Nurungukal..2..contd..

        Some incidents refuse to fade out from our memory. Similarly our mind is restless. It tends to fondle thoughts, which later on transform into actions or fails to click. Some such events, sweet or sour however we wish to delete reappear again and again as the impression is beyond erasing. This is more so in the case of any body who had to head an office. I had many such occasions  to recall.

       I always enjoyed to sip the morning coffee while going through the news paper. Especially the brew made out of the raw Robusta coffee from my wife’s estate in Wayanad.  The announcement of the next pay revision was my interest that morning. We had already chalked out a plan how to spend the arrears. Wife wanted some new gadgets in the kitchen. I insisted for a trip far off to escape from the drudgery of the routine work in the office, where as my little son longed for a tricycle. The first page was devoid of the expected surprise. In dismay I turned to the second which usually  dealt with local news.  I was shocked to set the eyes on a column news, about the nabbing of two of my staff by the intelligence police while accepting a bribe from the contractor who was undertaking a civil work in our warehouse premises. I wondered how those two were involved as they had nothing to do with the civil work. The report said that they threatened the contractor to part with a huge amount, lest they would report to the higher ups about the poor quality of his work. Also that the pair has been whisked to Kochi to produce before a magistrate and subsequently remanded. I had been warning them ever since I smelled about their moves.

         Immediately the news was flashed to my superiors and as usual the building up of a case file was set in motion. Although I was not in any way connected with the incident, it made me restless in answering queries and an apprehension slowly started building up in me whether I lacked in some way to restrain the culprits from the unwary act ?. The departmental enquiry followed and both of them were placed under suspension. But the episode gave an opportunity to those who were waiting for a chance to snub me and dent my records and I was shifted to Dhimapur an area inflicted by terrorists in those days, with a pacifying oral remark that my yeomen service was better needed there!!. But my self respect did not permit to accept that weirdly offer and I remained on medical leave till such time  a benevolent superior helped me to get a posting in Bangalore. 

        This experience gave me a message that management  means keeping your eyes open and it should prevail upon every thing around you as its roots are far and wide and unseen to the naked eye.  …….contd….