According to a recent report, Hon’ble Netaji has issued a decree. The office call bell should be removed from the officers’ chamber. Reason? The bell is a symbol of colonial past. We are living in a democracy. So, now while you may have your peon or MTS (as they are called now), you may call him on his cellphone and request what you want. This perhaps had been conceived as the last nail in the coffin of colonialism if not the death knell. One never knew that death of colonialism was so easy—by just removing call bell from office. How easily you have made it die—sheer genius!

In the household lingo, the domestic grinding mill of grains/spices etc. is called Ghar-Ghanti. Perhaps this would be next item on Netaji’s ‘TO DO’ list.

It is said that Mughal emperor Jahangir had put a bell in his palace and the end of the rope was hung to enable aggrieved person to ring the bell to attract the attention of the emperor seeking his audience. But now the grievance cannot be heard. How will you listen? Even if you want to. Office and its files are inseparable. Who will carry files from one desk to another if there is no bell? As far as cell phones are concerned, that also will ring a bell only.

When all the data was digitized in an office, a grand computer section for its maintenance was inaugurated by Netaji with great fanfare and it was explained how all the record would now be available with a click of a mouse. But he forgot that his own staff had since doubled their rate of facilitation fee (bribe). The reason: “Earlier it was in our hands, now everything is in the computer room, where the entry is highly restricted. Even the guys working there can only get in after removing their shoes.”

Instead of removing the call-bell, a better option would have been to make the peon sit inside the room of his Saheb. That would also have been real socialism. The only hazard is that visitors may have mistaken peon for the Saheb and vice versa. This would have been a great motivational positive for the peon.

It could have been better if a Jahangir type bell was placed in the chamber of senior executives, rope hanging out from the window, so that the complainant could ring the bell. I have given the idea; anyone may suggest it as one’s ‘own suggestion’ in the next Monday meeting of Kayakalp (transformation) group.

By the way, rarely are peons found in their seat. How many times have I seen officers making their own tea/coffee. One peon’s bell is seldom heeded by another peon. Not only does the seniority of the peon come in the way, but the seniority of the officer, who is ringing the bell, also counts. In fact, a peon’s hearing ability is programmed to listen to the frequency/wavelength of his Saab’s bell only.

If you think these little superficial steps would make you immortal in the annals of Ministry’s history, you are sadly mistaken. However, you can console yourself that since 1853 none of your predecessors ever thought of it. Why? Because this herculean feat was to be done by you. Generations to come would not believe that there was a Minister who had such an eye for detail and could bring about a bell-less ‘silent’ revolution. Revolutions do not take place without sacrifice. In this case it was you who first removed his own call-bell. You have set the benchmark.

Others are sulking as to what to do to be in your good books. What to remove? To be great, immortal and written about in red letters in Administrative History. Few are mulling whether to remove carpet or chair-table or sofa or all of these colonial symbols of slavery. These are tools of Western luxury. Public servants should lead a simple life coupled with high thoughts. I would suggest that we may do away with this colonial pants, coat, shirt, vest business and start attending office in the quintessentially Bhartiya dress called langot (loin cloth).

Last vestiges of colonialism may die with abolition of call-bells, but the Colonial Masters would continue to live and control through their Liaison Agents, who wear only costly branded attire and speak English with hi-fi accent. You know? The mandarins, however, high & mighty they may pose to be; are perpetually at the beck and call of the Principal Employers of these Liaison Agents, who don’t require any call-bells to summon you-know-who.