The Tall Man

Pradeep Biswal

Poet and former IAS Officer Pradeep Biswal narrates on some of his close encounters with the Tall Man Biju Patnaik

In 1991 I was in Delhi when the general election had been declared and the political atmosphere was charged.

I called on Rabi Ray, then Speaker of Lok Sabha, in his official residence. He happened to be the maternal uncle of my brother-in-law. He and his wife Dr. Saraswati Swain used to like me very much.

That day he had an appointment with Malayalam Singh Yadav, Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. But it was postponed due to a delayed flight. He then asked about the political scenario in the State and in course of the discussion asked about the Tall Man and how’s he doing.

Instantly I could not understand what he meant to say. Then I realized that he was referring to Biju Babu with whom he didn’t have a good relationship and that’s why he didn’t want to take his name.

Rabi Ray was a great socialist leader of our country and was a very honest and upright politician. He has left a rich legacy as Speaker of Lok Sabha. But he didn’t have grassroots support in the State and was not a charismatic leader with mass appeal.

Rabi Ray was a saintly person as admitted by his staff, very humble and principled in life. On the other hand, the Tall Man called Biju Patnaik was a leader of the masses. Biju Babu was a daredevil person and had a charismatic appeal.

People of Odisha loved Biju Patnaik so much which was demonstrated after his death. He was a great statesman and visionary. In fact, he was one of the tallest politicians of the country during his days.

Although I have high respect for Rabi Ray and I admire him a lot let me admit that I was a diehard fan of Biju Babu. So also my father, who was one of his associates in politics.

For the first time, I could have a glance of him when Biju Patnaik was campaigning for the general election in 1977. He was being given a hero’s welcome wherever he went those days in the aftermath of the infamous Emergency when he was put in jail.

He was late by two hours of the scheduled time of the meeting due to the rush of people to see him on the way and finally, when he arrived at Jajpur Road there was a huge gathering awaiting to see him and listen to him. At the end of his inspiring speech, Biju Babu begged for money.

My grandfather was the first to reach the dias and contribute one month’s pension to him and Biju Babu bent his head to take his blessings. It was in the news in the media the next day with a photo of my grandfather with Biju Babu. People of Odisha stood firmly with him in the election and gave his party a thumping victory in that election.

The second time I had a close view of the great leader in the nineties was when he was the Chief Minister. He was invited to the annual function of the Odisha Finance Service Association in Soochana Bhavan (now Jayadev Bhavan) at Bhubaneswar.

That day Biju Babu was visibly in a relaxed mood. While enjoying a plateful of fruits and snacks, he narrated many of his experiences in life including his relationship with Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru.

In course of his talk, he mentioned the construction of the expressway connecting Paradip port with the Daitary mines during his earlier stint as Chief Minister. He went on narrating the story on how he made it a straight line ignoring the advice of the Chief Engineer and asking the police not to register cases against the drivers engaged in the construction work for any accident in order to speed up the work.

His thrust was that one has to ignore small things to achieve bigger things. The next day the opposition parties made demonstrations against the Chief Minister for allowing the truck drivers to kill hundreds of children during the construction of Paradip Expressway. The audio recording of the event was with me at that time since I was one of the key organizers. On seeing the public reaction, the matter was hushed up and one of our senior office bearers collected the recording from me to hand over to someone in the government.

My third encounter with the Tall Man was a face-to-face meeting at his office in the Secretariat in 1990. My mother-in-law had sought an appointment with the CM for a personal grievance. She was allowed to meet him at 9.00 am. I had to accompany her to the meeting. The CM reached sharp at 9.00 am. While entering the third floor a shabbily dressed old man appeared from somewhere and grabbed his feet. CM thrashed him and proceeded a bit. Then he turned back and called the person, listened to him, and asked for the papers.

The poor fellow was a retired sepoy in the police who didn’t get his pension after a decade due to some departmental proceedings against him. CM assured him to look into it and the man left with a sense of gratitude.

Once CM reached his chamber we were called to meet him. He asked us to sit at his front and enquired about me. When my mother-in-law started narrating the things in her own style, she cut short by the CM and now I was asked to explain the details in brief.

The CM immediately rang up the concerned official, warned him for vindictive attitude and asked him to bring the file for review on the action taken in the matter. This was sufficient to solve the problem.

The concerned officials could not muster the courage to take any vindictive action. One thing I could observe that day how much respect Biju Babu has for women. She treated my mother-in-law with all humility of a gentleman but not as the all-powerful Chief Minister of the State.

On another occasion, I was wrongly victimized by a senior IAS officer who sent a bunch of officials to my residence to serve an official communication on my wife in my absence. I brought it to the notice of a Minister who was representing our constituency. He advised me to get a letter addressed to CM by my wife narrating the incident.

The minister then took the letter to the CM. I was waiting outside the CM’s chamber. When CM read the representation he got angry for the treatment meted out to my wife and immediately summoned the concerned Secretary. He was given a dressing down in front of the Minister and the CM wanted to see the file and review the order.

The same evening the concerned Secretary sent feelers to me through some journalists known to me to compromise the issue. Of course, I refused it and preferred to stay away from that organization. This is how the Tall Man used to act.

The Story is Fourth in a series of articles.

(Mr. Pradeep Biswal is a bilingual poet writing both in Odia and English. His poems are widely anthologized. He is also an editor and translator of repute. A retired IAS Officer, Shri Biswal presently holds the position of Member, Odisha Real Estate Regulatory Authority and stays with his family at Bhubaneswar).