By Naba Bhattacharjee
The crowd had all gone after the Lajong game at JN Stadium. It was already beyond dusk. As I was coming out from the adjacent cricket ground, a known young local entrepreneur was looking up towards the top of the stadium. I stopped and enquired jocularly, “Bah, waiting for the next match under floodlights?”. He turned on his heels and the otherwise friendly person, simply glared at me – his eyes luminous in the fading light. I had touched a raw nerve somewhere or he must be a fanatic Lajong fan dejected with the drawn game. My enquiry was based on “news” blowing in the wind about his success of bagging the floodlighting contract. Whatever the reason for his discomfiture, I decided not to prolong our agony in the cold winter evening and opted to move on.
At this point he came up to me; probably realizing his impolite stance and added with genuine hurt in his eyes, “What floodlight, Sir … I thought you knew and was rubbing salt to my wound”. Taken aback, I stated gingerly “No.., I heard you are among the lowest bidder and hence the jibe”. “I was … but not anymore, all washed away in the flood of deceit”, he quipped with indignation. “What; have you withdrawn?”, I enquired exasperated. “No….; in fact in the initial days it was conveyed to me that order shall be placed soon, once the clearance comes from “top”. “That promised clearance never came in my favour”, lamented the youngster. On the contrary the upcoming contractor learnt to his dismay, that his bid kept gradually “increasing” in value in course of upward journey of the file. Wherever he enquired, in the different echelons of decision making, the reasons for such blatant and gross injustice; the common catchphrase fed to him was “Order from the top”. ” I am helpless”.
“The nameless (benami) was skilled in climbing ladders to reach the top faster, while you ended up being devoured by snakes”, was the realistic analysis by a seasoned and honest head clerk. The frustrated young man after failing to decipher the apex of the “top” and finally getting the same cliché from “top of the tops” came down to the stadium, probably in a final attempt, to seek that elusive “top”. Only the privileged and select few can reach the “top”, where the buck finally accumulates and “orders go down”.