After being in the administrative service for over 25 years, Sumit Mullick has written his first fiction novel Seducing Pain, which will be launched in Delhi in a fortnight.
‘Administrative system erodes idealism of an officer’
After being in the administrative service for over 25 years, Sumit Mullick has written his first fiction novel Seducing Pain, which will be launched in Delhi in a fortnight.
Known to be a radical and forthright officer, Mullick, a 1982 cadre bureaucrat, had learnt early on that the functioning of public administration was a different ball game altogether. The administrative system, he says, conveys the erosion of idealism of an officer.
“You come with certain ideals to the services — that you can help people, you will bring about change — and for that kind of idealism, you get disillusioned,” says Mullick. “You get crushed by the harsh realities around you.”
The book, Mullick says, conveys these very emotions. “The psychological reactions of a sensitive person to the harsh realities of life that unfold around him all the time.”
Mullick accepts that he has taken to fiction to express his experiences, though he refutes that he has channelised any angst through the book.
“I have not written because I am angry. I am trying to get into the soul of the person who is supposed to have the power to change things but can’t deliver to the extent that he wants to,” he says.
Mullick feels that life as a bureaucrat is more like a pre-charted destiny for officers who have to face the daily politics of a democracy.
“Extreme political pressure exists because politicians are worried about their own political future. It is a reality and you have to carve a space for yourself in this situation.”
Meanwhile, YP Singh, a former IPS officer who wrote Carnage of Angels, says, “It is only those who have been exposed by our books who claim that we have taken to writing because we are frustrated. This is not true.
“People will not know what is happening around us unless we write about it. We are not servants of our superiors. We are public servants and have a responsibility towards the public.”
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