Pran the villain & bosses

It used to be a matter of great joy for us kids if we were to be taken to a movie. Once the decision was announced preparations began with selection of best combination of clothes. Boots were polished and cycle was cleaned & home work was completed first thing in the morning. Friends & classmates were informed with an air of superiority & of a great achievement. After a bath & breakfast we kids got ready hours before the matinee show.

Cinema hall was at a distance of nearly 3 kms which was normally covered on rickshaw or a cycle. But no, dad announced a diktat that weather was comfortable everybody would walk to & fro the theatre! Okay okay with pleasure as none would dare protest on such a day!

That’s where I saw Pran on screen. He looked suave & smart but mean with penetrating eyes, cigarette dangling from his lips & blowing smoky rings in between puffs. Before interval he had tricked, harassed, blackmailed or shot relatives of our hero or of beloved heroine. How one hated him for all this & wished that somebody put him in a bracket! His appearance in every new film had distinct in style in clothes, in manners or in dialogues. His screen images lingered on & on.

In fact the images of screen villains like Pran, K N Singh, Jeevan, Madan Puri, & some well known characters of Ramayan & Mahabharat like Shakuni Mama, Kans, Ravan, Mahishasur, Bhasmasur etc later became parameters to rename the Bosses when I joined the bank service.

Everybody has a boss & everybody loves to hate him for no boss is perfect.  And every boss has his own boss to reckon with. Of course not all bosses are like Shakuni Mama. Some are good some are bad & some downright ugly! It was with bad & ugly bosses that comparison came in handy between bosses & villains.

Once upon a time Chandra sir was working as our Regional Manager. He was a little fussy & suspicious of everything. He would read the office copy of a letter, ask questions on it, initial it and then he will read the original letter but will not sign. He would then pick up next file and would read the office copy, initial it and then read the original letter but not sign. All such files would be bunched together & kept on the right hand side of the table. Then in the evening after 4 pm all such letters would be signed in one go. While leaving office he would double check windows, locks of all drawers, almirah and small safe & then inform about every file to GM. He was nick named Shakuni Mama for being suspicious & informer!

Sh Sharma our new Regional Manager had altogether different style. He liked to clear the files section wise & in presence of an officer of that section. In case, say HRD fellow was not available the files would be kept aside. In case HRD fellow was not available for ten days the files were held up for as many days. After all the sky was not going to fall in ten days! While he would visit branch, he would prefer to keep an officer with him as helper. He would rather scold, bark & motivate the branch staff but for paper work he always needed an assistant. Sharma sir was named K N Singh the gangster of Hindi films who also moved with handymen & executioners.

And there was Kumar Sab who always paid more attention to his suits, shoes & perfumes rather than files or issues. His attention was on cleanliness, orderliness, neatly printed letters rather than the contents. Like Pran in film Sharabi. He despised dirty or dusty files, rebuked if papers were not paged, marked or flagged properly. He objected if you were not wearing tie etc. However spellings or missing a line or two in letters was not noticed by him as he became impatient in minor matters. In one letter to branch the manager was to be advised - ‘Please meet the complainant & explain the position’. While signing the letter he did not notice that the letter read – ‘Please beat the complainant & explain the position’.

What about your boss?