Author: Sudhansu Mohanty
Publisher: Rupa
Year: 2005
Language: English
Pages: 273
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8129106612
Description
This is a realistic though satiric take on present-day Indian bureaucrats-bodice-ripped and in the buff. They are not quite the persona they pretend to the genteel outer world: shameless, corrupt, mean and pettifogging, yet believing in blatant self-promotion to climb up the greasy bureaucratic totem pole through acoustics and cosmetics-all with precious tax payers’ money. Yet a little peeling off the epidermis and you get to see the visibles: bureaucratic siliconism and klepto-style king-size living. Not to miss the invisibles: the supine spine and illegitimate perks. Even more: bureaucratic talibanism and pallu-dropping in the name of service to the nation that among others, make up the soundbytes. And the soundless-bytes and quiet despoliation of power, so seamless that it startles you with their venom.
The dreamy confessions complete this picture of kleptocracy. Talking turkey and with an openness that would shock and provoke, infuriate and frustrate, Suddhansu Mohanty lays on these practitioners of India corruption shining with the passion of a zealot in a suggestive yet mordant style. At the end, he tempers his outpourings with an optimism that may seem cosmic, and proffers emollients to retrieve the system gone horrendously wrong: complete transparency, whistle-blowing, a vigilant civil society /media playing the ombudsman and working towards a mass upsurge-Quit Corruption Movement. The tenor betrays the same subtle wit, shafted epigrams and barbed innuendoes the same subtle wit, shafted epigrams and barbed innuendoes of his earlier book Babudom: Catacombs of India Bureaucracy published in 2004, and even seeks to carry it a step forward.
Contents
PREFACE
PROLOGUE
LOOKING BACK
Anatomizing Bureaucrats
The Visibles
The Invisibles
The Sound-Bytes
The Soundless-Bytes
Dreamy Confessions
EPILOGUE
POSTSCRIPT