Errors and Omissions ‘Accepted’!

A very popular dialogue in a Marathi movie is ‘Chukila Mafi Nahi’ (No excuse for wrongdoings). But in our premises of JJ School of Art, the opposite is the case. No matter how many mistakes you make there, every mistake and wrongdoing is pardoned. Whether the case is financial, or about copying, or about misbehavior to girls. All such cases are suppressed. There is only one motive, that is to earn money by any means. All other things are secondary. Read one such shocking case in the following article. Of course, no action was taken.

In the last 35 years there have been numerous cases of financial corruption in JJ. They were also exposed, but no action was taken against anyone. ‘All hands in glove!’ is the pattern of everyone. Everyone from the bottom to the top thoroughly enjoys such cases. A very recent example is that of the ‘Kalavedh’ competition held last year. Major newspapers covered it strongly. ‘Chinha’ not only revealed the financial malpractices in it but also persistently blew the whistle. But neither the financial details came out or announced nor even a simple inquiry was made.

Dy Director of Art, Director of Art, Deputy Secretary, Secretary, no one even uttered a word. This can mean only two things. One is that we know everything, but we don’t want to do anything about it. Or the other is that it will all go on like this, we can’t stop it. After seeing what has happened and what is happening in the politics of Maharashtra in the last two or three years, especially after the corona period, it can be said that the decent, cultured and educated citizens of Maharashtra have stopped expecting anything from the politicians. An entire generation of cultured citizens migrated to America in the seventies. It should not be surprising if the same thing happens now. Such is the degradation of the overall situation is that the politics of Maharashtra which has reached rock bottom. Anyway It is not today’s topic.

Listen to another horrifying episode of the same art teacher I wrote about yesterday. It was seven or eight years ago. CET had recently started. In order to select better experienced teachers among the lot, this gem was chosen for the CET exam. That is, he was to conduct the exam with the help of others, declare the result, work as accurately as possible. So that only meritorious and hardworking students get admission in JJ without any corruption. Once the admission process was completed, his job was to collect the fees from the students through bank draft and admit them.

The entire examination process was followed accurately. Since this process was new, no one dared to mess it up and it went smoothly without any mess. Students or their parents were also asked to submit the demand draft. They even brought it and submitted it to the hero of this story. There must have been one hundred demand drafts. When the last draft came in, the hero threw that draft too in the drawer of the table. And the classes also started from the next day. This year, there was no corruption, no mess, no one was criticized. So all the teachers patted their backs.

About two or three months later, one fine day on some errand, the hero of the story came to the place where CET work was going on and just casually happened to open the drawer of the table where he was sitting. And to his surprise, he realized that fee demand drafts of about hundred students were lying in that drawer as is. Somehow, being busy in some work or due to teaching load, those who were supposed to have filed those demand drafts in the JJ’s office had not were not done it. Those were just left in the drawer. None of the head clerk, registrar or Dean had even asked a simple query to them in this regard.

Our hero is very innocent. He picked up the demand drafts as it was well and took those to Saheb. Saheb also has an innocent attitude and lacks common sense. He ordered to credit those DDs to the account immediately. The clerks sat down and quickly filled in the slips and the peon took them to the bank. Thereafter there was a real commotion. Because bank drafts have a specific validity period. They have to be submitted in the bank within the stipulated time period otherwise new drafts have to be prepared. Naturally, the bank refused to accept those hundred drafts. When the peon came back to JJ with the drafts, however, there was a commotion in JJ. What to do now?

Saheb said, ‘Now call every student by taking the contact number on their form and ask them to pay the fees.’ Later it came to light that some paid the fees and some ignored it. Not everyone paid the fees. Then when the question arose as to how to solve this whole matter, a gentleman named Zombade came to help these people. Who is this Zombade? The one who was the Dy Art Director of Maharashtra (What is his connection with art? Please don’t ask such a question). Zombade was suspended from Parbhani or some other similar place from a government job and joined the post of Art Director. (What an appointment? Wow, well done Maharashtra Government) This same Zombade completed the work left incomplete by the previous Director of Art, Rasal, and brought down the Directorate of Art to a beggar’s state. How could one describe each of his feats? We have published it with evidence in the issue of ‘Kalabazaar’. The curious should read that issue by clicking on the link given at the end of this article.

Zombade expertly put an end to the whole issue of lapsed demand drafts. No one came to know anything. I happened to remember all this while writing how financial misappropriations have been done in JJ. What can one expect from the senior officers that they should take action on this. If the Dean of JJ is taking his private or government car to drop the Deputy Secretary at his home in Navi Mumbai every evening, then what can we expect that they will come up with some kind of plan to curtail the corruption?

Now we are only to see if the extra amount of Rs 20000 per month which was paid to those six teachers will now be recovered from them? Or even this matter of financial crime gets hushed up like always.

Link to ‘Kalabazaar’ issue of Chinha:

https://chinha.in/2008_edition

Satish Naik

Editor, Chinha Art News