I remember an incident in early 1979 when I was posted as Additional District Magistrate at Meerut. Once the Commissioner of the Division visited the district and I accompanied him on his tour. The visit went off very well and he was quite happy with the work done. In the evening, we were returning in the same car on our way to Meerut. The Commissioner was a very good man and the success of the tour gave me some courage to speak frankly during the journey. At that time I was a young officer with only three years of service and was unaware of many realities of public administration. However, I was aware of the interference of vested interests in administration, as a result of which most officers were not able to work fearlessly. So I asked him certain questions about this aspect, curious to know whether it was possible for an honest and sincere civil servant to work fearlessly despite outside pressure. The answer was, naturally, not that simple but he said that though it was definitely possible to work fearlessly it required a lot of wisdom and other virtues like ability and perceptiveness, for an honest and sincere civil servant to reach that stage. The matter ended there but the question occupied my mind for a long time.
As far as I can introspect, I have always tried to work sincerely and honestly. I was not troubled by people who had vested interests, as most of the time I could get my way through them. Having completed over thirty five years of service and reaching the age when one should acquire enough wisdom to look at life in its true perspective, I feel that life is like mathematics and the problems of life are similar to the problems of mathematics. If the fundamentals of life are understood, then life’s problems can also be faced easily. In that case, life becomes a pleasure and its difficult problems only add to the pleasure of living. In brief, I would say that life is a wonderful opportunity for elevation and it should not be wasted on mundane affairs only, just as the purpose of mathematics is not merely to pass the examination but to understand and apply its principles in life.
The purpose of life should be understood in its true sense and it should be taken as an opportunity for achieving its goal. With that clarity in the mind, the difficuIties attached to life become very small and add to the pleasure of living. Such people score high in the mathematics of life without much difficulty. In worldly terms, there may be more prosperous persons around them but when it comes to the examination of life, it is they who secure the highest marks. And all this happens effortlessly. Let us first accept the simile of life with mathematics and feel the urge to understand its fundamentals. Once we have the urge, we will find the way and help will come from unexpected sources. No doubt, a sustained effort is required on our part, but once the process of understanding is over, life becomes scoring as well as enjoyable, like the subject of mathematics. We can then easily aim to score cent per cent marks, no matter how difficult the paper is.
