( Continued from the previous Article-- An urge to emerge as a winner.If you are visiting the blog for the first time, please start from the first Post Promotion - Promotion.)
On
that eventful day, when Changu conducted fire-raising ceremony outside LPG
Plant in his endeavor to be a shining star like Mangu Mapia, but could manage
to become only a dead star; a lot of curious events took place inside LPG Plant
also.
The
life of Workers/Officers was quite normal despite the bosses’ arrival at
Nachpur. Almost all of them were on duty without Uniform.The Local Union
leader DM Yadu, dressed in broken white Kurta Pajama and a sparkling white
Gandhi cap, was issuing sermons against Corruption by Satak/Reno and also about
lack of Safety arrangements in the Plant. Nobody was listening to him; as usual.
They had much better things to do.
Half
of them were busy playing 'Flash' (card game) or Carom in the Canteen, as usual. Three of
them were fully drunk and were sleeping on the floor at canteen, just behind
the ‘Flash’ Players. The more important ‘Flesh’ Players like Satak, Mami, Reno
and Butterfly were busy outside the Plant. Reno 20W45 had strategically
deployed Techno Tandi, the ‘Flesh’ Player, inside the Plant.
Michael
and Raje were joking, poking around in gay abandon. The shift clerk, before
making the Invoice, was haggling with a truck driver who was not willing to
give more than Rs. 10 for a lucrative trip. A worker responsible to unload bulk
LPG from LPG tankers was not willing to release the tanker without getting Rs.
100 from the driver. So the situation was quite normal. Snafu.
The
oldies, having completed their eight hour job in one hour, were singing Bhajans
in the far end of the filling shed, far away from Canteen / Administrative
Block; using the new empty cylinders as Ghatam and Tabla –- Radhe! Radhe!!
Younger ones were watching pornographic albums behind the stacks of cylinders –
Babe! Babe!!
The
younger ones had gratefully collected the albums from generous Tandi who
received the bonanza from Butterfly. Those albums were the precious gifts from
Reno20W45 to beloved Butterfly. Reno had inherited just a part of this huge
‘property’ from Satak Pal Sen. Satak had painstakingly accumulated the treasure
, Black and white and color albums on glossy expensive sheets; from various
dealers, transporters, contractors, suppliers of SPCL and seniors/veterans of the erstwhile foreign oil companies over a period of two
decades. He had only parted with the duplicate ones to his dear and worthy disciple
Reno.
These
honest workers were not claiming any over time expenses for such 'extra curricular' activities
being done during duty time. A few LPG Operators while sitting/squatting on LPG
cylinders, were over-filling/under-filling the cylinders on the carousel (the
machine on which cylinders are filled); without really bothering about Tare
weight or Gross Weight of Cylinders. Satak and Reno could terrorize the
Officers at will but not the permanent Workers of SPCL.
In
any case, Production was more important to Satak, Reno and their bosses. Stock
loss was never an issue in SPCL, but ‘Satak Loss’ was a huge issue for one and
all in Tapri.
Tata
Steels used to assert in their famous and charming advertisement in the late
eighties- ‘We also make Steel’, in Hindi: ‘Ispat bhi hum banate hein’. The
proud workers of SPCL LPG Plant also used to articulate the same sentiments
without any fear of plagiarism: ‘We also fill Cylinders’. [So what if the
cylinders were half filled, overfilled or defective?]
Contractors’
labor were doing Permanent workers’ tedious jobs like handling of filled, empty
and defective Cylinders. They were also catering to the needs of all permanent
Workers/Officers. One of them was assigned the job of cooling drinking water.
(There were no coolers for workers /Officers inside the LPG Filling Shed). He
was cooling water jugs by opening a half
inch LPG pipeline from the ubiquitous LPG Pipeline network and showering jets
of LPG generously on the lower half of the jugs to produce the desired cooling
effect. This way only several hundred kg LPG was used in a day for the welfare
of hardly working SPCL employees whether Officers or workers. As mentioned earlier, Stock loss was never an
issue in SPCL. The bigger issue was 'Satak Loss'.
The
Officers, sitting on the LPG Cylinders in the Filling Shed, were discussing
about Local Tapri politics and whining about certain ‘Chitting and Fissing
allowances’ introduced in similar Govt. Oil Companies NPCL and GPCL but denied so
far by the SPCL Management. Some of them were philosophical but a few of them
were agitated that Reno, despite being Junior to them, had superseded all of
them by several grades. This whining, grumbling was just a customary part of
every day routine. Snafu, yet again.
In a
cricket Match between Officers and Workers on last Independence Day,
Chakrawarti Kumar the Manager- Plant was found to be chucking. The workers
began to call him Chucker. On the same day while fielding, he failed miserably
to catch cricket Ball (Batti, in workers’ jargon). But he revealed his
capability to grab a crab (chakkar batti, in workers’ jargon) from the wet
outfield. He further demonstrated how to eat it raw. They all began to call him
Chucker Batti. Satak liked the name.
This
is how Chakrawarti Kumar became Chucker Batti.
Manager
–Plant, Chucker Batti, was the next in Command after Reno. As Satak and Reno were just
outside LPG Plant waiting to welcome the learned bosses; it was Chucker Batti
–Chucker Batti all the way.
