INTERVIEWS
SPECIALS
CHAT
ARCHIVES

Business Commentary/Mahesh Nair

Gimme More!

Dear Proud Indian,

Hello. Hope you are in the pink of health. Here all of us are fine also.

How was your holiday? Did you celebrate Maha-Ashtami, Gandhi Jayanti (we saw Shyam Benegal's Gandhi Se Mahatma Tak on television; Attenborough's Gandhi was much better, no) and Dussehra? If you were in New Delhi you would have also celebrated Valmiki Jayanti on October 5. Remember him? Yes, yes, the same sadhu who wrote the Ramayana. He is these days the hero of Dalits here. These days it is so nice. We are rediscovering our glorious past and paying homage to all our saints.

Isn't it a wonderful thing how much we have to celebrate for our rich and cultural heritage? I love it very much. And if you were working for the Government of India or in a public sector unit, what fun! Mr Kukreja, my neighbour, went to Shimla with his missus and children because he had a whole week off (he took one casual leave in the middle).

What did you do with the five-day holiday -- did you also go off to the hills with the missus and the kids or did you just relax at home? Enjoy, as they say.

I love holidays. We have so many of them. Since I was vela and had nothing much to do. I just finished a little bit of calculation. I have discovered some interesting statistics of people working in sarkari offices. I must say, they really enjoy.

Let me share them with you. See, there are 365 days in the year, no? Since government offices do not work on Saturdays and Sundays (totally 104 of them in a year), we are left with only 261 working days. Please deduct 30 of paid leave. So how much are we left with? 231 working days. Now deduct another 30 days as medical or sick leave (you must get a doctor's certificate, of course). You have 201 working days. Take out 15 days of casual leave, and you have 186 working days left.

Now like Gandhi Jayanti and Dussehra we in India have on an average 18 general holidays. Some states of course have much more -- Jammu and Kashmir, Maharashtra, Punjab and Gujarat have 24 holidays... but let us for example purposes stick to the lowest number which is 18 here. If you deduct this 18 from the 186 working days, how many are left? That's right, 168 only.

But my dear friend, now comes the interesting part. Our government brothers and sisters who are in service work only eight hours a day, that is, one-third of a day. So if you actually calculate the number of "full working days" you will be left with only 56.

For ladies, of course, it is much better scene. They get three months of maternity leave (about 76 working days ). So they are left with actually only 25 "full working days".

Imagine this! We work for only 56 or 25 (depending on your sex) full days. Translated this means that even if we work for 24 hours continuously once a week, we don't have to work at all for the rest of month!

Please note, I am not even mentioning other holidays -- restricted holidays and days of man-made or natural disasters. My friend Mohan Tambe who lives in East Dahisar in Bombay told me that in 1998 itself he could not attend his office in the Income Tax Building at Marine Lines for three days because rains had disrupted the suburban train services. Then on two days the BEST buses also went on strike. So no office. Also he could not attend three days of office this year, because the Shiv Sena and other political parties had called for a bandh.

You might say that all this is nothing to be proud of. That we must hang our heads in shame. But why, I ask? What is there to be ashamed of? One the other hand we must be proud! If this country can move forward by the effort and work we put for those 56 full days, then why exert ourselves unnecessarily more? It is a tribute to country's glorious heritage that a nation as large as this is moving almost on an auto-system!

In fact thanks to all this recession and industrial output slowing down-talk, many companies are realising that they can get the same amount of work done by putting in lesser hours of labour.

Kukreja's brother is in Air-India, but in the administration you know. He has now been told that he needs to work only three days a week. Lucky him -- three days work, three days holidays. And if there is a holiday which falls on these three days, or a strike (which these airlines-wallahs have so often), or heavy rains, or bus strike -- imagine how many holidays he will have! And most importantly he is getting paid full, you know?

Kukreja is telling me why should his brother work so hard when there are almost 20,000 staff in the Air-India? Good point. They have after all only 26 planes to look after. One can understand if you are working for British Airways or Lufthansa where they have about 8,000 to 10,000 people looking after 80 to 120 planes! These foreigners really make you work like slaves.

Thank god that I am in India!

Holidays I think are very important. They improve the quality of our lives. Until we have time to relax we cannot think or meditate. The Indus valley flourished only like this. Greece also.

I think I have written enough. Rest after hearing from you. As words fail me I am ending this letter with lots of love.

Your best friend

Mahesh Nair

Mahesh Nair