Chakkamala (Jackfruit mountain) is just one of the many exasperating hurdles C. Balagopal has to encounter when he is posted as sub-collector of Kollam.
In the author’s new book The View from Kollam: A Day in the Life of a Sub-collector , the former bureaucrat and entrepreneur serves a slice of India that lives in sleepy villages and small towns, far away from pompous centres of power. Laced with humour and keen observations about people and problems that vex the administration, the book (published by HarperCollins) is a compilation of his experiences during his stint in Kollam, which also happens to be the place he hails from.
“The district administration is the corner stone of governance in India,” says Balagopal. His many years as an officer of the Indian Administrative Service has convinced him that things work in India because the district administration continues to function, in spite of being “misused and abused”.
Eighteen real-life anecdotes give readers a peek into the nitty-gritty of governance because the author believes that our favourite reads have powerful characters based on real people and plots grounded in reality. Balagopal writes about efficient government officers who cut through red tape and legalese to help people and also how it is people and not the system that can bring about positive changes.
“The perfect novel, I believe, is Alexander Dumas’ Count of Monte Cristo . It is because the emotions Edmund Dantes, the hero of the book, feels – burning resentment, thirst for revenge, pathos, romance and anguish – are all universal.”
Balagopal has also narrated the tales of people and through them the issues of governance.
The setting of the stories is the same as his previous book On a Clear Day You Can See India. It is a district office; there is a sub-collector, a driver, a tahsildar and so on. “But there is a huge difference in the social context because we are shifting from Manipur to Kerala. The state is more similar to the rest of mainstream India – well-settled civic society, eco-system and all that. Yes, Kerala has unusual features – significant differences from the rest of India such as high literacy rates, health and social indices. Thus the flavour and content of the stories are different. Manipur was a troubled area where there were issues of identity, alienation and displacement but in Kerala those are not factors, it was mostly about governance,” adds Balagopal.
Prodded by his wife, Vinita, Balagopal decided to pen his experiences in Kollam, touching upon the incidents that he felt were common to all districts in India. “The underlying theme of this book is that the many of the issues concerning the common man are actually related to district administration. Most of the time, his primary connect with the government is with the district administration,” he explains.
These little tales of personal experience, some optimistic, some frustrating and some dark, show how the administration works in a real setting. Each anecdote has a take-away for the reader. For instance, the “idiosyncratic way” government statistics are collected is narrated in an amusing way in a tale about damage caused by rain and how data regarding this is collected.
“How powerful interests in a district or town can misuse legal processes to further their ends or protect their interest has also been touched upon. District officials have two options – either act as the three monkeys and pretend to see nothing, hear nothing and say nothing or they can use the powers vested in them to thwart their nefarious designs,” laughs Balagopal while talking about some of the instances when he was able to “thwart” such people.
He adds: “One theme that recurs is that as a young official, though you are not told or taught about this during your training or by your superiors, you tend to take a position that protects the commons, be it in terms of land or natural resources. It is almost like a legacy you inherit from your predecessors: Thou shall protect the commons. Everywhere we are losing our open grounds to one harebrained scheme or the other. In Kollam, every year, there are many proposals to build something or the other on the vast Asramam Maidan. Every sub-collector in Kollam tries to protect the Maidan. As a result the Maidan is still open.”
He adds that inept practices, apathetic administrators and corruption are eating away at the heart of governance. But he refuses to agree with the common perception that officials are helpless because of political interference. “It is a bogey. If you are sincere about your work, nobody bothers you. But if you are constantly looking over your shoulder to see if you have the approval of politicians, then, of course, it becomes a stumbling block,” he emphasises.
And, yes Chakkamala does get conquered because of an imaginative solution.
Now, as is his wont, Balagopal is at his writing table again. “It is on my experience while working in the public distribution system, the setting up of Maveli stores, why the government decided to step into the direct retailing…”
Now that is another story.
The cover art is by Sudha Pillai, a former bureaucrat. “Sudha, my senior in the IAS, sketches and paints and she had worked in Kollam as managing director of Kerala Ceramics in Kundara. So she is familiar with the visual landmarks of Kollam and when I requested her to design a cover for my book, she gave me some sketches that capture the place so well,” says the author. 
