Seeing the exasperating uniformity of thoughts and actions that this society demands of us and the peer pressure to be a regular guy like the pizza delivery boy in the street, I am beginning to believe in what George Bernard Shaw said: “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

The reasonable men are everywhere. In fact, they are you and me. We all seem to have rolled off identical casts and are virtually wallowing in the cesspool of homogeneity. We dream the same dreams, watch the same movies, buy the same cars, think the same thoughts and even love the same person— all in all, we live the same boring traditional life. I ask myself: how am I different from the obese chap next door? I am surprised by the answer. Very little.

Originality is dead, thanks to our notion of what an ideal life should be like. Secular, religious and philosophical schools of thought are even united in proclaiming a purpose of life according to their own moral and aesthetic compass—and needless to say they all are the near mirror images of one another.

They seek to set down norms and principles for the hapless individuals to follow, the deviation from which is the punishment of the erring maverick by ostracism and ridicule in social purgatory.

Whereas, a perfect life is one in which one knows the minutest rules of society and abide by them like an atomic clock with no margin for error. The result of this slavish obedience is the marginalization of the will of the individual and how.

An example of how groupthink, say religion, sets purpose can be found in the biblical story of creation in the Old Testament of the Bible (Genesis 1:28), in which God orders Man to "Be fruitful, and multiply; fill the earth, and subdue it". The message is loud and clear: Reproduce, reproduce and reproduce till you drop dead from the labour table. What a shameful purpose of life!

Likewise, look at the teachings of other major religions, and one similarity strikes you. They want us to be alike in the prayers we offer, in the purpose of life we seek to live, in the kind of happiness we should pursue, and in almost every single thing that we are supposed to accomplish to conform to the rigid mantras of life they conjure up for us.

Not a single one of those rules exhort you to follow your own dreams and free will—it doesn’t matter whether you are an art curator or a molecular biologist.

As a budding administrator in the state civil service currently in training, I find the same rigidity of thoughts and homogeneity of aspirations even in this sphere. Bureaucrats of every shade—old hands and the new ones—would like to fancy themselves as paragons of integrity and impeccable reputation.

Every senior bureaucrat whom I have met has lectured me on changing the system and not succumbing to its demons. It left me only confused. If the entire brigade of bureaucrats were actually to practice what they preach, Manipur would not have been in the stinking mess that it is in the first place.

That’s why I am afraid when I realize that my idea of being a good administrator is a lot similar to that of my colleagues and my seniors. Am I just another cog in the wheel of the tyrannical machine of bureaucracy that aspires to Himalayan heights and ends up delivering nothing?

I have developed a cold feet about the prospect ahead. How can I be so much like the mint-fresh probationer sitting next to me or the veteran officer delivering us the wise words from the high podium?

This pervasive similarity amongst us is a dreadful fact. If the majority of those manning the administrative set-up is corrupt and homogeneity is the second nature of us human beings, then isn’t someone here too optimistic to believe that the upcoming young breed of administrators would be the Saviours of Manipur.

My only source of salvation from such confusion is my belief in the eloquence of silence and to let the actions do the real talking. No matter, how much and how often we swear by transparency and honesty in bureaucracy, something called greed, for a lack of better word, might get the better of many of us.

It is only a very few of men of firm determination fired by a missionary zeal who can withstand the lure of easy lucre and power—especially when one is thrown into a tempting corruption-friendly environment or when the culture of looting public money had already been an inherent hallmark of the system.

Truth be told, integrity can’t be taught or inculcated in people who are not born with such a predisposition. People come in package; they are either corrupt or not corrupt, nothing less, nothing more, with the former set of people preponderant over the latter by a wide gulf.

But it’s next to impossible to change one type of people to another and vice versa, unless there are systematic foolproof measures of monitoring bureaucratic practices in place, of which we can pronounce with a mixture of confidence and sadness that there is none.

It seems character is wired into the DNA and you can do very little about it, and so to that extent corruption is not to be…well… ashamed of. It takes a lot of talent, perhaps business acumen, to swindle public money and yet remain untouchable by anyone, considering the fact that there are so many itchy fingers eager to pull the trigger waiting for a slightest opportunity.

What is abominable is denying that truth about oneself and fancying oneself as the sati sabitri of bureaucracy and taking hypocrisy to new heights. If you want to be corrupt, so be it—we will deal with it—but please spare us the double standards.

All of these are stated not to demean anyone or paint any profession in murky light, but to illustrate how alike we think, lie and act in our quest to enrich ourselves even though we know fully well the verdict on corruption: it is evil, a menace that robs the public, especially the poorer sections, of their entitlements and a factor that stokes the fire of disgruntlement and incendiary activities against the state.

Morally, rationally and economically, corruption is wrong any day, but since people think alike and have similar ambitions—mostly materialistic ones—it has become a necessary evil for the people in power and position to leap ahead, and accepted as such by the helpless masses.

Which brings us to the point: Unless we aim to be a little different, our society will remain stagnant and make little headway. We have to admit we have hit the iceberg of impasse because few people are able to think and act out of the box, and if there is anyone who has the guts to do so, he/she faces so much constraints and threats from the fringe scums—now becoming a dominant force—and even the mainstream Mr. Rights and Ms. Rights of the society.

It’s going to take a lot of courage to rise above the sea of ordinariness and paucity of ideas. Perhaps, one could leave all these harsh realities behind for another day and take a road less travelled by; say, raise a test-tube baby, learn scuba diving, make a movie with no songs, mount a sting operation, mentor someone, build a hut by the river, write a political thriller with a pen name, and when all these are done, dream another dream and start living all over again at 80.

Hope no one has a similar blueprint of life.

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