A friend indeed

A friend indeed

I cannot forget what happened those days..

It was March 1977..

I had passed out from Victoria College Palakkad in 1976 and there was no job for almost one year..

The resources at home where scarce.. no, miserable..

Practically nothing left at home.. except perhaps faith in good God..

Then, as if he is a messenger from God, the postman brought in a registered post..

It came from the Chief Commissonerate of Incometax at Chennai.. It was the appointment order for me as an Inspector of Incometax..at Chennai..

All that it brought to me was a feeling of relief, some sort of pulling back and rescue from a plunge into an abysmal precipice..

I could not have held on even for a few more days..

Such was the situation..

I was facing the worst low emotionally, financially and in all fields.. No one to turn to other than God..

True it was a relief, a turning point..

The Incometax Department is notorious for draining away all the money from everyone possible..

But it made me.. It had made me what I am..

Every morsel of food I eat today is the bounty of that Department.. Nothing else..

But that is not the story..

I had written some competitive examination and that had fetched me the appointment order..

But I did not have any idea about what Incometax was, what an Incometax Office looked like, or what it meant to be an Inspector of Incometax..

Someone told me that I should go to the local incometax office at Palakkad and enquire about things since now I was to be a part of that set up..

Without much confidence, I started walking from home to the Incometax Office which someone said was near the Mission High School which was four or five kilometers away..

I did not have even a bicycle, and I never had the confidence of going to the main road riding a cycle.

As I walked out of home, I met a friend, whom I thought to be a friend, and in my innocence and perhaps enthusiasm I told him that I had got an appointment order as Inspector of Incometax..

The first question he asked was whether it was a gazetted post..

For me it meant little..

A job, with some income was all that I wanted..

I told him I did not know.. That was that

But I would have walked some fifteen minutes on my way.. I heard a long loud call from behind..

It was the enthusiastic and maybe jubilant call from my friend to whom alone I have told about my appointment..

He was all smiles when he informed me.." I have enquired about it.. It is not a gazetted post."

His tone would appear to indicate that it would have been a tragedy for him had I landed up in a gazetted post..

What a valuable friendship..

It is another thing that I rose into Gazetted Rank and higher positions in the IRS and I retired from the Incometax office at Palakkad as the head of the Range..

It really matters very little..

But the attitude of some friends whom you genuinely treat as friends..

Volcnoes would be erupting in their stomachs if they learn that you have had a full meal or a set of new dress and shoes..

I have put up with such hynae for long periods..

But some fellows chase me and rub in insult while showing genial smiles..

Of course in the name of affability and sociability, I have been putting up with some such characters too long.. though with no use for me..

I have decided, it is time to call a spade a spade..

No trucks with impostors and pretenders..