Woman railway employee says no to duet, put on notice

Mumbai: Not singing a duet with your boss could mar your career graph, if you are in the Indian Railways. A senior railway clerk from Raipur, Anjali Tiwari was in for a rude shock when she was issued a memo for allegedly not singing a duet with the general manager in Raipur.

The divisional railway manager (DRM) Rahul Gautam issued a notice to Ms Tiwari that read: “When the General Manager/SECR (Satyendra Kumar) expressed his desire to sing one particular song. Smt. Anjali Tiwari flatly refused to sing the duet under the pretext that she has not prepared”.

The notice further castigates Ms Tiwari and said: “Being an employee appointed under cultural quota, she (Ms Tiwari) is not supposed to refuse to perform when instructions in advance were given to her by the undersigned. She thus committed gross misconduct and failed to maintain absolute devotion towards duty”.

When contacted, Mr Gautam said the issue was not her refusal but the timing. “We had given her a list of three duet songs that the GM likes a day before the event. The event was delayed around 10 pm on January 16.”

He further added, “At first Ms Tiwari sang one duet with the GM but when she was asked to sing the other songs she flatly refused, that too on the stage. We felt this could have been avoided at a time when everyone was in a good mood. In fact the general manager let the issue go.”

The memo was revoked after an uproar on Twitter and Facebook. The bizarre decision came from the South East Central Railway (SECR), Raipur division.

The incident occurred on January 16 when Ms Tiwari allegedly said that she cannot sing a song originally sung by Lata Mangeshwar and the late Mohhamad Rafi, a favourite of Mr Kumar since she had not practiced it enough.

This newspaper has a copy of the notice (aka chargesheet) that was issued to Ms Tiwari. Mr Gautam said that an inquiry has been initiated into the situation and the results will come soon.