The Last E-mail

It is my last day at my present office where I have spent more than five years of my checkered life with people who have become more than family, family in the sense of spending so much time together, sharing laughter and tears, working on assignments- complicated and easy and monotonous. Coming every day and looking at same faces have never stopped mesmerizing me. They are all sorts of people –fun-loving, practical, idealistic agnostic, serious, religious, garrulous, reticent, and what not. They all got skills and personality traits of different kinds. Whatever be their inclination and preferences, every one of them gives a new insight to life, a novel perspective to see things and an inspiration to acquire what they so authoritatively possess. What would be life without their presence, without their magical touch, without their warmth and without their support! I am what I am because of those wonderful people whom I met as a stranger and gradually became inseparable. And still it is moment to part our ways. Seems unbelievable that we won’t eat together during lunch hours, won’t have tea during dull moments, won’t laugh over silly stuff, won’t talk on phone incessantly over some grim matter, won’t argue over what course of action to follow to make our programme more successful and much more. It has taken some time to dawn on me this realization and had a tough time reconciling with it.

Environment has become an easy scapegoat on the name of development and now we as the vanguards of watershed programme are in a more demanding situation where we have to strive more vigorously to restore balance between the seemingly two opposite but actually complimentary wheels of human survival.

An efficient organization is where knowledge does not flow only horizontally but also vertically. Suggestions are sought not only from people at upper level of the hierarchy but also from the ones who are at lower level. This process of demystification of knowledge has so palpably happened here in our young organization. I am witness to this process where our MIS coordinators are not busy only in data crunching but have also intricate understanding of the programme. Our young lanky and sweet peon knows how to classify files just like a skilled clerk. Our driver knows which EPA activity is more suited to watershed programme. We are never tired of sharing a story of one of our messenger who used to work at one district and he was more capable than many of us in many areas. A matter of satisfaction and a reflection of the truth that it is people who make the organization and not vice versa.

We together have traversed unknown terrains, experimented, piloted and miserably failed and gloriously triumphed and have scaled new heights. In the end, more than our triumphs and failures, its journey with all its excitements and anxiety which remain with us to tickle in the moments of solitude when none is around, yet we don’t feel lonely.

This wonderful journey is coming to a halt but it has shaped me to a hopefully better person and a better professional. However much people tend to criticize the government, there is no denying the fact that working with it gives us a chance to understand the age old systems, procedures and processes and people involved in different capacities. Without letting my sense of judgment getting blurred, I am now more considerate to its errors and failures. And more aware of the magnitude of the implications of those errors and failures on public at large.

It is time to seek your forgiveness, your blessings and your promise of never putting the carpet of oblivion over our shared memories.

One may term it my wishful thinking, but my conviction murmurs me firmly that we all will cross our paths more often and more pleasantly. After all, world is such a small place and its getting smaller day by day.