By MS Sriram
A senior professional told me that he was writing two books—an autobiography in his mother tongue and memoirs in English. I wanted to know the difference. “Autobiography will have details of personal life, stories and gossip. A memoir would be stoic and about professional life,” he said. When I got Duvvuri Subbarao’s book about his career, I slotted it as a memoir. But it is neither. He calls it notes from his life and career. The genre ‘notes’ differs from the other two in interesting ways.
Both autobiography and memoirs would have multiple characters, anecdotes and a context that lends to a narrative with the protagonist at the centre, with other significant characters and interesting encounters. However, notes are unique. They are excessively centered around the protagonist, while others just flash by like the images seen from the window of a moving train. They add light and colour, but the focus is on the journey of the passenger. This should not be construed as a narcissistic trip; far from it. It is a dispassionate assessment of the journey, from a distance, like having an outside view of himself.
If the journey is through the lens of a civil servant, there would be variety, starting with accounts of a district posting and the diverse assignments that come by. Talk to any civil servant, and you would find that their district postings weigh disproportionately high in their careers. It is a place where the civil servant rules, wields power, has a close view on the immediate impact and gets the opportunity to play god. Unfortunately, this story is lacking in Subbarao’s journey, because he did not get a district posting for a long enough duration. The reason could be the youthful idealism to “change the world”. At the same time, a young civil servant can be helpless if denied this opportunity, as they are too junior in the hierarchy and new to the system in navigating levers of power, not having cracked the code of the relationship between the people’s representatives and the bureaucracy. It is a situation where realpolitik trumps idealism.
Why does the book relate to people outside civil services? Why should we be interested in someone’s journey at all? The answers lie in the strength of the book. The charm of the book is that this person at the core of the narrative disappears the moment the choices are thrown open, challenges are discussed and the morality of the situation is weighed in. Suddenly these become our lives —universal and relatable. As the writer reflects on his life, the reader is encouraged to undertake a parallel journey and experience the same issues, making it as much the reader’s life as of the writer.
How does one make choices? What are the considerations? How do we achieve our aspirations beyond serendipity and merit? Should one use networks, contacts, or just leave it to god? In case of Subbarao, the choices were real —between family and career, between vertical growth and horizontal diversity of experience—and the price he had to pay. Interestingly, none of the choices were driven by pecuniary considerations. Therefore, the title of the book seems inappropriate. Subbarao justifies the title towards the end, in a touching letter drafted to his late mother, but the word mercenary is still not convincing. The choices that we encounter are between multiple causes—some ‘selfish’ in the sense that they would enhance career prospects, and some ‘benign’, because they were done at the cost of a personal comfort zone. In each of these there is no crushing ambition or compelling monetary incentives that create an ethical dilemma.
When we talk of civil service in undivided Andhra Pradesh, we usually encounter four names—BN Yugandhar, TL Shankar, BPR Vitthal and SR Sankaran. While there is no mention of Sankaran in this book, it is worth pondering how some officers have loomed large across multiple generations of civil servants by their grit and principles. Both Subbarao and YV Reddy could have been a part of the brigade, but for their choices. Their zone of influence on the local bureaucracy was not as expansive, because they chose alternative opportunities outside this context to leave their imprint on institutions like the Reserve Bank of India. Subbarao may like to use this as a lens to reflect on his career.
Subbarao writes very well, and the reader can feel his emotions as the pages go by. A powerful narrative, indeed.
The boxes at the end of the chapters, however, could have been avoided, and they come across as though the author is seeking endorsement of his choices through an established theory. The book would have been equally effective without these. Also, whenever the author refers to a ‘position’, the gender of the position is usually feminine, which is the appropriate thing to do. However, in the chapter on North Block Ruminations, Subbarao talks about listening one step down, where the joint secretary is a him, and a deputy secretary is a her. I am sure this was quite unintended.
MS Sriram is professor, Centre for Public Policy, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore.
The book will release on April 30, and is available for pre-order
Just a Mercenary? Notes From My Life and Career
Duvvuri Subbarao
Penguin Random House
Pp 435, Rs 799
