Rudimentary and Corrupt

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Drops of sweat raced down his sideburns towards his neck as the man in front of him in the queue bent over to deposit the application form he had been holding for a good two hours since morning. The processing clerk on the other side of the grilled counter smiled as he got a view of Shreyas when the man in front of him had bent over to shove the application form over to the bored government employee.

Shreyas too smiled back, the clerk was a colleague, junior, but colleague, nonetheless. 

"What are you doing in the line, boss? You could have sent the papers through Manjhi or Savita." queried the puzzled clerk, even as he carefully entered the details of the application form submitted by the man in front of Shreyas.

"It's fine. I have taken a day off." Shreyas replied quickly wiping out the sweat droplets, that had now reached his neck.

"Sir, you are too young to apply for your own child. Running an errand, I see." the clerk said peering over Shreyas' application as he now stood directly in front of the counter.

"Hmm. I am yet to marry, let me know if you have a suitable bride for me in mind." he tried to play it down. Although he had completed his PhD two years ago, he was only twenty-six, besides the fact that he had never done a favour this big for anyone in his life.

It was the month of May, a time when most government colleges solicit applications from prospective candidates for filling up vacancies. 

One morning, a couple of months back, Shreyas had woken up to a crowd of eight people knocking loudly on the rickety old wooden door of his usually deserted government quarters. He stayed alone and had fallen in love with the solitude his fifty-year old clay-tile roof quarters accorded to him. All of the faces that his semi-open eyes met that morning were unknown, so they widened up suddenly. 

"Yes?"

"Ram Narayan ji, from Jaunpur sends his regards to Shreyas baba. He has sent these as a small token of his appreciation from his own orchards in the hope that they will supplement Shreyas baba's health in the same way they have enriched his own." the giant of a man, with a voice as sweet as a maiden's, replied in a way only possible if one were to learn the script by-heart.

"Bade papa....All of this...for me?? Are you...." although Shreyas was no more sleepy, his mind had lost coordination with his eyes, because of the menagerie of fruits, vegetables, sweets, even chicken that were rushed in by people who gleefully carried them in baskets, heavy baskets, placed over their heads. Smiles on their faces haunted away whatever sleep was left in his eyes.

"I am the village head-man of Kishangarh, on the other side of Ganga ji. Ram Narayan ji asked me not to disturb your Sunday. So I came early. I will return next Sunday with some local delicacies that are only prepared in Kishangarh. Hope you find our fruits sweet. Ahoy! Come on, people. Get on board, let babuji enjoy his sleep." his voice was more assertive and definitely more hoarse towards the end as he hailed his people to get on the SUV parked outside his quarters gate.

His bed squeaked as Shreyas sat down with a thump in disbelief. Slowly, he regained his senses and recollected the source of the events that morning. 

During the Holi vacations a week ago, he had visited his paternal uncle who lived in Jaunpur, Uttar Pradesh. It was nearly five in the morning when the state-run bus halted near Ram Narayan's ancestral building. Shreyas got down from the bus and turned around to wave at the girl he had befriended on the way. The driver changed gears and the bus grunted away- the smile on Shreyas' face fading slowly in sync with the diminishing visibility of the girl's face in the bus window. The loud clanking of cymbals drew his attention away from the bus and towards the huge palatial house of his uncle.  Unlike his colony in Delhi, which wore a deserted look on Sundays till 9 in the morning, the little town, it seemed, had woken up hours earlier. The occupants of that house were out and about their chores after a long night's sleep. The horizon was beginning to brighten up, but the sky was still mostly engulfed in darkness. Birds dotted the dark, blue velvet as they set out on their daily quests. 

That Sunday, sitting on his cot, in his quarters, Shreyas fast-forwarded his flash recall to the courtyard scene in his uncle's house.

"Shrey beta, you know what it took to get you into New Delhi University, the Registrar of Varanasi Holy University, no less. He had taken personal interest in getting your application processed, which of course, entailed blocking 130 other applicants, allowing only those who had a name besides their own written on the envelope. He took interest because, he owed me one and you are my own baccha. What I did to earn that favour is stuff of folklore now, I won't go about bragging to my own nephew. What I do intend to tell you is that your father and I had been through some very rough times in the past. We were young and reckless, blood that flowed in our veins then had more fire and less hemoglobin. Although back in our time, physical abuse wasn't too grave a crime, pride was still at stake and the head-man of Kishangarh, where the incident had happened, knew this. He let us off, on a promise of quid pro quo. We had since been in his debt. He never called. We had taken for granted that the deed was done and dusted. But, Prabhu Ram has his own ways of settling scores. His son, himself a grandfather, is now the village head-man. This Holi, only two days ago, we received word from him reminding us of the promise. This head-man, Kanhaiyya Lal, has an imbecile of a grand-son, a couple of years elder to you. He is married, twice, no less! He has three children from two wives, but no income of his own. Word of your appointment in NDU reached his ears, and the imbecile turned out to be quite a sticky bastard. He went to Delhi and dug out all the slush from the files of your interview and decided it was time to call the favour in. What favour, the bastard had the balls to summon me! 

I am old now, not enough fire running in these old diabetic veins anymore. I had to yield. I promised him that you would do whatever it takes to help the nincompoop get a job. What coincidence! There was an ongoing recruitment process at your university at the same time. So I called up your father to send you here urgently. I could have called you myself. But Kanhaiyya Lal insisted on seeing you. He has a grand-daughter too, you see. I hear- and pardon my language- she can breathe life into the dead just by walking past the bodies. Speaking of the dead, she has been at the center of two skirmishes in Kihsangarh and one little incident here, in Jaunpur. The toll her beauty has taken amounts to about a score, thus far. You obviously understand what I mean, don't you?"

"Uncle. Seems like Ganga ji is getting polluted by not just the factories, but also the people thriving on her banks. Fine, tell me what to do." Shreyas said, shrugging his shoulders.

"Oh, no no. You are my own baccha. What is there to do! Nothing at all. You don't have to bat an eyelid. Everything has been arranged, you see. You, well.....you just have to say, you know this bastard..that he is your candidate. You have to say this just at the right time at the right place and to the right people. Is that too much I ask from you?"

"Too much or too little, I am not marrying any Kishangarh reject. I can say this to Kanhaiyya if you need me to." this time Shreyas hissed back.

"See? The same fire, same blood after all! I will take care of that. Don't you bother your young head with it. What was it you said about your bus to Delhi then, five in the evening today, yes?"

"Yeah. I'll be off today."

Shreyas fell on his back on the bed. His mobile phone flew off the mattress and fell on the floor with a sharp thud. He didn't care. His experience in favours was, well, a naught. But he realised, that to get a village discard a job in a Central University was a tall order, to get it in NDU, an impossibility. Towards that end, only an insider referral would create a small window, big enough to get him a driver's job, the Vice Chancellor's driver, no less! Fortunately, the village imbecile had been a rich one, had driven around in many cars and SUVs, and had a driver's license too. Shreyas tried to calm himself down. He closed his eyes.

"Sir, sir. Your candidate is here." the clerk's large spectacles appeared in a blur as Shreyas opened his eyes. 

It was noon now. He had napped after filing Ranvijay's application, superscribing with a fluorescent highlighter his own name along with a prefix at the top of the form. The processing clerk, an old hand, had obviously taken note and quickly forwarded it ahead of the others. In fact, he knew the coding system so well that the other applicants who had turned up for the interview had only thought it to be routine. The deal was settled in minutes. The clerk got richer by almost a lakh and the panelists, by a million each.

Ranvijay got the job. He didn't bother searching for Shreyas. He knew, they were now even. 

Shreyas took a transfer to Sikkim two years later. He knew, nobody applied there.