For me, he is always KK – the name is K. Karunakaran Shukla, an IPS officer of West Bengal cadre. Going by the surname, I thought he was from up North somewhere. Turned out, he was from Tamil Nadu. Actual name was Karunakaran K. By adding Shukla, he got the benefit of some reservation. First, he became the first boy from his village to complete Matriculation. Then he became the first boy from his Taluk to finish graduation. And when he became the first boy from his district to join the IPS, he felt all that agony of a South Indian body and soul wrapped inside a North Indian name had been worth it.

He was Additional S.P. in a district called Murshidabad with a very well–connected and very powerful S.P. called Manas Rakshit. The SP was very successful, very ambitious and very in with the ruling Party. His only complaint, expressed in private to many people – “Out of all the S.P.s in the whole state, why did KK have to happen to ME?” One day he rang up someone very high up in the ruling party and poured out his heart regarding his Additional S.P. and pleaded with folded telephonic hands to kindly remove him – “Ek lo, ek Additional S.P. muft mein doonga!” Unfortunately, at that time, there was a lot of cross connection. KK got a parallel connection and heard through the whole conversation. Next day, bright and early, KK was in the office of the S.P. in his crisp Khaki with a crisp salute. The conversation:

Earlier, IPS officers were not allowed to go for UN missions. Good tax-free money, little work, exotic locales but no IPS. In the early 1990s, there was just a small suggestion that IPS officers could also be considered for the UN mission in Liberia. KK grabbed the opportunity with both hands. All of us eight officers of Bengal cadre who had applied got selected but the West Bengal government suddenly realized that sparing so many officers at Additional S.P./ S.P. level would create a serious vacuum so they refused to release us. We tried and nearly gave up but not KK. In Bengal, no one attends office before 11 AM. Every single morning, KK would be at the door of Joint Secretary (Police) office at 1055 hrs, usher him into his own office and start with the story of how he was the first boy from his village to finish Matriculation … and so on and end with the plea to kindly release us. After about a week of this, the Joint Secretary was fed up and asked KK whether there wasn’t some other important work for him as he was in a sensitive district and why he was pestering him every day on end. KK replied that he had a very important assignment but since going to Liberia was more important, he reported sick so that he could hound this Joint Secretary. Finally, in sheer disgust, the Joint Secretary gave in. Even then it was touch and go. When that chartered flight took off from Delhi airport with us on board, we finally believed that we were in fact going on a UN mission and a cheer went up for KK in the plane.

Because it was a UN mission in a war devastated country, we were given a special baggage allowance of 140 kgs. KK persuaded the authorities and managed to sneak in baggage weighing 160 kgs. I did not know how tough things could be and went in with 24 kgs and everyone thought I was a fool. When we landed at Liberia, there was a lot of jostling for the officers to get down as though they were the first men on the moon. KK managed to be the first to get down but was very disappointed. There were already people there so he felt cheated out of his Neil Armstrong moment. There was a further problem. NO COOLIE or trolley! Everyone had to lug his own stuff. I was the only one laughing at that moment. It was tough work, heaving all that baggage on to a pick-up van at a considerable distance. One bag of KK fell and broke and about 78 pickle bottles rolled out in 78 different directions. In a place and context like Liberia in the early 1990s, pickle was a very precious commodity. Each of us grabbed as many pickle bottles as possible and tried to run as far away from KK as possible. He chased some of us and finally caught up with me. He pulled rank and demanded his pickles back. I politely and firmly refused and then he told me how his wife had lovingly packed them for him and if I did not return them, divorce was a distinct possibility and there was also the little matter of his having been the first boy from his village to have passed Matriculation and … Finally, we negotiated down to 50 – 50. He was not so successful with the others.

I had not seen 10,000 rupees together in my life till then. Liberia offered 105 USD per day plus our salaries. Before we could be posted to our duty stations and rent accommodation there, we were put up in an exploitative hotel charging about 70 dollars per day. Most of us were still happy because it was a temporary thing for about a week and even the balance money was fine but not so KK. His world appeared to have crashed all around him. I asked him about the problem and he said he had budgeted for 3 dollars of rent plus 2 dollars of food per day so that he would save at least a hundred dollars per day, else it was not economical. Economical?!! I thought this was just polite small talk and did not realise how dead serious he was. One morning, he announced to the utter jealously of the rest of us at the breakfast table that he had found a hotel where three of them would be sharing a room for just 10 dollars per night and they were moving out. We the great unwashed bade them goodbye secretly wishing that they would get run over. At 2 AM in the morning, same night, there was a lot of commotion. We saw KK and the two others sheepishly lugging their trunks (KK with 160 kgs minus some of the pickle bottles) and such like on their backs walking back into the hotel. Apparently, that dream castle was a room in a red-light area hotel and some “clients” were trying to wake them up around midnight. Unfortunately, the original hotel did not have any spare rooms so they spent the night searching unsuccessfully for a hotel room elsewhere, all their luggage on their backs.

I took over a particular assignment from KK. In the course of the farewell speeches in my honour when I was leaving the assignment, some of my staff described me in glowing terms and some even ascribed some sort of divinity to little old me. I was getting more and more elated until I realised that everything was relative. Compared to KK, my illustrious predecessor, who was by now referred to as King Kobra by some, in certain lights, from certain angles, I was appearing a little bit of all right!

Is KK real?

Partly truth and partly fiction.”

Like that song, this is part truth, part fiction and part wild exaggeration; a mish-mash combination of different people who brightened my days at different points of time. Any resemblance to anyone living or dead is coincidental.