Forum Whispers Forum — 1 Sep 2018
OPINION
Chinese President Jinping has an economic strength despite huge population. He is definitely emerging a powerful leader.
L C Naik
OPINION
As an Indian I will say only Narendra Modi and popular and powerful leader.
M K Jain
Dudh putt.
Whenever some festival is nearby ,reports of the raids on the sweets shops, milk dairies, milkmen and producers of milk products, dot the newspapers like the flocks of fast flying birds in the evening. These vanish as soon as they are sighted. In the year 1966-67,Mr Dharamvira ICS was the Governor of Punjab, when it was felt for the first time, by one and all, that there was an administrator, who had eliminated adulteration of all products, hoarding of essential commodities and above all black marketing. In that era of squeezed commodities rationing used to be the hall mark of the governance, so masses were grateful. His efforts were consistent and regular and not seasonal and a mock play to please the gallery. Recently, the administration has garnered some praise for catching the murderers, who manufactured milk from chemicals and consequently its killing milk products. I am reminded of more than four decades old incident relating to milk.
It was my first posting as Tehsildar under-training in a far away district from my home city. The city was part of the erstwhile PEPSU, and the old eerie princely buildings struck me with countless fears, when I was passing through the bazaar on a rickety rickshaw, to reach the tehsil office. I entered tehsildar's office, which was overcrowded. He was hearing the arguments of lawyers. With great difficulty, I managed to contact the peon there, who ,after knowing my credentials took me to a small room, which was retiring room of the tehsildar. It was a very repulsive room and it made me think of my days of freedom at Amritsar. The dreary thoughts of having to spend my future in such places, were demoralizing .After an hour, tehsildar came in and assessed me with piercing eyes, which could not hide gravity of my being an unwelcome intrusion. However a week passed by and there was a slight relief from pangs of loneliness.
One fine morning, I was called by the tehsildar at his residence. He told me that there would be a function at ADC'c house after three days, so we must go to him for asking ,if we could be of any help. I was diffident and told him,''I am new to such matters and don't know how I will be able to help him. ''I was thinking of excusing myself, when he cut me short, ''no!no!no! If you want to be a good revenue officer, you must become expert in such matters and now is the right time to learn all this''. He forced me to ADC's residence. The way he was greeted by him, it was obvious that he was a regular visitor there. Immediately after we were seated, he said in all humility, ''Hazoor pata laga si,kake da janam din ae,mein sochya janab kolon koi hukam hakam puchh aawan.(i have come to know that your Honour is celebrating son's birthday, I thought of getting your orders for any work).''ADC, first looked at me ,then hurriedly said,''lorh ttan nahin si, par fir we dekh laina 60 kilo dudh bhijwa dena,kal sawer takk(there is no need but see if 60 kg milk can be arranged by tomorrow morning)''.''Ho gaya hazoor(done sir),''Tehsildar said gleefully.
We came to tehsil and local patwaris , qanugo and, registry clerk were called. They were assigned the task. Qanugo was a very intelligent person. He said, ''Sir, in the months of May and June, because of the scarcity of green fodder, the milk yield sharply declines, and it is difficult to get this much quantity''. However the targets were fixed to be achieved by 5pm that day. At 5 pm local patwaris informed that they could arrange 10 kg and that too from the Halwais. The other two persons also gave so many reasons, which were discarded disdainfully as lame excuses. Tehsildar knew some sarpanchs of nearby villages. Their contribution was almost negligible. We took 2 peons along and went to a distant town . There we could arrange 10 kgs from the halwais. By 11pm only 40 kg milk could be arranged. I was so upset that i thought of leaving this service. Ten kilogram water was mixed in the already diluted milk. In the early morning 4 kg milk was got at a high premium from the house of chief agriculture officer, by befriending a man ,who milked his buffaloes. The total quantity was handed over to the nazar of deputy commissioner ,who was overseeing all arrangements. We went to meet the ADC to tell him, ''Janab kamm ho gaya si (sir ,the work has been done)''.I heaved a sigh of relief that no further duty was assigned then.Had it been now ,we would have gone to spurious milk manufacturers and provided the material a day in advance.''
Surinderjit Singh Sandhu, Amritsar
