Glimpse of goings-on at tehsil office

A FEW years back, I had purchased a small piece of land. It took a week to go through the whole rigmarole of procuring revenue papers at the government-mandated centres — Lok Mitra Kendra (common services centre) and Patwar Khana (office of village revenue official) — before the sale deed was finally executed at the tehsil office.

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Not au fait with the convoluted functioning of the revenue department, a friend had suggested the name of an arjinavis (document writer) working there. I straightway headed for the tehsil office. Sitting under the cobweb-draped unlit shed annexed to the office, I soon identified the arjinavis, tapping on the keyboard of his antiquated typewriter on a wobbly table, while clients waited. So absorbed was he that he hardly took notice of me when I greeted him and mentioned my friend’s name.

After he finished, he browsed through my papers and asked me to visit him next week, leaving the file with him. I felt agitated and demanded the reason for the delay. He whispered to me that as per an internal arrangement, the naib tehsildar would be on duty then, obliquely hinting that the tehsildar was a nitpicker.

When I met him on the appointed day, he clutched the file under his arm and beckoned me to follow him as he strode off officiously to the naib tehsildar’s office, where visitors had already blocked the doorway. Making through the crowd, he placed the file on the official’s table.

I felt awkward for violating the official decorum. The naib tehsildar, with a set of customary queries, dealt with us on priority and returned the file with a conspiratorial smile to the arjinavis, duly marked to the dealing clerk.

For final execution of the sale deed, it was de rigueur to get ourselves photographed with witnesses to legally authenticate the veracity of the registry. Unfamiliar with this process, I scurried back to the arjinavis to arrange for witnesses. Unhesitatingly, he detailed two sloppily dressed blokes lounging around for the purpose. With sublime indifference about right or wrong and complete unfamiliarity with us, the duo deigned to be the witnesses corroborating the legitimacy of the sale deed and gleefully got photographed with us.

Suspicious about their deportment, I enquired how they had been managing to bear witness for those not even remotely known to them, risking legal implications. Smiling wryly, they said, ‘Sir, hamara kaam gawahi dena hai jahan koi hamein kehta hai; hum jantein hain ki hum kabhi bhi andar ho sakte hain; ye sab bhagwan bharose hai (Our job is to bear witness wherever someone asks us; we know that we can land in jail; it all depends on God).’

Mystified by their specious reasoning, I trod home cursing myself until the intkal (mutation) transpired.