Everybody believed I had all that requires to be a civil servant, so driven by this belief, I just gave peak years of my life preparing for civil services. Got interviewed once, but the real dilemma started when I came to the bitter truth of having spent all my four chances. Then PCS was left to keep the flame of the undying passion still alive. I belong to Haryana. As all of us well understand, our choice of PCS is just limited to the home state, because the way SPSCs function it is the least of secret. Well, in India most of the corruption breeds from the safe corridors of constitutionality. State public service commissions function as personal fiefs of the ruling party. It was Chautala government when I put up my well polished claim for the state civil services. Easily I crossed the hurdles to reach the interview stage with very high marks. But the all-sweeping powers of the interview panel saw me being rejected with just 28 marks out of 75. There were cases where candidates got as high as 70 marks. Anyway, I learnt a few political lessons, so during the next recruitment, I knew exactly well how to go through the interview stage. But believe me it did not involve any money going out of my already famished pockets. So, all cheers. I went comfortably home with an SDM rank (HCS, 2004, Roll. No. 1093) and the future all bright. Everybody knew that nobody deserved to have his say in any type of favor done to me, because I thoroughly deserved the post.


But Chautala proposed, Sonia disposed. Before we could join, she had the CEC Krishnamurty dashing down to Chandigarh, announcing state assembly elections, putting all appointments on hold under election code of conduct. And during this time the type of wanton drama played by the Governor, state principle secretary and everybody else, it does not even deserve to be narrated by the civilized being like me. Congress came to power. Only after entering the precincts of Punjab and Haryana high court I realized what a powerful entity state is. It is a big behemoth. The way proceedings were monopolized in the court made me so helpless and victimized by the same state which is constitutionally obliged to protect my rights. But here I was paddling like a skinny dog, trying with my meager financial resources to beat the mighty current of state. Is judiciary fair? I always had doubts. But with each day, the realization dawned how fascistically this system of justice acts. Who appoints the judges in the first place? Directly indirectly the politicians hold the string of the puppets dancing on the political stage. Each day for a talented unemployed is torturous. Here after spending thousands all we got was a few minutes stay in the house of justice. For two years the Lord of justice did not even open its ears to our ever increasing clamor for justice. And then the verdict came, it had all the loopholes to make us sit out of employment for as long a possible. We went to Supreme Court, but I don’t have any hesitation in saying that like state high courts are playing puppets to the state governments, the citadel in Delhi is always under the influence of central government. After all who appoints and promotes the judges at all levels. It’s just a well oiled machinery of mutual benefits, that’s all…nothing else.

Chautala had been wrong in installing his stooges in the HPSC before being voted out of power, because many board members were made to resign just in the middle of their term. So when Hooda came to power he found a board full of members with terms for the next 6 years. One unconstitutionality gave rise to another. The new iron lady of India easily got the hand-made President to issue a notification suspending all the HPSC members. Meanwhile, while all these stronger wheels clanked on the high road of power, ego and what not, our heads rolled.

Congress said Chautala had manipulated the selection process. Ask them what they have been doing all these five years. For one wrong of Mr. Chautala they have ended up doing tens. In both supreme and high courts, government of Haryana had given the plea that it has not any vacancy to fit us in. But see what they do. In January of this year, they put up this notification for fresh recruitment. Isn’t it the contravention of their own pledge to the court that they do not have any vacancies. We went to get a stay on the fresh recruitment. But the great legal luminary—having the infinitely open-ended space to write anything suitable for whatever ends he might deem fit—just smartly said no, the government can do as it likes.

Now, having robbed of a decade of my penance for a cause, I do slog out in the private sector. Believe me, my pain is double, because as an educated and law-abided citizen of this country, I always had this notion—born of my bookish knowledge—that state is there to protect my interests and courts are there to save my skin from the larger forces. I but stand robbed of my fundamental belief. Its not just a matter of losing a job, it is the matter of losing your identity as an empowered citizen of an independent country. Now when I slog out in most crowded buses, where getting a foothold is as precious as getting bonus from the government, I certainly don’t feel like an Indian. I feel like an emigrant in my own land. I REFUSE my office colleagues when they try to put the tricolored toy on my desk. Sorry, but this is my tiny revenge against my own state. Somehow, when terrorists strike against state in any part of India, against all my wishes, I find myself giving them a silent salute.

Sorry, but its as natural as this. Just wanted to say something on this. Thanks if you have borne the trouble of bearing with my brow-beating thus far! All in all its just sham democracy in India. We are just puppets dancing on the make-believe stage while the real game is behind the scene.

18. Surrender




God! Here and now I surrender before thee,

Let fate onwards be

At war with the prime deity,

Let it draw all arrows from its kitty.



Surrender to the nectarine form,

God! Brave now thee, thy own norm,

For I have lost the battle,

And leave war for you to settle.



I bow before thy supreme grace,

As defeat proudly brace

The low held head,

While, all will-power gone dead.



Too loudly victorious conchs blare,

And the defeated, wounded can’t dare

To touch the weapons in dust lying,

For, winner’s fatalmost arrow still eyeing.



So many efforts butchered this macabre,

Aah! The annihilator with its tabor,

Its ghastly, nasty dance,

Gives me not the singlest chance.



God! Now I lie at thy feet,

And see how thou beat

Someone who fought so valiantly,

Fell then down silently.

22. The Oldman and the Night




The Oldman and the Night,

Both of them lie awake.

His life fading out of sight,

Cough, meanwhile, doth a serious-shake.



Lost out dark world around,

Times ago he was born,

The soul when got aground,

Old, old ! Now it is other world-lorn.



Night is his companion now,

The day too hectic and bright,

So many of them swiftly passed, how?

Now the night comes, fades as sight.



The night tries to bring sleep,

O mother, child sleepless for too long,

Time may come for a slumber deep,

And motherly it whispers a song.



Too much hurried was the day,

While the night hast much patience,

The day only for the hair’s grey,

The night doth die it black in silence.



The oldman and his old mother,

Thus, stand by each other,

Stepmother will come with sun-rise,

How will then cope the sun wise?

9. Alas, The Orchid Too Far!




Rising rays fell upon a dream,

Shining future got flowerly glown,

And expectations windily blown,

Nobody, meanwhile, listened destiny’s scream.



How painfully he nourished that dream!

The sweaty toil to nurture

And water the bud for flowery future,

How rugged the chosen path seem !



The path to that

Lush green orchard,

For whom he went diehard,

While, the fate chuckling for a bet.



Went flowerly on the path,

Following the flower of life,

Alas, the ‘predetermined’ preparing its knife,

To cut the bud for its bloody bath.



Reached he when there,

With his feet all bloodied,

The bud lay already buried,

And the orchid gone for cemetry’s bare.



God, why sincerest efforts fail?

Perhaps, victory too loses

To huge efforts, which give it repeated bruises,

The unsung heroes, whom it doth hail.

78. Harvesting Girl




Harvesting girl, thy wheatish brow,

Thereupon shine the labour crops,

Receding furrows of wheat heat thee up,

And thy sickle becometh shakti.

Parched lips, work strain on sweating face,

Trickle which upon eyelids upon dreams,

Keep heart O girl, prism they are,

Showing imagination hued coloured hopes;

Hopes of a good harvest; home upstaged

Or groomed dreams about marriage.



The wheatish colour strewn around,

All eager to be cut short by thy hands,

And there thou move ahead leaving stumps,

Wiping occasionally brow thine;

Dreamt harvest go off with a swipe.

Real thou become for reality one:

Look at the furrows swaying ahead,

Hot noon, flying pollens show them oblong,

And thou start slowly-slowly again,

Brow thine meanwhile daughters sweat tiny.



Drops which fall upon thy eye shelters,

Beneath narrowed eyes due concentration hard,

Still sun reflects through them,

And rainbowed vision thou have.

How much to be finished? Worry thee not,

Lost again in a dream, O girl, thou mingle in gold,

Work as thou bent headed; pollens fall,

Seems it thou harvesting, give offerings,

Blessed such thou reach furrow end,

Tire not O girl, furrows lie at thy feet.



Small sand-swirl passes as by,

Leaves it thy hair more pollened; wind furrowed,

O windy girl, now when loo is forming,

And all are afraid of sandy gusts,

Thou, but, have fire more inside thee,

Hence listen thou not its voice around ears,

Thus defeated it passes to flutter those leaves far,

Now when sun is shining overhead,

Like a father feeling for his daughter,

Stays it there to avoid thy face directly.



Thou smell the smell of ripened gold,

Sweat scented body thine sources it,

Mingles it with the blowing hot air,

And the message spreads over the vast fields,

The message of hard work without complaint,

Makest it the golden wheat more so;

Inspires the lonely hands struggling across furrows;

Beats away the looming defeat.

Harvester! Thou art the only flower,

For the spring begone, and honeybee wandering.



Peasant girl, stand thou upright for backrest,

And look around into wheatish wilderness,

Nobody is there except some heads

Bent before the furrows and sickled hands,

Feel not forlorn O golden girl,

For thou art the brightest grain,

See! Each lesser one is looking up to you,

Become their role model for brightness’ purpose;

Grinding awaits them after all,

O apostle grain, go on with thy mission.

8. Journey with the Autumn




Autumn, become my friend,

Thou holding my hand,

Take me through windfalls,

So that worry I not about my own tree’s calls.



The tree where summer’s ripenings,

Too fruity, heavy for branch’s likings,

The air through their fall singth,

While, thou make me follow thy greyish path.



‘See not thy own windfalls’,

Thou say, dodging thy falls,

And push me from my tree,

So that I become mourn-free



And the autumn path brownish,

Summer’s warmth vanish

Joyfully from fruits, leaves,

Vow! Fairy for its beauty not grieves.



Happily I run with thee,

Away! Away! Where another season be,

Where a tree, glee with fruits more,

Where the frigidity opens its springy door.





9. Alas, The Orchid Too Far!



Rising rays fell upon a dream,

Shining future got flowerly glown,

And expectations windily blown,

Nobody, meanwhile, listened destiny’s scream.



How painfully he nourished that dream!

The sweaty toil to nurture

And water the bud for flowery future,

How rugged the chosen path seem !



The path to that

Lush green orchard,

For whom he went diehard,

While, the fate chuckling for a bet.



Went flowerly on the path,

Following the flower of life,

Alas, the ‘predetermined’ preparing its knife,

To cut the bud for its bloody bath.



Reached he when there,

With his feet all bloodied,

The bud lay already buried,

And the orchid gone for cemetry’s bare.



God, why sincerest efforts fail?

Perhaps, victory too loses

To huge efforts, which give it repeated bruises,

The unsung heroes, whom it doth hail.

6. Enlightened Moon




How mysteriously the moon

Was shining last night !

Dim, oblate, struggling half,

As if a fallen hero

Trying to arise for a fight.



The great souled !

Waging still a righteous war,

Though shadows were subduing light,

It did not seem faint hearted,

Went on fighting, without caring

For the infamy about look,–

The popular esteem of a full moon.



How divine was its even-mindedness !

Exempt from pleasure and pain,

Loss and gain,

Thus, free from pairs of opposites,

This scion of warrior class

Went on with its dispassionate work,

While, the sense objects around,

Scattered sleepy across the ground,

Find this seer of truth,

Quite unfathomable.



7. Too Far the Birds have Gone



Where the birds have gone ?

Too many of them used to roam

The sky over villager’s head,

Yesterday, I saw a couple too sad,

Are many of them dead ?



The parrots, pigeons and sparrows ;

Humanity’s flowery arrows,

Have they gone too far ?

Away ! Where man is not at war

With the nature, –

Awaits where future

Like a self imposed zoo,

While, vast treeless tracts rue

For the natives now exiled.



Sometimes, the winged visitors come

To solace the mighty tree gone dumb,

The houses now without corniced crevices,

Oh ! The niches, holes from the wall

Enter the plastered souls,

Architect, thou grow too tall,

Too spacious and monotonous fouls,

Accommodate which only human,

Oh! Why thy constructive acumen

Sprouts only from nature’s grave?



The birds thus try to reach

Where we still have not,

The beaks which used to teach

Our siblings, evade now our civilizing shot.