technology often fails when most needed. So, I had no option, but to wait. An urgent assignment required my immediate attention, but here was I waiting for just a simple statement with their rubber stamp. It seemed so archaic. I got a taste of how the erstwhile culture of most government entities used to be. It was accomodative & was fast to the speed of those days. We did not know what a speedy service was, so we never complained. We were fine with the pace of our lives & the pace at which they were being run by the public behemoths. But, then our lives had been deliberately put on a fast track owing to the complusions of 1991. Before we realised, we found ourselves surrounded by private enterprises harping on "Service Quality" and the "Speed of Execution". Indians have this habit of embracing to any new development (be it political or otheriwse) with open arms. We never question its arrival, but welcome it like a guest with open arms. I guess thats what caused our oppression till 1947.
Public Sector entities which had a decent lead in this dash, found the gap between them and their newly mushroomed private counterparts closing too fast. They remodelled themselves and presented themselves as savior to those suffered at the apathetic attitude of private entities who focussed themselves only on quantity of service than quality of attitude. But that was it. People like me preferred a delayed service than a conniving intent. And so I was caught up with this esteemed Bank. By the time I completed my mission, I was brimming with frustration and all the ideas on an organizational restructuring bounced in my mind like protons clashing with each other in a "Fission Reactor".
I reached home and narrated my harrowing experience to my mother. She had her own stories to tell. And I began thinking. When we decided that state entities were supposed to carry out economic activities, the premise was that their primary objective was to serve people, profit was a secondary motive. But, the reality was a far cry. Its a confllicting perspective. Those serving in Public Sector Eentities were meant to serve people not themselves. But a country subjugated to a considerable period of recent history leaves an insecurity deeply entrenched in its citizens, where survival and freedom of mind is of primary importance. Some people might want to term the attitude as selfish, but I will not. Where growth is not the agenda, service will never be of importance.
Nationalism like love is innate in nature. Most of us are yet to fall in love till then we have to live with the "Public Sector" behavior.
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