I have always wondered why we should be packing off grandmas, often non-existent ones, or distant uncles to the heavens so that we can scoot work for a day or two. The ease with which we ‘kill’ our disposable kith and kin actually exposes the nation’s collective addiction to the idea of keeping off work on some pretext or other! But then, with so many holidays round the year besides copious leave options – all officially – is it at all necessary to have fratricidal albeit farcical blood on our hands?
It does not need much genius to decipher that ‘holiday’ is derived from ‘holy day’. The religious roots have since branched out to include historical events and personalities. The concept of holidays, as we see it today, has evolved over the times in different lands through the interaction of law and local culture. In countries with a homogenous culture or a dominant culture (as with the Christian West and the Islamic Middle-East), the holiday pattern follows that culture with official sanction. In the US, Sunday is both a religious and common-law holiday just as Friday is in Muslim countries and Saturdays in Jewish Israel. While climate too is a factor, it impacts only the academia, and thankfully not the job sector. Barring the judiciary, that is, which has steadfastly refused to sweat it out despite pending litigation in lakhs.
India is truly a holiday haven. Other than the self-employed or those engaged in some private concerns or essential services, Indians enjoy the highest number of holidays amidst the developed and developing nations. This holiday havoc in India is on two accounts: secular and religious. Having courted a multi-religious, multi-cultural, multi-regional, pluralist image, India’s officialdom seeks to enhance that facade most through holidays by seeking to accommodate the sentiments of all religions and regions; For their part Indians happily ‘respect’ other faiths by staying home and would in fact look forward to celebrating Chinese, Korean and Congo new years! But I would’nt just blame my usual suspect, secularism, for this. For even without the holidays of other religions, Hinduism’s stand-alone contribution to the holiday list is by itself quite a quantum. For the record, there are only three official ‘secular’ holidays, comprising I-day, R-day and Gandhi Jayanthi. The rest are predominantly religious holidays and Hindu festivals top the charts, as they should, that is, if holidays are a given. But that is a big, debatable ‘if’ considering that almost every day has an auspicious touch here for somebody or other, somewhere or other in India!
Now to some number crunching. One weekly holiday, about 25 public holidays, some random holidays and leave entitlements add to such a staggering aggregate that even the most hard working office-goer hardly goes to office on more than 250 days a year. The attendence scale tapers as we move from the private to public sector wherein the outrageous five-day week regimen prevails besides other monstrosities. A typical government servant serves the government on less than 200 of the 365 days. And mind you, we are only talking of attendance, not actual work! Throw in strikes, bandhs, rains and sundry other acts of man, god and the rational-godless and even that paltry presence at the workplace gets diminished. For instance, in TN Anna’s centenary B-day was suddenly declared a holiday under the Negotiable Instruments Act last year. For that matter, States seem to have some divine right to announce holidays under the said statute. That Act surely looks most negotiable!
And as if the conspiracy of numbers weren’t enough, the timing of holidays too often add to the perversity and pain. Calendars of various hues collude in such a way that festival hols and weekends combine to stretch the stint. Sample ‘09-10’. Christmas fell on Friday. Along with an off on Monday, Dec 28 owing to Muharram, it was four holidays on the trot. The new year weekend that followed swallowed another three successive days. The ensuing Pongal holidays of about five days along with the weekend will be a nightmare for businesses and savings A/C holders with their hard earned money remaining beyond bounds for that period. Imagine the plight of a person who has fixed a daughter’s marriage for the beginning of the auspicious Thai month! Or a business man who has pressing commitments but cheques under clearing. And not just calendars, but captains of Unions too adhere to this sinister coincidence: Strikers, of PSUs or Banks, invariably develop their customary itch either on Fridays or Mondays! And if by some divine providence a lone working day happens to get sandwiched amidst such holidays, trust some staff to fall sick or ‘kill’ someone to get a wholesome sabbatical!
And that brings us to the other side of the absentee coin: Leave. Access to a job is an existential necessity; not turning up for work on a day can only be an exception to that. But we have a situation where right to be employed is not a guarantee, but guaranteed leave is a rightful entitlement! Logic dictates that one is supposed to work for all the days of the month that he gets paid for. Visualising a daily wager would amplify this truth. But a slew of ‘leaves’ turns this dictum on the head. There is casual leave that casually takes out a minimum of three days of a month. Sick leave yields another three or four, even if you are not sick. Of course genuine sickness warrants confinement, particularly in these paranoic times of H1N1s when you might spread not just the virus but also absenteism! There are various other perfectly legitmate ways to skip office and most us know the works if not our work. There are pilgrimages, family functions, tourism et al with their own tolls: LoP is small consolation to the hapless employer for it does not address the disruption in work flow. But the idea of Privilige leave has always baffled me most. Instead of feeling apologetic about shirking work you are actually made to feel like a king! In my view, besides genuine illness, a very short marriage-leave and the ‘resultant’ maternity-leave are the only deserving candidates.
All Pay Commissions have suggested a reduction in public holidays. There is a crying need to get back to six-day weeks in Government. There is also a legitimate ground to ban bank strikes, and if possible, strikes by all PSUs: In these days of ATM-to-mouth existence, it would be tragic if one is unable to lay hands on one’s own money in times of need. The complicated maze of leave options too need a relook through the prism of productivity and continuity, though the idea may set off a sort of proletariat revolution … and more leave.
Now, let me leave lest a disgruntled employee despatches me to give company to his great grandpa who passed away on paper, meaning a leave letter, last week. And happy Pongal ‘holidays’.
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