To Sir With Love

Note: This is one of the articles which i wrote for Income Tax Magazine i-Tech.

If there is one word in which life of a bureaucrat could be summarized, it would undoubtedly be SIR. Such is the beauty of the word that in bureaucratic dictionary it is a shortcut for all other words, facial and verbal expressions. If you agree with your boss, you tend to say Sir sir sir, mind you it has to be exactly three times. Frequency matters here. And if you don’t wish to comment on the boss’s idea and just wish to nod your head as a neutral expression (oops indifferent, neutrality and bureaucracy are like arch enemies) then it should be like “sir sir” with a quick succession without letting the air slip between the words.

If you are in a state of shock over being asked to do certain impossible task like coming to office on time, you utter sir only once but this time the emphasis has to be on S as in SSirr. And if by any stretch of imagination on a bad day of yours or in a fit of bad mood (after receiving rebuke at home) dare to think of saying no to your senior then you ought to say the holy word in some unholy fashion like S being pulled back like a slingshot and r is pushed forward so it sounds like “sarrr”. At this stage your eyes should be fixated at the corner of the room and mouth should be half-open with air intermittently slipping out like air comes out from a pricked balloon.

Alas, Just in case the conversation goes too long then you don’t need to say the full word. Rather as a smart bureaucrat (which every bureaucrat is by virtue of cracking UPSC), you should save your energy and just say “sa”. Sources reveal that most of the bureaucratic training and officer like qualities revolves around this central concept of “variety and usage of word sir”. Oxford dictionary has also regarded this word “Sir” as the source of all bureaucratic energies. In fact, just after the invention of Sir, Britishers decided to pursue sea voyages and developed the confidence of ruling the world.

When our team talked to one of colonial era ghost roaming around India Gate, we were told that Sir has polymorphic characteristics like Java’s + operator. It brings a sweet combination of subservience, obedience, duty, responsibility, accountability without any powers, benefits and recognition. Such is the killer instinct and sharp edge of it that any creativity, freedom and sense of self-belief is nipped in the bud.  We were told that beauty of sir is not restricted to bureaucracy and planet earth. Even gods have borrowed it to their kingdom for breeding unquestionable faith and inculcating a sense of hierarchy. The recent researches in the field of astro-linguistic and sound amplification science shows that NASA has captured a distinct sound emanating from all the planets of the solar system. Any guesses what it could be. Sir sir sir sir saaa