Maximum City – Maximum attachment

The 3 weeks long attachments in Mumbai during September’19 (as part of our District Training – 2018 batch of IAS, Maharashtra Cadre) is coming to an end. Sticking to my habit of describing anything in 3 words- enriching, indulging and enticing – is all I would say about Mumbai attachment.

Indulging because, there were many lunches, dinners hosted by the seniors. I was tired of going to 5 star restaurants for dinner almost every day. In one such dinner party hosted by one senior officer, we sang and danced so much. It was very generous of the seniors to dance along with us shedding away all the complexities. I was fortunate to dance with 2 ex-Collectors of Chandrapur (aka Chanda).

Enticing because, Mumbai grows on you. Initially when you are new to the city, you are totally disillusioned with the traffic, the crowd, the anonymity, cars everywhere. Then slowly you start liking it. The marine drive and carefree people over there, the sea breeze, the restaurants, vada pav etc won’t go unnoticed. It’s not just the comforts and crazy variety of choices the consumer has, but also the lifestyle, the attitude and thinking of Mumbaikar that one gets sucked into. In the meeting with the Chief Secretary, he opined that GAD don’t like to post young IAS officers in Mumbai, at least not before they finish 10 years of service because there are just too many distractions here.

Some gyan we got from senior officers were

• In MH, you need to be very professional and deliver the results. Also there are many intelligent people than you. Be in constant learning mode
• Politicians remember you by the last work not done. Whenever they complain regarding their work not being done, just remind them of the work you had done for them earlier.
• You should write speaking orders, and also the file notings to be thorough and detailed. Many years down the line you may not recollect the rationale behind a decision. Also it would be wise to keep a backup of some important and sensitive files which you feel. Later when those files disappear, you may be blamed for that.
• Advise by Iqbal Singh Chahal (present BMC commissioner) – Learn Marathi as much as possible in District training because
  • Once u become SDM, many politicians MLAs come to u. They may or may not speak Hindi/English. To convince them against something especially not so legal matters, u need to speak good Marathi
  • Sometimes your postings are decided based on your grasp of Marathi
• Try for central deputation. It gives All India perspective.
• Try to invest in yourself and gain some specialisation in an area

Overall it was a great experience visiting Mumbai. Personally I liked it. Apart from the training attachments, on holidays I could visit Elephanta caves, saw Gateway of India few times, visited The Mumbai Museum, the RBI monetary museum, the Ganpati Visarjan in Chowpatti beach etc.

Maximum city also gave me maximum opportunity to think about life and all