'Attendance at the hearing is mandatory. Please treat this as urgent and make the necessary arrangements to attend without fail.'

I had meant to ignore the SIR notice which came over WhatsApp and had decided against going. But then my wife went the day before me. The notice-issuing official seemed upset, she said, that I hadn’t even responded to his WhatsApp message. Noblesse oblige, and so I appeared before him with the raggedy file of papers I have to prove that I exist and that I am qualified to elect those we euphemistically call public servants.

The place was overrun with anxious people, as is to be expected in a place where uncertainty and chaos are usually the norm and into which this government has gratuitously injected more uncertainty.

The tech set is fond of the word ‘disruption’ and use it in the positive sense, but it is actually a violent term. Disruption of whose lives and to what end? That is not considered, if it is thought of at all. The poor and the marginalised have no real vote in how their existence is unsettled.

Anyway, the official turned out to be a teacher who would be doing this well into October rather than teaching. He was pleasant, polite and competent and finished off the process in a few minutes.

This is often the case and I........

© National Herald