Wilderness gives me peace and solace. Inside the dense forests, in the company of gigantic trees, I feel the ecstasy of life. The eerie music of the wild crickets, the sharp chirping of the birds whose names I don’t know and the wild music of the forest winds take me into a world where there is no hatred, jealousy and prejudices. Some years ago, when I was really fed up with man’s inhumanity against men, I applied for a transfer to Nelliampathy Panchayat Office. Nobody wants to be posted there as the village is inside an evergreen forest. I lived there far from the reach of human greed and treachery, in company of the trees, birds and animals.
Now, bitter experiences have again forced me to climb the hills to the Nelliampathy office. One of the experiences is described below. Most of the applications received in a Panchayat Office are generally for building numbers. The stipulated time period within which the applicant should be allotted the number is one month. The applications received in the front office will reach in the hands of the section clerk the next day and the section clerk will forward it to the overseer for site verification report. After receiving the site verification report, if there is no violation of construction rules, a building number will be allotted to the applicant.
Quite often, Panchayat members approach the section clerk with recommendations to allot building number to influential people—violating the order of applications. Recently while I was entering the names of the applicants in the distribution register to forward to the overseer the previous day’s applications, a man who had just submitted his application told me to forward his application that moment itself so that he could take the overseer with him that day. I told him that the applications received that day would be forwarded only the next day and I was not ready to forward his application as the applications received the same day for the same purpose had not even reached my hands.
The next day the man lodged a complaint against me alleging that I misbehaved with him. The complaint was baseless, but what surprised me was that in the complaint he said he was government employee! A government employee wanted to violate the norms! And local leaders of the ruling party were behind him! I thought these people didn’t deserve my service and asked the department’s district superior officer to transfer me to Nelliampathy. Within a week he issued the order and peace descended on me.