Travails of a Tax Officer

 

I am a bibliomaniac; I am tempted to buy, if I happen to see books of my taste. My favourite place in the railway station or airport is bookshop. I have purchased a good number of books from railway stations and airports. But I am unable to read all those books. I may have purchased five, read three and if I come across good books I will purchase another five. The unread books get piled up in my library.

I decided to read all those unread books after I retired from service. I politely declined an extension of my job when offered to me, to read and of course, to write. I retired in 2019. I found a little difficulty initially to cope with post retirement life from an active routine service life. During this time I decided to write my memoirs, and to write without procrastination, before memory faded away. I started arranging the old notes, journals I had maintained, although irregularly, to overcome post retirement adjustment problem.

Then Covid-19 from China reached India and government imposed lock-downs, shutdowns and all kinds of restrictions. I got myself confined to my house. The communication to outside was through telephone, internet, face book or WhatsApp. A feeling was there that the future was uncertain, anything could happen to anybody at anytime. A few of my known or near and dear ones died of Covid. The conditions were quite depressing, I  went into depression. Then I felt the urgency to finish my memoirs which I had started a few months before the onset of the pandemic.

I finished the first draft by December, 2020. Bharat Bharati published the book Anichhuk Prasasak and released it in October, 2021.

The book received, to use a cliché, mixed reactions. Most of the readers appreciated the book and were full of praise and a few condemned me. Those who appreciated the book telephoned me, sent messages through WhatsApp or posted their views on Facebook timeline. I am quoting here some of the views, particularly sent through WhatsApp or posted on Facebook timeline in English only:

 

(Manisha is a school teacher and Sudhansu, a student of English literature, a was special commissioner, GST)

(Sailendra is a banker, resident of Mumbai)

                                          (Radharanman is a banker, residing in Mumbai)

Those who condemn me does it on my back, except one who wrote two pieces in a web magazine, of course, without mentioning my name, but castigating me and casting personal aspersions. The persons to whom they vilify me duly inform me. It pains me when I learn some of those who malign me were once my friends; at least, I considered them so. They speak one thing in my front and the opposite behind; of course, this peculiar behaviour not unusual with the persons in administration I have witnessed during my thirty years stint in the tax department. The appreciation elated me and vilification amused. I am grateful to those who admire and thankful to the condemners. For, both have contributed to sale/promotion of the book. The publisher of Anichhuk Prakasak, for the first time, paid a handsome royalty for half yearly sales of the book.

My friends of outside the state, on learning the publication of my memoirs in Odia from the Facebook and WhatsApp, urged me to write it in English so that they could read, and I obliged them, and now “A Reluctant Bureaucrat.” Shalandi Books has published the book within a very short time. Thanks to Shalandi Books.

(Sibabrata Das, IAS (Rtd.), retired bureaucrat  is reading A Reluctant Bureaucrat)