Going Dutch (Den Haag Diary): Preface

07 September 2014. The Hague. It is 20:10 now.  I just finished making upma.  Made with beans, carrots and onions.  No, it’s not my dinner.  I am done with dinner – rice, beans sambaar and grapes for dessert.  Upma is for tomorrow.  I even cleaned my room today.  Went for a long walk all the way to the beach (Scheveningen is what it’s called) and back. Why am I giving you all the details?  Silly me! I’m almost assuming you’d want to know every moment of me being here – like I’m a celebrity. 

1992-93. I hark back to my finishing days of MBA.  It was the time I was doing my project.  Sumi, my dear friend, was a constant companion.  She spelt out her dreams and ambitions.  “I would like to write my GMAT and fly to the US.  Would like to establish my life and career there.  Would you also join me Su?”  Sumi didn’t immediately fly to the US.  Some dreams take their time to find wings.  But, she did it finally in 1998-99.  She even found her lifetime companion along the way to the US from Bangalore via Pune!  And, my answer to her question was a rather firm ‘No’.  I categorically had stated that I had no interest of ever going to the US either to study or work.  Short trips were fine though! 

What I didn’t tell Sumi – or for that matter, anyone – was I did have my own dreams.  The US didn’t figure in them though.  It was Europe.  I dreamt of London, Paris and other famous cities and the great educational institutions that these places boasted of.  I fascinated about revisiting the pages of rich history of Athens, Rome and St Petersburg.  I wanted to visit them all, learn and live through the experience.  I knew that this dream wasn’t taking off anytime.  I neither had the means nor had the intelligence to find new avenues.  I didn’t either have the confidence to pursue the path of education abroad through scholarships. Also, I’d saddled myself with the albatross of being the only son and the responsibilities that would come along with it.  It was my duty to stay at home, find a job close by, and take care of them. My parents hadn’t said anything like that ever.  Nor were they in feeble health.  Essentially I wasn’t strong enough to pursue my dream.  I simply let it sink into some dark corner of my mind.

1998-99. I entered the Civil Services and was under training all across the country.  I met a Senior Officer from the Administrative Service who was pursuing his Master’s abroad and was travelling through Europe.  (He even was nice enough to send me cards from Paris, Rome and Vienna!  And, yes I still have them).  As I interacted with him my almost-dead dream resurfaced to breathe.  I wondered if I too would be able to pursue a Masters Course in Europe or somewhere.  I wasn’t confident of it happening – one had already heard one too many tales of the favouritism, red-tape and corruption within the exalted bureaucracy. 

2011-12. I joined the Unique Identification Authority of India on deputation as Assistant Director General in Bangalore in June, 2011.  I chose the UIDAI over scores of other options that came to me (that old adage in Hindi, ‘Khuda jab bhi deta hai chappar phaadke deta hai’ has been true in my case several times over) for two reasons.  One, I didn’t want to do anything with finance/audit for a while.  Two, I wanted to be in Bangalore.  And, I wanted both the conditions to be met.   At the end of the first year (in 2012), I discovered DFFT (Departmental Funded Foreign Training) when two of my colleagues applied for short-term courses.  I learnt that an Officer could apply for the Long-Term training provided s/he was under 45.  I had time! 

2014.  Back to the present.  I am here at The Hague, the Netherlands to pursue MA in Governance, Policy and Public Economy.  And, to travel around Europe in the next one year.  And, also, to reignite my desire to write.  I have been told by my previous partner that my writing is bland at best and I don’t display the wit in writing as evidenced during my conversations.  Others have complained of monotony, long-winding paragraphs and even lack of intelligence or purpose.  My erudite friends stay away from discussing my writing ability (or the lack of it). All these haven’t yet dampened my desire to write.  And, this journal would be one final serious attempt at writing and redemption.