I watched my neighbour’s bushes receiving what appeared to be a military assault.
Branches flew in every direction. Leaves screamed silently. One side of the hedge stood proudly at attention while the other seemed to have surrendered and fallen to the ground.
I looked carefully and realised that the man holding the garden shears was not the gardener. He was our sweeper.
Now please understand that I am only imagining the conversation that may have taken place.
“How much will you charge?” my neighbour must have asked the professional gardener.
“Five hundred rupees,” the gardener may have replied.
“Five hundred?” cried my neighbour. “To cut a few bushes? Are you performing surgery?”
“No, sir,” said the gardener. “But I know which branch to cut and which one to leave.”
My neighbour probably shook his head and called the sweeper.
“You are a loyal fellow,” he may have said. “Can you trim these bushes?”
“Certainly, sir,” said the sweeper, looking at the shears with the confidence of a man who had just been appointed chairman of a space agency.
“How much?”
“Two hundred rupees.”
“Excellent. Loyalty must be rewarded.”
And so it was.
By evening, the garden looked as if a cyclone had applied for employment.
This little scene reminded me of how many appointments are made in our country. The question is often not, “Does this person know the job?” but, “Is this person loyal?”
A loyal sweeper is made gardener. A loyal gardener is made engineer. A loyal engineer is made economist. And a loyal economist is asked to explain why everything has collapsed.
When a bridge fails to meet its other half by six feet, someone calls it a minor alignment issue.
When a newly built bypass disappears during the first monsoon, an official says, “The rain was unusually wet.”
When a road develops craters large enough to conduct archaeological excavations, we are told the contractor was very loyal.
But loyalty cannot calculate load. Ideology cannot mix concrete. Devotion to a political party cannot design a drainage system. A loud speech cannot hold up a bridge.
Professional knowledge matters.
If I need a haircut, I want a barber. I do not care whether he agrees with my politics, applauds my speeches or attends my rallies. I only want him to know the difference between my hair and my ear.
That difference is important.
A nation begins to decline when competence becomes less valuable than obedience. Institutions lose their shape just like my neighbour’s unfortunate hedge. One side grows wild, the other is chopped to its roots, and everybody praises the symmetry because the sweeper is loyal.
Let sweepers sweep, gardeners garden, engineers engineer and barbers cut hair.
Otherwise, one day we may look into the national mirror and discover that the haircut was cheap, but the ear is missing.
Meanwhile I stand at my window and stare with horror at the garden across the road..!