A multifaceted personality, Kaw lived a charmed life

Shriniwas Joshi

Shakespeare had said: “He doth bestride the narrow world/ Like a Colossus”. A Colossus had gone when Maharaj Krishan Kaw, who retired as Secretary to the Government of India in the Ministry of Human Resource Development, breathed his last at Pomposh Colony, New Delhi, after completing 28,400 plus days of his life. Yes, his life cannot be counted in years but in days because he lived every second of every day. He had not only read but had also assimilated Kipling’s words in his life: “If you can fill the unforgiving minute/ With 60 seconds’ worth of distance run, / Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it”. God had given him handsomeness but he believed ‘handsome is he who handsome does’. He was a sketcher, artist, singer, poet and a litterateur of standing, besides an administrator of repute. Once we went to artist KK Kidwai’s house at Sanjauli. Kidwai said he had mastered the art of sketch drawing and drew a sketch of Kaw. Then Kaw took the paper and the pencil and drew Kidwai’s sketch. It was like alive and Kidwai was astounded.

I had worked a large part of my tenure as an administrator under Maharaj Krishan Kaw. He had been my philosopher’s stone, my mentor, my guide and my friend. Many officers would get themselves transferred to another posting when they would come to know that they had to work under him. He was a hard taskmaster. But, somehow, I loved to work with him and that is why certain officers had named me and other officers close to Kaw as ‘Kawboys’. One can gauge his working style of taking quick decisions from a paragraph stolen from his book, “The Science of Spirituality”. When he discussed the statements given in the book with others, some appreciated these while others asked him to wait and study a bit more. Kaw writes: “I have waited long enough. Death does not wait. It is better to say imperfect things when you are alive than to wait for perfection, which may never come”. Although he was the Secretary of various departments, yet he did not have ‘prior appointment’ like expression in his dictionary. He would always keep his doors open for the public to hear their grievances and would work on files even late in the evening. I, as his Joint Secretary, felt overburdened sometimes, but it was a pleasure to taste the fresh dose of administrative ‘ghutti’ every day. Once, at 8 pm, he telephoned me to accompany him to the Chief Minister’s chamber where we were called. I went there with him and the Chief Minister asked me to do something which was not possible. I said, “Sir, it cannot be done”. The Chief Minister, who had the habit of hearing ‘Yes, Chief Minister’, got annoyed. Immediately, Kaw ordered me to leave the chamber and wait for him in his car. He came out after about half an hour and took me to his home. We had dinner together and he told me, “You are more imprudent than I thought you to be. There are several ways of saying ‘no’ and a good officer should know when to use which of the ‘noes’. Never say a blunt no to the Chief Minister, instead say we will see, Sir”. It was a great lesson that I had learnt. And the best part of the story is that I was not transferred and I continued in the same post for another couple of years. Kaw had the knack of having his way without disturbing the political bigwigs from their saddles. 

Maharaj Krishan Kaw could be better understood by what he says about himself in his autobiography, “An Outsider Everywhere”: “Even today, with so many books of poetry behind me, I am still not sure whether I am a bureaucrat who dabbles in poetry and is tolerated because of my status or I am basically a poet who happens to earn his daily bread through IAS”. 

He says that he holds the State Subject Certificate of Jammu and Kashmir but thinks that he has been thrown out of the state forever. He was treated as non-Himachali though he had served Himachal for long. He says that he is an outsider in both states. He adds: “After all, having been in the IAS for 37 years, I have never felt that I am an IAS officer. People who meet me often remark that I do not speak or behave like an IAS officer. I come across as a humble person”. So, here too he was an outsider.

But when he closed his eyes forever, he was paid tributes in abundance by litterateurs, common men, artists and the IAS and other officers’ fraternity that I found the name that he had given to his autobiography was required to be changed to “An Insider Everywhere”.  

Tailpiece

Kaw’s advice to young IAS Officers: : “The politicians always have their way. You cannot prevent them; you may at best slow them down.”