This story is from the mid-eighties, when I was into my second job, handling a spot of sales for a light engineering company in Kolkata. Those were the heydays of militant trade unions, lockouts, different flavours of “strikes” – tool down strike, go-slow strike, gate protests, long processions blocking roads and traffic… the list was endless. I always felt then that the issues were far less than the number of strikes and protests. Few decades on, I still have that feeling.
Coming back to the story I wish to narrate – one day, I was asked by my Sales Manager to go and pick up a Tender Paper from a Government Undertaking and pay Rs.100/- for the same. (It was a princely sum those days, in case you don’t know…). That office was about fifteen minutes by taxi from mine.
I went off
happily to do his bidding. It took me about an hour to reach there because some
people happened to be lying on the main road protesting about something, till
the police came along and created a pathway for the vehicles to proceed.
The office was a staid, old British era building with ornate, hand crafted wooden staircase and ugly tubelights fixed beside those old mini-chandelier type light fixtures, the odd cobweb here and there, and you get the hang of it, right ?
A few more inquiries from the half-asleep doorman and a tea vendor who would only speak to me after I bought a cup from him, and I was at the window where the tender paper was being sold. Told the clerk at the counter about my mission and he directed me to another window at the other end of the hallway to make the payment and collect the receipt, provided I had the one-rupee revenue stamp with me. (Back then, we all kept these revenue stamps in our wallets.)
That
exercise cost me almost half an hour because of the long queue – people were
making payments for so many reasons.
Came back to the first window, the fellow greeted me with a smile and invited me into the room. Then asked me the name of my company. I told him. He pulled out a huge register laid in on the table, asked me again the same question. Then started searching for the letter “O”.
“A…B… C…” it went on till the end of the register was reached, which was “M”. There were alphabet markers, and he could have easily found that at the first go, but no – he had to go through some pages of each alphabet before he concluded !!! Gave a sheepish smile and said he would have to get the next volume. A good ten minutes passed before he emerged from the depths of his office with another equally large register. Laid it on the first one and started searching for “O”. We finally found the elusive character – much to my relief.
He then took my receipt and started entering the details in the register – wonder of wonders, it was not a normal entry – this fellow was definitely into calligraphy or something !! Back then we all used to get handwritten degrees and diplomas from the universities, and names were beautifully written in special styles… This fellow’s writing was far better than that. He kept writing the company name, address, payment date, amount in that beautiful calligraphic style, in the register. Got exhausted, call for the tea vendor, offered me some more tea, then asked me to pay for both !!
After tea, he went back into those dark corridors, to fetch the hallowed Tender Paper. Returned with a smile and said he needs to make another set of entries. Again, the same exercise followed – he entered the Tender Paper details in the register, and my company name on the Tender Paper, all in that same calligraphic style.
By the time I emerged from that office, a good two hours had passed. It was a lesson in patience and calligraphy.
An experience of a lifetime !!
