Illustration: Dominic Xavier/Rediff

Key Points

• A shared Malayali identity and casual conversations about Kerala frequently built instant trust, opening doors that otherwise remained closed.
• There is contrast in the accessible bureaucracy of the past with today's tightly guarded government offices, where officials are far less approachable.
• .

My reporting career did not involve much rubbing of shoulders with government officials.

I wasn't exactly reporting for the big names. One agency I wrote for regularly was once described by the Indian Express as nondescript. In a story about that very paper.

Imagine that. A story about your organisation, and you still get filed under nondescript.

Almost nobody read it. Not in India. Possibly somewhere else.

But I kept writing. And I made a little money doing it.

Whenever I needed a quote from a bureaucrat, I would call him up. Every single time, I had to introduce myself from scratch.

Nobody knew my name. Nobody knew my paper.

So they would say, come over, we'll talk. Just to avoid me.

Now, travelling all the way to Gandhinagar for one quote was not exactly a sound financial decision. But I needed that quote.

This was before the fortress era. Back then, anyone could walk into an officer's room and ask a question. If it wasn't controversial, you got an answer.

Simple in theory. Harder in practice.

You'd reach the office, and the first line was always the same. 'Saab busy hai.'

Arre, I tell them, he told me to come himself.

Then the second line arrives. 'Saab meeting mein hai.'

The staff, I learned, was the real obstacle. Not the boss.

The boss didn't even know how hard his own staff was working to keep people out. He wasn't against meeting anyone. His staff was.

This is where my one real advantage came in.

Being a Malayali.

How One Question Opened Doors

Every single private secretary to every senior officer in Gujarat, it turned out, was Malayali. And I could spot one from across a room. No words needed.

This wasn't some coincidence either. It went all the way back to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.

Long after Independence, while politicians came and went above them, it was a quiet, disciplined network of Malayali private secretaries, additional secretaries, and section officers who actually ran things.

So my opening line was always the same. 'Nattil evide?' Which place in Kerala are you from?

More often than not, I knew the place. I had relatives there I had never once visited.

But that day, I used them anyway. I knew their names. Their family names.

Suddenly the person in front of me knew them too. From a distance, but still.

And just like that, the door opened.

They'd get on the intercom and plead with the officer to see me. Not even my own parents pleaded for me the way that stranger did, five minutes into knowing me.

The officer, in turn, trusted his private secretary with everything. His schedule, his files, even remembering his own wedding anniversary.

That trust gave the PS enormous quiet power.

And I got treated like the private secretary's closest relative. A relationship that had existed, at that point, for all of five minutes.

That was the day I understood. Being Malayali came with its own VIP pass.

That world doesn't exist anymore.

The Missing Malayali Private Secretaries

Nobody applies for those jobs the way they used to. The Malayali private secretary, once a fixture of every Gujarat government office, has quietly disappeared.

The efficiency. The discipline and secrecy with files. The loyalty to the department, not just the boss. All of it has thinned out with time.

Ministers came, ministers went. But as long as a Nair, a Menon, or a Joseph sat outside the cabin with a pen in hand and a typewriter on table, the whole machine ran on time.

I can't say that with any confidence now.

Thank God I'm not reporting any more. Gujarat government offices have become fortresses. Officers barely speak, even when they're supposed to.

Getting in to these same office at latter part of my career felt closer to getting into a heavily guarded building than a government office.

As they say some doors open because of who you know, and some, it turns out, open just because of where you're from.

Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff