3 Idiots,
a 2009 comedy-drama film directed by Rajkumar Hirani was loosely adapted from the novel Five Point Someone by Chetan Bhagat.
Quoted below is a scene from its
screen-play
Rancho tells Mr. Dubey the librarian,
that the Dean had ‘remembered’ him. In his urgency to meet the Dean he leaves
before taking the printout of the speech that he had prepared for Chatur to
deliver in the Annual Function.
[Cut to
Mr Dubey sheepishly entering the Dean’s office]
Mr Dubey: Yes Sir?
[Dean Viru Sahatrabuddhe gives him a
condescending look]
Viru: Who are you?
Mr. Dubey: Librarian…
I’m permanent staff, Sir.
[He gives a fake smile]
Viru: [With an incredulous expression in his tone]: Congratulations!
The librarian has a look of
shock, frustration,
anger, combined with dismay at not being recognised by the head of
the institution in which he must be serving for a fairly long time.
Prosopagnosia also called face-blindness, is a cognitive disorder of face perception where the ability to recognize familiar faces, including one's own face (self-recognition), is impaired,
while other aspects of visual processing (e.g., object discrimination) and
intellectual functioning (e.g., decision making) remain intact.
Again, Anomic aphasia (also known as dysnomia, nominal aphasia and amnesic aphasia) is another cognitive disorder which most of us have experienced:
forgetting someone's name. You'll probe your brain trying to remember,
struggling to come up with even the first letter. Then you get frustrated and
think "Why is it so hard for me to remember names?"
But here we are not talking
of any medical cognitive disorder but of an administrative and more than that a selective
cognitive disorder of people in position and authority.
A top cop used to visit us
at Hyderabad to interact with young probationers almost with every batch and
regularly. Each time during his stay he would visit me at my residence and
would spend some informal time with us. My wife would rustle up a dinner which
he would find delicious and apparently would enjoy a great deal. While leaving
back for his State, he would invariably leave a small note for us expressing
his appreciation for the food and our hospitality in general.
During one such visit to the
Academy, he was informed that he had been appointed as the DGP of his State. In
the meantime I had also received my orders for repatriation to my State.
As luck would have it, I saw
him at the Airport and would be on the same flight. I went up to him, bubbling
with the same informality with which we had met earlier and complimented him. He
almost looked as if he was struggling to place me and with a wry thank you,
accompanied with a get lost gesture of his right hand, dismissed me from his
presence. Both I and my wife were stunned and for next few minutes we couldn’t
speak to each other.
People feel bad when
someone ignores them because people gain their self esteem from the approval of
others. As we grow up we start to determine our worth based on the acceptance
we get from others. In
all fairness, we all have been ignored as well as being on the other side of
the coin. Either way, it is an uncomfortable situation.
During my early days as a
district officer, one day we were informed that the then Governor of the State
accompanied by his wife shall visit the District headquarters. For a backward
rural district it indeed was a very big event. And we were feeling greatly
honoured and proud. The Governor had
also been a former Cabinet Secretary. Soon his tour program along with a
routine advisory from the Raj Bhawan followed, detailing on his and his wife’s food
preferences, blood groups, allergies, if any, his convenient timings to meet
members
of public, a list of
selected persons he would like to meet as well as those who had sought
appointment with him in advance. The district administration went in to an
overdrive so to say, working out the required details. It was revealed that his
preferred color was light shades of green. Accordingly it was decided that a
fresh coat of paint will be applied to his suite in the Circuit House and the
color will be changed to light green. New matching curtains will be brought and
maybe we will find crockery with a tinge of green. The menu was worked out in
great details and that Jeeves of the district administration, called Nazir
Babu, was entrusted with organizing things under the personal supervision of the
ADM. So, the flurry of activities commenced in the right earnest.
We had a former Central
Minister of State (MOS), a tribal leader from the District, who had fallen foul
of the ruling party and had complained of being hounded by its members. He had
seen me earlier in this regard and together with the District Magistrate we
thought we had sorted out his issues.
But realizing its publicity value, he also sought and was granted
audience by the Governor.
At the appointed hour the
former MOS arrived waving at some waiting journalists and camera persons and
anyone who cared to recognize him, with both his hands studded with ten rings
on his eight fingers. I distinctly recall that there were two rings each on two
of the fingers. I was left wondering that when he had so many rings on both of
his hands evidently to ward off trouble and evil influences by providential
intervention, what additional help could the Governor extend to him. But then
his mission had been accomplished as he had registered his meeting with the
Governor through the waiting journalists and camera persons. While being
ushered in to the lounge of the Circuit House he informed whosoever was within
his hearing range that this Governor was the Cabinet Secretary when he was a
central minister in Delhi and they knew each other personally.
His agenda was known to us.
Accordingly both I and the District Magistrate had already briefed the
Governor. The former MOS opened his conversation by reminding the Governor of
their several interactions in Delhi. The Governor without betraying any signs
of familiarity said that he was unable to place him. Several minutes were spent
in the former MOS trying to remind the Governor of many interactions,
discussions on issues, conferences, meetings, location of his office chamber
but nothing seemed to work. With a very distant look the Governor asked the
ex-MOS his purpose to see him. Cut short, crestfallen and thwarted in his
attempt at familiarity, the former MOS made a quick presentation and sought
reddressal. The Governor appeared to have heard him intently and saying that he
will look in to the matter dismissed him from his presence.
After he left, the
bureaucrat in the Governor came alive He looked at the DM and SP who were
wondering at his suddenly going distant and impersonal unlike his vibrant self.
He said that having known politicians over long years in administration, he was
certain that this out of job politician would have announced to the whole world
of his familiarity with the Governor. And perhaps he would attempt to draw
mileage on this count. This could be a negative publicity for anyone in
authority considering he had come to lodge a protest and certainly not to reunite
an old pal. In discharge of your
official duties you cannot afford familiarity. Not only that you should be
impartial but should also be seen to be one.
‘Of course as the Cabinet
Secretary, it was a part of my job to know each member of the cabinet!’
