My PA

I have two PAs. I haven't got a clue why I need even one. Not being a busy person, with pretty much no appointnents to handle or work to get done (damn it, I've jinxed myself again!)and two smartphones which do even remind me to get up and brush my teeth in the morning, why do I even need one?

And the new PA is far too dignified to be my PA. He reminds me of Jeeves. Only that he is a vegetarian. If he could bail me out of all the awkward situations I would get into in future, it would be great. I have always wanted to live like Bertie Wooster, with a person like Jeeves as my butler.

An Aunt Agatha too.

My other PA is a very silent person who likes the calm and quiet of my secretariat. I usually call up people myself as I don't find the point in wasting another five minutes in the PA-PA route.

Probably I will need a PA when I start going on official trips. And of course, they are a great help while submitting travel bills for reimbursement. I remember one of the staff in Kerala applying for two days' CL to prepare his reimbursement claim. Luckily, I don't have to do that, thanks to my PA.

And my old PA is going on a pilgrimage. So I probably will get to know my 'dignified' PA better. Probably he won't be as intimidating as he seems. But this is the first time he is working for someone so down the line.

Let us wait and watch.

The Philosophy of Teleportation and The Missing Key

I lost the key of my apartment yesterday. Yes, it vanished into thin air and I noticed this fact around 7:15 pm when I was at the door of my apartment trying to fish it out from the millions of things in my handbag.

I will not reveal the contents of my handbag.

Let us just say that I emptied my bag and searched for that tiny key. Twice. But nothing was found.

I remembered that I had dumped the key into my bag while walking to the office.

Still I went back to my office and searched for it again. One of the guards even assisted me. But nada!

So I went back to my apartment. On the way I borrowed a hammer from one of my neighbours to break the lock open.

And I broke the lock open.

The humble smithy classes in engineering has helped me in life much more than the much-hyped advanced digital signal processing. Probably because I have betrayed engineering to get into auditing.

When it was chat time, a senior colleague remarked to me that my key might have been teleported into the fourth dimension.

I feel tunnelling to some other dimensions may be a more logical explanation. Who would want to teleport a key to another dimension. It is not as if the lock and key are of any use. Anybody can break them open. Locks and keys are only psychological deterrents against naive thieves.

But then I was reminded of a discussion we used to have during our first year of engineering - is teleportation of human beings even possible?

Assuming that mapping of the entire human body down to the last atom into information even becomes possible, would it not be a case of murder to destroy the 'original body' in the process? Will we be living as blocks of information during the time of transmission? What is life, if that is the case? And if two copies of the same person exist simultaneously, who would be that person legally? Will we ever die if teleportation of human beings becomes possible? For, you can always store the information to rebuild you somewhere and request that you be rebuilt once you start getting old. What is death then?

There are other interesting things too. Maybe we can process the information to generate a copy that is more intelligent, healthy, beautiful, etc.

It may also lead to slavery. You may be able to buy the information requited to create a person and create him/her as your slave. However, I doubt whether the person so created would even agree to the idea.

Oh! The mad possibilities of science!

Yesterday I asked my friends whether a 3 D printed dish of chicken would be vegetarian or non-vegetarian. My non-vegetarian friends replied that it would be non-vegetarian and one of my vegetarian friends replied it would be vegetarian. Perceptions!

The Changes

"Mr. Kumar, internet is down again."
"Madam, they have reset the connection as there was some problem."
This has become a daily occurrence in my office. For a knowledge-intensive activity like auditing, internet connectivity has become a must. And interruptions can delay files.

It has been a dramatic change. I still remember the long queues I used to watch as a kid in front of the counters in SBI. You had to stand in a queue to withdraw money or deposit it. And the people in the counters were very important people.

You still have to stand in a queue. But in front of ATMs now. And it is no longer a transaction that would require an emotional commitment on the part of anyone. Except for the pain of parting away with hard-earned money when you are shopping with cards. But still, you are compensated in terms of the goods/services you get in return.

Taking away of the human element has been a welcome change for most of us. The banks love it as their operating costs per transaction have come down. And soon they will start charging you for what were considered to be their 'fundamental duties'.

It is interesting to note how things have changed and are still changing.

Like how easy it used to be to go into your neighbour's house to play with the kids there. Today I barely know who my neighbour is.

The Monologue Today

Did not feel like cooking today. It was raining, and it was the perfect weather to sleep. So I just ignored the feeling of guilt and continued to sleep till I felt like getting up.

Some say living on your own will make you more responsible. Maybe true in some ways but may not be so true too. When I had a roommate I would try to wake her up if we were both lazy. Or I would sleep till I was dragged out of bed if I happened to be the lazier one. Those were the good old days. Now thanks to being perfectly alone in a five bedroom apartment close to the office I don't care to wake up before noon on weekends. And then cooking for myself is the only thing that is keeping me sane given the 'disorderly life' I am living.

Well, it is not actually disorderly. Except for the irregular sleep part, everything else is in order. I wash my clothes, clean the house and cook. And it gives me a false sense of satisfaction and self-sufficiency. Ah! But I long to take a break and travel someplace far away.

A Monologue

I took over as DAG (State Receipt Audit) of Andhra Pradesh on Aug 26, 2013. Quite apprehensive of what the charge entails, I developed a habit of reading in detail every file that came to me. I used to feel quite guilty when I could not read a file in full. It happened as a result of seeing senior officers like Secretaries to the Government of India signing on files that contained absolute falsehoods. Didn't want to end up like them.

I still try to read most of what comes to me. But I acknowledge that it is neither possible nor fruitful to go through the details of all the files that are put up to me. There is just one thing I take comfort in - none of the files I take decision on relates to life-and-death matters. In most cases, I can take time to decide what I want to do - a luxury that is denied to a lot of my fellow civil servants, for various reasons.

There is a burden of guilt that hangs in my heart when my subordinates sit in front of me and try to explain what their reports are about. They have so much more experience than me! I also feel guilty when I go to my AG - she is a great officer and I hope to be like her some day. She unfortunately has to take up a lot of burden because of my 'newness'. Her patience and sense of balance is remarkable.

I have a mix of people in my office - people who are polite yet firm in their opinions and the yes-sayers who will say yes to anything I say. Personally I feel more comfortable with people who will say 'no' to me right away if that is what they feel. I hope I will remain so. People who agree to everything you say are not helping you but giving you a false sense of security and infallibility.

I remember the first day I joined the office. Sitting in the huge office chair behind the huge table in a big  cabin on the first floor of a building dedicated almost entirely to receipt audit. And I was still a kid at heart. I still am trying to grow up and fit in the role that I have been given. But still there is that hopeless wanderlust in me which just wants to run away from the files to a beach, lie down on the sand and look at the sky till twilight and beyond.

Of course, there is no job that pays you for doing nothing. Once one of our Professors had asked us if anyone of us would work if we had enough wealth to let us live without having to work for a living. I found the idea pretty abhorrent at the time. Now, that seems like heaven. However, I have no intention of being a jobless person. I wish I could be a traveller and write travelogues. Or a freelancer. One of those highly elusive talented people whom everyone respects. ;-)

Maybe I will be, one day. Why be a miser with your dreams?