In letter and spirit

In Letter and spirit

The recent reports of young aspiring medical students being subjected to stripping by test center officials has raised a hue and cry in some quarters. Students, it is reported were forced to strip down to their undergarments and in one case, was also asked to remove them because it was against the written down rules as perceived by the official on duty.

Particularly noticeable is the fact that this is reported from the state of Kerala when surely, female students were present in all states where the examinations were held. Why then has this incident surfaced in Kerala? Again surely, students were wearing their under garments in all states and from what we know other states did not report this kind of behavior.

To understand this you must understand the ‘Malayalee’. He lives by the rule; and waits for an opportunity to pounce on someone circumventing the rules. That is why you have a horde of locals ‘ghearoing’ a Policeman and forcing him to take off his cap to trade with a helmet. The question is not whether riding a motorbike without a helmet is against the rules, but the curious concern of the locals to enforce them, given their penchant to implement rules uniformly, thus stepping into a new domain.

Long back I travelled a short distance of two hours from Ernakulum Junction station to my Hometown Tiruvalla in a long distance train that starts from New Delhi and terminates at Trivandrum. I hopped on because being a resident of Delhi I knew that a lot of people would get down at this station and seats would be available aplenty. All one had to do was pay the legalized fare for such distance and travel.

However when the ticket collector came, he fined me for getting into a reservation compartment without a reserved ticket. I explained to him that I was prepared and willing to pay the price for such travel, but he refused to budge and asked me to get off at the next station after paying the nominal fine for such travel. 

I even argued that having empty seats amounted to a loss for the railways, so wasn’t it better to have short distance passengers like me who were willing to pay for travelling in a reserved coach? Nothing of what I said or none of my arguments cut ice with him and he majestically did his job of hauling me into an unreserved compartment.

Those who travel by air would have observed that even the check-in ground staff in airlines put up such as fuss over minor weight excesses in hand baggage that it is almost impossible to buy peace with them. It is their way or the highway, there is no middle path. Compare this with ground staff in Major metros like Delhi and you can see the difference.

Hand baggage is allowed up to 7 Kgs on domestic flights in India. While you can travel from Delhi to Cochin on a few extra kilos, you cannot do the same on the return leg. I tried to bring in 9 Kgs of hand baggage on the flight from Cochin recently and they asked me to check in the baggage because it was outside the limits. There is no point arguing or making them see reason they will not budge so fixated are they on the rules read out to them.

Therefore the difference is, in the Malayalee psyche, he is born to implement the rule both in letter and spirit and will not tolerate another behaving otherwise, albeit in small measure. He is the upholder of the laid down rules and will not broach aberrations. Needless to say that the instructions of CBSE officials, was followed by all staff in all centers throughout the country,  but it was only in the state of Kerala that the female candidate had to give her exams at a cost to her inner peace. 

Robin Varghese

10^th May 2017