ALAPPUZHA: The young, dashing engineer, with a promising career ahead of him, felt that direct social service was more satisfying than being with an MNC that undertakes charity as part of meeting its annual corporate social responsibility target.
Assistant Collector D Bala Murali is enjoying the life on the fast lane in Alappuzha: “After completing two years of corporate life, I realized I would not be able to go forward. I quit the job and started chasing my IAS dream and hit the bull’s eye in the second attempt.
“Life in Alappuzha is much about coir and farming. But there is a lot of potential to tap to improve lives of the common people. There are heritage buildings galore and one never grows tired of taking in the rich country sites of backwaters and folks on thin country craft, paddling along with abandon”.
For the Thanjavur-born Bala Murali, Kuttanad, famous for its ingenious below sea-level farming, holds a rare allure. He served as an IAS trainee in neighbouring Kottayam for six months last year.
Mr Murali life’s partner, M S Deeptha, assistant commissioner of Income-Tax, Kochi, belongs to the same 2012 batch. When they decided to come down to Kerala a year ago, they thought there would be a lot of challenges. The sportive couple has found the people equally supportive.
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Civil service was our childhood dream. Frankly, I thought it would be just a dream. We feel blessed we are together, sharing much in common and being passionate about our jobs. The marriage has made us more responsible and like every couple, we love sharing our concerns, challenges and leaving our blunders behind us. But do we fit into your concept of a power couple”, they laugh, sharing their thoughts with DC.
“Unlike wife’s, the nature of my job requires constant engagement with public. I have learnt that communication gap can undo one’s professional service because what the senior bureaucrat tries to do should be understood by officials at the grassroots-level, let alone RDOs. I think our biggest challenge is to develop effective communication between district administration and officials spread across the district”, he says.
While being passionate about profession, the couple has a clear-cut view on family life. Ms Deeptha already has a baby bump. “Weekends are ours. We go for outing every weekend and find time for shopping”, said Ms Deeptha, who started her career with Indian Railways.
Ms Deeptha’s current challenge is learning to talk and write Malayalam: “Murali helps me quite lot to get a sense of the language. We are planning to spend our professional life in Kerala. So the grasp of the local language is a must”, said Deeptha, who also hails from TN
