BUREAUCRACY IS BLISS...

...IF YOU ARE ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE RED TAPE.
I have been appointed the Chief Conductor of the University of Mumbai's M.Com Part-I and Part-II examinations that are being held at our college from 15th to 24th April this year.
Sounds daunting? Or so I thought. I've been a lowly supervisor in exams before, which entails 2/3/4 hours of sitting in a classroom full of scribbling, shifting, sometimes-copying students, all demanding extra sheets/water/answers to how-to-fill-up-the-first-page, ma'am. No sooner than I sit down to open my page-marked book, do I have to get up again to attend to another student demanding yet another sheet of paper.
All that has changed now. As the top drawer of the bureau(cracy), I have an efficient Senior Supervisor, a 'pro-active' (how different is that from just 'active'?) Understudy Senior Supervisor, a whole team of hard-working Junior Supervisors and numerous peons at my disposal, who do all the hard work.
All I do is come fifteen minutes before the exam starts, sign the brown envelopes containing the question papers which are unsealed and opened in my presence (High and Mighty, eh?), and take a lordly tour of the classrooms when the exam actually starts. And, of course, I have to stay till the end, when the answer-scripts are counted, coded, masked with black-adhesive-lined-paper (this sounds like a spy-thriller!) and finally tied into bundles with brown paper and sealed with red lac. I love watching this final, ancient, tamper-proofing ritual. The fans are switched off, the red lac stick (I must get one for my kids) is burnt in the candle-flame and the dripping lac is applied onto the joints and folds of the brown-thread tied around the bundles, and then it is stamped firmly with a brass lock. Transports me straight back to the maharaja-eras!
If you've read Upamanyu Chatterjee's English, August, then you'll know that officers in the Indian Administrative Service have all the time in their hands to get doped/shagged/bored out of their minds. But I have spent my bureaucratic-windfall-of-time sitting in the library, surfing the net, blogging (and reading blogs) to my heart's content. From a weekend-blogger I have become a weekday-surfer. Three hours of unmitigated pleasure. Ah, the perks of bureaucracy!
When the warning bell goes ten minutes before the end of the exams, I close the comp, gather my things and saunter down to the exam room to, what else, sign official papers and lord over the final proceedings!
Today, the much-feared "Squad" (appointed to curb cheating and to ensure that everything's in order) came for a visit, and we were kept on our toes for an hour, visting rooms, displaying records, faking smiles. Now they have gone and I am back on my bum, writing this post.

P.S : My short-lived bliss ends tomorrow, along with the exams. After that, it's back to being a clock-challenged mom and midnight-blogger. I should have taken my mom's advice and sat for the IAS (Indian Administrative Service) - exams. A few months of slogging...rewarded by a lifetime of blogging!