GREETING THE PRESIDENT
My friend Gopal came to me one morning and said “Do you know, today is the birthday of the President of India V.V.Giri”
He sounded excited. Unable to gauge his misplaced feelings,
I said nonchalantly, “So what it means to us”
“No, not like that. We should send a greeting telegram to Rashtrapati Bhavan. Come, let us go to the Post Office.” He reasoned.
“Seeing your enthusiasm, I thought it was actually your birthday!” I said amused.
My remark made him blush a little. I did not find any privilege in dispatching a greeting telegram to a person occupying the highest office with absolutely no personal acquaintance. What do the high and mighty care for the ordinary like us. After reassuring myself that he was not joking I went with him to the nearest Sub-Post Office which was in a walking distance away from our house, as I did not want to dampen his spirits.
Gopal wrote the telegram form and handed it over to the Postmaster who himself was transmitting the telegrams. The person seeing the text addressed to the President asked, looking somewhat puzzled, “Is V.V.Giri related to you?” Feeling a little embarrassed at the impromptu question from the Postmaster, my friend replied as if in self defence, “You know, Sir, any citizen can greet the President on his Birthday”
“Oh sure you can” the Postmaster said, hiding an expression of mockery in his face.
My friend felt happy at his self importance after dispatching the telegram to the President of India. He was the lone sender, my name was not included. Neither was I interested in formalities or falsities. No acknowledgement was received from the President’s office much to the disappointment of my friend. Blame it on the postal service.
After the telegram encounter, the sobriquet for the Postmaster was V V Giri ! Poor man he got into the mire.
Gopal was modest and friendly in his student days until his marriage. He hailed from a middle class large family with his father passing away leaving the young siblings. All the younger brothers, sisters and their mother were under the care of the elder step brother and sister in law. The atmosphere in his house would not have been any liberal and unfrugal under those circumstances.
He luckily got a teaching job after completing his Post Graduation. The day he joined his college faculty he particularly asked me to accompany him on his first day, which I did heartily.
He married a distant relative of his, coming from a well to do and well connected family after a long courtship. She was also working with a good pay packet. His economic status and fortune surged and his attitude towards his old friends changed. An air of superiority and lukewarmness gradually started appearing in his interactions with friends like me.
If a man marries a rich woman he gets a ruler not a wife, the saying goes.
The person who used to share his secrets before did not care for me in the same way after. Otherwise he was a mild mannered and well behaving person. Perhaps his better half might have appropriated his better part all to herself !
When he was in a humble situation he thought it great to greet the President of the country, albeit in a telegram. When he rose economically in life and got well settled he thought it low to meet or greet his friends. Idiosyncrasies of human nature. Some men change with the times. Some watch the times changing. I have been ordinary all through my life as there was no other option to pretend otherwise. Self-conceit is a weakness of the mind not strength. Be as you are.
In any case nothing remains forever. Human relations are transient. A new impression banishes the old.
ESKAYEN
