What do you surmise when you tried to reach a person on the landline phone and you are
told – ‘vo ja rahe hain’? Obviously, the inference will be the person is about to leave for
somewhere. But, not if the call have been made to someone in Haryana. There, the phrase
means that the person is not around and left sometime ago. This was the first lesson for IAS
officer Ms Firoza Mehrotra, who had never been to Haryana till she was allotted the
Haryana cadre in 1974. She spoke to Indian Masterminds about her experiences.
Please click here to watch the full interview…
Another such incident was when she as SDM Mahendergarh, she was incharge of district
prison as well, which among others during emergency also housed Chaudhury Devi Lal, then
a senior opposition leader. Devi Lal wasn’t well. Jail doctor adviced him to be shifted to
Rohtak Medical College, a distance of two hours. But, the government didn’t want any
leniency with any opposition leader. Shifting them out of prison was a complete no no. How,
did she manage the situation, is an interesting episode.
Another incident is about a wife-beater encountered by her during her initial days into
administration. Strangely, even the wife resisted her intervention saying – she was bound by the seven wedding vows to obey her husband. Since, Ms Firoza too had got married only a
few days ago to Mr Vivek Mehrotra – a batchmate IAS officer of the same cadre – through
Hindu rituals, she was well conversant with the wedding vows. How, she managed to
overcome the regressive Haryanvi couple is another interesting episode discussed by her in
the video.
We will soon publish another episode of the interview where she talks about the gender
inequality in Haryana and the steps taken up by her over the years to reduce it. Please keep
watching this space.
