Office-Office
After undergoing training in Mussoorie and the Foreign Service Institute in New Delhi, my batchmate Puneet and I joined a territorial division in the Ministry of External Affairs, South Block for our desk attachment. It began in around January, in 1998, and continued till about August of the same year, after which we left for our language postings. Puneet went to Cairo to learn Arabic and I went to Spain for Spanish.
For trainee officers to undergo desk attachment in those days, the infrastructural and logistical arrangements were scanty at best. We were basically asked to hang around and make ourselves available. We made a deal with the then Under Secretary of our Division for sharing her room. The understanding was that we would sit on her sofa, and in return, we would run her errands—from answering calls to emails. The deal was perfect and we were the envy of the entire batch for having a room to ourselves.
As there was not much to do, both Puneet and I would spend hours rummaging through the holy bibles of the MEA: the Civil List and the History of Services. These two manuals documented the career details of Indian diplomats. One fine day, Puneet said, “Sandeep, don’t bring lunch tomorrow! There will be a party in the Division!” When asked about the occasion, he said it was a rare occurrence—the Joint Secretary (Head of Division) and the Director had their birthdays on the same day. So it was obvious that they would host a party and we would be invited. In those days, with our paltry salaries, parties and free lunches were music to our ears and I happily agreed to Puneet's suggestion.
The next day we both put on our finest shirts and promptly went to wish our boss a happy birthday. Puneet even informed him about the coincidence of it also being the Director’s birthday. While he happily accepted our wishes, there were a few moments of awkward silence, which we hoped he would fill with an invite—sadly, none was forthcoming. We left his room and headed to the Director’s. We warmly greeted her and enlightened her about the remarkable coincidence of it being the Joint Secretary’s birthday as well. Here too, no invites as far the eye could see. Still, we optimistically soldiered on. Puneet decided that we needed to rush back to our room and stay put there, since the phone might ring with an invitation for the party at any time.
Normally, for us, lunch was at 1:00 p.m. and we waited anxiously well beyond it. As I was getting jittery with hunger, I reminded Puneet that if the call didn’t come, the canteen in South Block would also run out of food, and we needed a backup plan. Puneet shot down the idea. The wait seemed interminable and at the end of it, there was no phone call. The canteen too had run out of food. So we sadly decided to step out of South Block and go and eat somewhere else.
As we walked towards the second floor elevator, on the way we crossed many seemingly well-fed and happy colleagues. When the second floor elevator arrived, we saw a staff member of the Director’s office walk out of it with several boxes of pizza. Bingo! At last, the food had arrived and it was going to be a big pizza party! Puneet and I rushed back to our room to ensure we did not miss the phone call inviting us. We waited and waited, but alas, no phone call came, even this time. I vaguely remember having to go without food that day.
Hurt, hungry and dejected, we additionally had to digest the humiliation of not being invited for the Division party. The next day we went up to the Director's staff and summoned up the courage to ask him why we hadn’t been invited to the party hosted by the Director. “What party?” he said. “There was no party! It was the staff that was treating the Director.”
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