It was as a cub IAS officer, not even two years in service and already in the bad books of a minister and the chief secretary, that D Babu Paul had first come in touch with K R Gouri.
The young officer realised two things about Gouri, whom he always refers to as 'Gouri Amma' in his autobiography 'Katha Ithuvare' (The Story So Far). One, she protected bold honest officers, even when her party's interests were hurt. Two, even her wrath was edged with motherly warmth.
The year was 1968, the second E M S Namboodiripad ministry had just taken over. Gouri Amma, who was revenue minister then, was already a legend.
Babu Paul, who was in his 20s and soon grew into one of Kerala's finest civil servants, was a sub-collector in Thiruvananthapuram. He had effectively put down an engineers' strike in the Public Works Department but at the same time, had angered Finance Minister P K Kunju. The minister wanted him to spruce up Cantonment House, the minister's official residence, as part of his daughter's wedding. Paul bluntly told him half of what he asked for could not be done.
Around the same time, Babu Paul was posted to head the Engineering Inspection Wing under the Finance Department. He was one of the few engineers in the civil service at that time.
When the finance minister realised it was the same "upstart" who stood up to him recently, he got Chief Minister E M S Namboodiripad to revoke the order. He got Paul replaced with another young officer, C K K Panicker, who was then Thalassery sub-collector.
The then Chief Secretary Gopala Menon used the opportunity to transfer Paul to Thalassery. Paul got ready to shift to Thalassery not knowing how furious Gouri Amma was about the transfer. She was revenue minister and was not informed of the transfer.
EMS had ratified the transfer but Gouri Amma's private secretary called up Paul and asked him to stay on in the Engineering Inspection Wing. The Chief Secretary was enraged, he thought Paul had complained to the minister.
He summoned Babu Paul and told him that he would now be transferred to Kasaragod. "Don't go to any minister now," Gopala Menon told him. "I don't go to ministers," Paul replied. "But if any minister speaks for you, I won't let you off. Your CR (confidential report) will be ruined," the chief secretary said. Badly provoked, he shot back: "You will not be CS forever. After you retire I will see what to do." He barged out of the office but ended up crying at home, near his wife's comforting presence.
The chief secretary insisted that Babu Paul be shifted beyond Thalassery. Gouri Amma put her foot down, had him posted in her own place, as Alappuzha sub-collector.
This is what Gouri Amma told him before he left for Alappuzha. "You are young. Even if I ask you to do something, do only what is possible. I have to keep my party and voters satisfied. But this is no licence to commit blunders."
Babu Paul's stint in Alappuzha was short but Gouri Amma remained largely true to her word. Provoking the Communist party became Paul's second nature. He tore away a list of candidates given by the party to be appointed through the employment exchange. He also evicted an encroachment of a lake by party men. He even ordered the uprooting of coconut trees planted by a close relative of Gouri Amma on reclaimed paddy land.
Gouri Amma asked no questions. "When I have the confidence given by Gouri Amma herself why should I tolerate anything wrong," Babu Paul writes in his book.
But even Gouri Amma had her limits. "She reached the end of her patience when I asked one of her lackeys to get out of my office," Babu Paul writes. He had humiliated Gouri Amma's man in quite a rough fashion in front of the sub-collector's staff.
This is how, in his characteristic understated humour, Babu Paul describes how he treated Gouri Amma's close aide. "When he told me that IAS officers were spies of the Centre, I asked him to leave but not in the way a priest would say after a sermon, 'go in peace and calm'," he writes.
Cut to size, the aide threatened transfer. "People like me are enough to get people like you a transfer. I will return to this office after you are removed," Gouri Amma's aide said. A week later, Paul's wife read him a news item in the Malayala Manorama. "Alappuzha sub-collector Babu Paul posted as Chengannur sub-collector."
When Alappuzha collector Dandapani wanted to know why an efficient officer was transferred, Gouri Amma's response testified to both her sense of humour and motherly warmth. "Babu Paul has a little daughter. Isn't Alappuzha so full of mosquitoes?"
Babu Paul passed away on April 12, 2019, at the age of 72, two years before the death of perhaps his only guardian angel in service.
