Deciphering the workings of the bureaucratic mind is never easy.  What seems settled practice is often anything but. Abrupt abandonment of longstanding policy can happen in a nanosecond — many times with nary a word of forewarning or explanation. Usually there’s an unstated backstory  — one that can be divined by asking the forensic question

Raj 2.JPGOver the 4th of July weekend, I devoured a fascinating book and, in the course of it, learned a new synonym for “bureaucracy”  — “cutcherry” — taken from Hindi and apparently originating with the British East-India Company’s bureau office in what is now Chennai.

The book, The Professor and the Madman ~