ITC vs IPS
A packet of 10 cigarettes of Gold Flake Filter Kings costs Rs 29.50 and a double packet costs Rs.59.00. Whenever I buy a packet for Rs.29.50, the vendor does not give me back the change of 50 paise and I ask him to give me a matchbox instead which he generally obliges. If he is not that very obliging, I give him a stoic smile and walk off with a little of my ego hurt and 50 paise lost. But IPS probationers are not made of the docile stuff like I am, as some of them proved in Hyderabad recently.
Four probationers of the Vallabhai Patel National Police Academy recently went out for a night of freaking out. They had a few pegs in a bar and came out to buy a packet of cigarettes. And that’s when ITC created the trouble. The cigarette vendor charged them Rs. 60/- instead of Rs.59/- for the double pack of cigarettes. The probationers who had passed the toughest selection test in the world, had already illusions of the mighty power they were going to exercise once they pass out of the Academy, especially with a couple of extra pegs inside them. So they thrashed the shopkeeper and his father – for charging that one rupee extra. Perfectly normal! Believe me I wanted to thrash many a panshopwallah for half that amount!. (I always buy the packet of ten cigarettes; so the disputed amount is only fifty paise) But since I do not have the courage of a policeman, I impotently keep quite! But our Police probationers were in for a surprise. The villagers around could not tolerate the inebriated indecent behaviour of the future police officers and so gave them a good thrashing, which obviously they never got at home or the Academy. And the valiant probationers are in hospital nursing serious injuries. Allegations and counter-allegations are being made. What will happen? The drunken brawl of the probationers will be taken as boyish bravado and they will be saved and very soon they will head the Police organisation in some districts. The poor pan shop fellow might spend a few weeks in prison for attacking future policemen. And the world will go on with its new problems forgetting this minor incident.
Bad behaviour by probationers is nothing new and the fact that they can get away with such bad behaviour is also nothing new. More than a quarter of a century ago, an IAS probationer, while on a trekking camp, in an inebriated condition abused two women probationers and threatened them and other probationers with a loaded pistol. The Director of the exalted National Academy of Administration, PS Appu was aghast and recommended to the Government to dismiss the probationer from service. Do you know what happened? Appu lost his job!
Our IRS probationers are a milder lot. But here is an interesting episode. A lady probationer went to the market and bought a hand bag. When she came back to her room she found the bag was torn. A chivalrous (male of course) colleague took her back to the shop and slapped the shopkeeper. The shopkeepers in the neighbourhood gave a good thrashing to our Knight Commander scuttling all his hopes to score a point with the lady.
Recently a probationer was attached to a Central Excise Range for field training. As the probationer was writing the civil services examination again, she sat in her room and was preparing for the examination instead of wasting time with the Range Superintendent. The Superintendent who wanted to teach a couple of things to the probationer was annoyed at the absence of the probationer and complained to the Commissioner. The wise Commissioner told him, “you teach her as and when and if she comes to you, if she doesn’t come don’t bother and don’t bother me”
I recollect an incident when I was the Technical Superintendent of a Commissionerate. I used to see a couple of important looking probationers strolling in the veranda. One day they came into my room and questioned, “Technical Superintendent?” I thought they had come to, learn from me the intricacies of Central Excise law and asked them to be seated and I was getting ready to give my little speech to my audience of two. “We have to go to the quarters”, they declared, “please arrange a vehicle”. I felt sorry for them. They were only probationers, they did not know which Superintendent to ask for vehicles and NACEN does not teach them these elementary lessons!
Coming back to our IPS probationers in Hyderabad, I feel ITC is to blame for the whole sordid drama. Why can’t they make the price of their cigarettes Rs 60/- a pack instead of Rs. 59?- Is there a kickback? My agony is more – than the IPS probationers. I buy a ten pack and it is Rs. 29.50. The panwala does not return my fifty paise and I can’t beat him up like the brave probationers!