Ramchandra Saboo, O.P. Kathal & Madam - 7

They are wonderful people. Wonderful they are, because only a few people in India belong to such a community that feels sensitivity & responsibility of being a true citizen of this nation and they both, of course, are in this community.

On a fine day this year, during my stay at Bangalore for a few days with my nephew, I was destined to suffer an untoward incident that eventually caused me to meet Ramchandra Saboo, a sub-inspector of Railway Protection Force.

...My nephew had pulled the chain to stop the train through which I had to travel to Vellore (Katpadi) & , of course, he had done it with an extremely lawful purpose. It may be well-said that the purpose was definitely the one the law was made for. But who bothers in our country to bear the right job ! He was forced to be prosecuted before the magistrate for his alleged act of 'misusing' the chain. Naturally, we were ready to defend our case with strong arguments that we had.

It was Mr. Ramchandra Saboo at this stage who appeared on the scenario. It was surprisingly a new experience for me to see that a 'police-wala' could really talk like a common man with sweet words. He said he could not deny wide-spread corruption in his department & true, in a huge number of cases, misuse of chain-pulling is either deliberately ignored or is under 'pressure' not prosecuted. Yet, the circumstances were exceptionally under such compulsion that the steps of prosecution could not be taken back.
Defending the case was the only option before us. Mr. Saboo did not hesitate to accept the victory would be ours but he reminded us of our lethargic judicial system & suggested to analyse the pros & cons of the situation. If we donot protest what is the maximum in the hands of the court ? Is there anything more than imposing a fine, and that too, not exceeding a meagre amount of Rs. 500 ?

I decided, in the name of practicality, not to protest. An amount of Rs. 500 was imposed & after depositing the same the case was declared to have been settled. What more practical could have been for a sincere last-year student of an engineering college whose exams. were just at hand !! I think I did a right thing as compared to taking steps towards a legal battle and making all possible efforts to get the absolute justice. What do my readers think ?

Similar is my experience about O.P.Kathal. Mr. Kathal is the manager of a nationalised bank's branch office in Jamshedpur town. He gave certain very useful & practical suggestions in connection with the calculation of interest in a loan account. I agree he guided me like a true friend & very successfully brought me to understand my fault. It is rarely done by our bankers.

My experience about Madam-7, an ICICI Bank official, is however not the similar. This is my inability to remember the real name of the lady who was providing her services through counter no. 7 ( an MAY I HELP YOU counter) that day & this is why I am referring to her with this name. Believe me or not, while referring to her with this name I am doing this very very lovingly.

This lady though looks to be desirous of joining the referred community yet she is unable to leave features of her superiority complex. And this is the thing that keeps her away from it. A bulky personality has perhaps her own styles of justifying herself as a smart chap and in this way she loses to gain scores.

An afternoon when the net-services had gone out of function and she was pretending to watch something on the monitor of the computer it had become, for several reasons, easy to understand that her such watching was an useless act. I had to make some enquiry which she refused to answer on the very plea of failure of net-services. I tried to clarify it was not a task related with net but she would not even listen to. After a gap of around fifteen minutes I got burst & placed my case in rather harsh way. A common weak-point of such 'smart' personalities has been the "English" language in our nation. One who can speak in this language gets benefited from such people by way of being immediately attended. The case with me was having two specialities - the first I got burst (with a right cause) and the second I was speaking in English.

It was a magical effect. It happened to Madam-7 that she immediately understood what wrong she had done. She easily understood that a customer should be listened to.

She deserves appreciation. What for ? For her courage to say a clear "sorry". Discussions still have scopes to be organised on whether it is merely an outcome of "English" yet she deserves it.

How many people in India do have such courage ? So, kudos to Madam-7.

--- Savitree