There are some people thinking about whom will never fail to bring a smile to one’s face, despite all the negative aspects of their personalities. By their foolishness or perhaps what they think is their cleverness, they sometimes do things, which result in comic situations, which can only be laughed at and enjoyed.
I have come across a few such people, one of them being a “messenger” at the news agency office where I began my career as a journalist. A messenger’s job was to take files from one room to another, take verbal messages from one staff member to another (there were no mobile phones then), place orders for tea at the canteen, bring newspapers to the editorial desk and many such similar tasks. As the atmosphere of our office was quite informal, all the “messengers” were on friendly terms with the other staff. They were a jolly lot, mostly busy gossiping among themselves out in the sun in winters and in the small room reserved for them, in summers.
While I was in the head office in Delhi, there was no opportunity to know the specific character traits of each member of this team of messengers. However, many years later when I set up the agency’s bureau at Dehra Dun after the new State of Uttarakhand was created, two messengers of this team were posted to our bureau. They were reluctant to come here from the head office but had no choice. They looked down at Dehra Dun as a “small town” and never failed to boast about what they used to do at the head office. Of the two, one was keenly interested in getting promoted to the post of a journalist and worked hard at writing stories in his spare time (of which there was plenty here).
The other (let us call him Gajendra Singh) was a class apart. He belonged to a village near Muzaffarnagar and I believe that he had been sent to Doon from Delhi so that the head office could be relieved of his presence for a few years. His only aim in life was how to escape work and go back home for a holiday. With this sole objective in mind, he would always try to come up with some excuse or the other to take leave.
I was at a loss as to how to deal with him. All his leave was exhausted within the first two months of the year. The comic situations resulted from the numerous strange excuses he came up with after this. Once he had gone to his village and returned after a week, all bandaged from head to toe. When asked what had
happened, he told us that he had a fall from a very tall tree, which he had climbed for fruit. However, we were amazed how he was walking normally (were the bandages only a fancy dressIJ) and showed no signs of any pain. When the other messenger spilt the beans, we came to understand that the bandages had been specially donned so that he could show us how sick he was and go back home. He was ridiculed by the entire staff but he could not have cared less. Realising that this game was over, he pulled off all the bandages! He sure had some cheek.
One winter evening, he came to me for “emergency leave” as his father had passed away. When I told him that his father had passed away when we were in the Delhi office, he simply denied the fact and insisted that he be given permission to go to his village. When I refused, he did not go. later, just to be sure, I confirmed from the other messenger who told me that Gajendra Singh’s father had died when Gajendra was just two years old!
The days when Singh was in office, one could see him pondering seriously over how to escape to his village once again. He was the kind of person who believes that work is an unnecessary interruption in the journey of fun which life is. His brothers had some land which they cultivated. He would always say that there was no need for him to work. I always wondered which work he referred to as I had never seen him do anything but go through the Hindi dailies sometimes. Staying in the office was work enough for him. I wonder what he does now, as a retired man. Now he does not even need to think of any excuses!