HUM LOG

HUM LOG

Before I write about my sojourn as a commissioned officer in AD, I wish to pen in a few lines about the current topics in news. Just today evening after coming back from office as I was getting ready to play with my 2½ yrs old sonnie Shreyas, NDTV India was airing ‘Hum Log’ anchored by Pankaj Pachori, I have somehow come to like the way he speaks his hindi and the number of times he uses v in a sentence. The topic was something related to Defence Forces & the shortage of officers, too familiar…but the surroundings were new, the historic drill square in front of the ‘Chetwode Hall’. Well there were, as usual, many of the faujis & ex faujis ready to give & share their pearls of wisdom, also there was this great lyricist Mr Javed Akhtar airing his views, all goody ones as expected. There were also these Gentleman Cadets, a few lady cadets, who I think would have been invited from OTA, Chennai, in addition there were these young guys in the audience whom Mr Pachori was trying to frequently ask if they would like to join Defence forces, all he could mange was a few raised hands. Coming to the topic, it seemed to be on the lower pay structure of defence forces as compared to the corporate world, and why we were not getting the desired talent to join as officers. I called up my Commander to inform him about the pgme lest somebody just mentions it & we (read he) is caught unaware. It reminded me of just yesterday when I sent out detailed comments regarding ways & means of improving the intake into the army of a certain category of officers and how vehemently I have opposed any lowering of standards. Ok the talk here was on the low pay scales and amongst the panel was the now successful entrepreneur, Capt Gopinath, of the Air Deccan fame, and he quoted paying his pilots a Rs Five lakh per month salary. Some gentleman whom I don’t know, replied that during his stay in the Central glacier he was getting Rs 150/- as the hazard allowance for safeguarding the 100 crore plus Indians!!! and asking why the pilot was getting that huge sum for the safety of a mere 126 passengers on board his aircraft. There was a huge round of applause; I don’t know for what, it appeared something akin to Mr Navjot Singh Sidhu’s laughter bouts on the Laughter Challenge programme, which are always there howsoever bad the joke may have been. Everyone present agreed that we needed to be paid more money but may I ask, does it really matter, these people seating in the beautiful locale in the pleasant evening showing concern for us soldiers. The salary of the supreme commander having already being fixed we shouldn’t be really looking forward to something extraordinary in the pay commission, as & when it comes. Although the statement made by the Commandant that the Defence Minister & the Chairman of the Pay Commission have promised a package that we wouldn’t be feeling bad about, is encouraging. It’s left to the wisdom of Mr Chidambram (I have already said I have high regards for him) to let loose some strings of his kitty & for once satiate the requirements of the ‘Indian of the Year-2007’ – the Indian soldier. And to NDTV, thank you very much for airing the pgme; of late there has been a spurt in the programmes on defence forces, I sometimes wonder why? Mr Shukla in an overdrive before the Republic Day! And here I wish to thank every Indian who voted for the NDTV poll. The Army Chief looked splendid receiving the proud award just the other day. I wonder should I have also sent in my vote; on second thoughts can we vote for ourselves?

Vow just as I have finished penning this one at 1:07 AM, 21 Jan 2008, there is no dial tone, the national highway project, must have dozed a few of the fibre optic cables as they often do in this part of the world. Lets see, when you all get to read this one.

The IMA Days

If NDA was good, IMA was no less. Starting afresh and being ‘juniors’ again was difficult to adjust, but it was just a matter of one term. Try as hard as I may, amongst the few things that I vividly remember of the IMA tenure, one is the ‘Bhadraj’ & the second one is ‘Chindits’. These are the two camps in the second & the third term respectively and the word ‘tough’ would be a reasonably ok to describe them. But what if one has to repeat either of them? or both for that matter? And with ‘jinx’ following us from NDA we were the ideal choice for repeating – both of them!! and had it not been for the President Mr R Venkataraman, who was the chief guest for our POP (passing out parade), we surely could have repeated our POP as well, why because even after numerous rehearsals the big occasion got on to our AUO (Academy Under Officer) and he forgot one of the commands of the drill. I remember making an angled approach to the ‘FINAL STEP’ instead of the traditional straight approach. Amongst the other memories of IMA include the famous ‘Shakumbari’ pass during the Chindits camp, it was amazing to find the entire course bunched up in the morning, no one could locate the pass in the night, moreover everyone was thoroughly drenched except us the Alamein company since we were blissfully sleeping in one of the ‘Gurjar’ huts when it rained cats & dogs outside. The entire course got so late that the academy had to cater for an extra meal since we had already long consumed the emergency rations. Another memory is of me becoming a ‘cane appointment’ as it is popularly called, felt nice since NDA didn’t find me worthy of it, wait it did, as was told by my ‘Divo’ (Divisional Officer) had it not been for a few of my FUs in the junior terms, I deserved something big, no wonder even without any appointment, I ranked pretty high up in the passing out merit from NDA. The jinx was following, so with the rotational policy, my cane appointment went a few weeks before we took our final step.

Alright, before I close the chapter on IMA, one final & most important topic – ‘Choice of Arms’! We were told that it is as important as choosing a wife since we have to live with it. Well it wasn’t entirely wrong; it’s the choice of arm which really differentiates how our careers developed further and where we are now. Since we were the same NDA course on whom ‘science’ was thrust upon, so it wasn’t a surprise when the hot choice was the technical arm – the Engineers, Signals & EME (Electrical & Mechanical Engineers). Our super block guys chose & got Engineers/Signals. Poor me, in the third block that I was in, there were only two signal vacancies with three PCs (Parental Claims), Engineer vacancies having been already consumed by the toppers & Technical Graduates, I was left to make a choice into the unknown, & hoping it to be good. Arty AD (Artillery Air Defence) was my choice; why because it was the most happening arm, the most technologically advanced arm, the arm of air conditioned radars and long range surface to air missiles and last but not the least, we were told that AD guys live in the Metros only!! I still remember the statement made by our AD instructor when he was giving the motivation lecture about AD, he said and I quote “In my 12 years of service, I have always had hot lunch at my home” I had that statement at the back of my mind always, so it was AD for me and I was looking forward to which metro I would be posted to – a myth that was soon to be shattered during the allotment of arms. After all the anticipations & increased palpitations, I was an AD gunner!! but no metro station for me; I was supposed to be going to my Regiment which was located at Ferozepur!!…hello… Ferozepur isn’t a metro, I asked Major (now Brigadier) Ashwani Kumar, our AD instructor, he smiled and said, Siachen isn’t either my dear, and looking at my dazed face clarified that my Regiment was shortly moving from Ferozepur to Siachen Glacier. Not all AD units were located at Metro stations and certainly not mine…..the Metro Myth was shattered…..the ‘jinx’ was back!!!

Before signing off the IMA diary, I must add that though many of us got our preferred choice of arm but those who did not are performing extremely well…..many of them would be becoming ‘Colonels’ very soon this year and start commanding their battalions, the command which Field Marshall Slim has described as one of the most challenging & satisfying command in one’s career. Best of luck guys, will look you up when in town.

See you next time from the AD perspective………..

continuing from where i left...

I am sure my course mates will agree that after all these years, we still remember our stay at NDA, nostalgic memories those. That also reminds me of the kind of a ‘jinx’ attached to our course, we were the first batch of class XIIth pass students, and like all students who wished their studying career to end soon, I had opted for the ‘Arts’ stream, hoping to be a ‘BA’ and having a ball while at NDA, or so I thought. The initial three weeks of ‘arts’ classes were good with no carry home type assignments unlike our ‘science’ counterparts, & then it struck, like a lightening bolt from the sky. A decision was taken at the apex HQ that all of those who passed XIIth with PCM subjects, would compulsorily have to take the ‘science’ stream. The late decision of our esteemed HQ cost many of our first term course mates their career in the Armed forces as they decided if it was not ‘BSc’ they wouldn’t like to continue. I still remember one name, Nipun Sahni, who was second on the merit list but chose to quit before the three weeks were over, hope he must be doing well for himself in the civil. Anyway, just got carried away, so where was I, oh yes science was thrust upon us!! So all that fun we had studying the ‘arts’ subject vanished, and to add to the miseries, we were to have extra classes to ‘cover up’ the topics we had missed. And our first term finished with us trying to catch up with ‘science’.

The rest of the stay at the ‘Cradle of Leadership’ as NDA is rightly called, was akin to all other courses but it was the final term when the ‘jinx’ struck again. We were on the ‘lookout’ for a partner for the famous ‘NDA Ball’. I have now been told that it has now assumed gigantic proportions, with lots of gifts & moolah at stake and girls being invited for the ball from all over Pune including some airhostess academy. But it wasn’t so in those days. I met a few of the Pune college girls specially during the ‘Insynch’ festival, but the lady luck (now I understand why it is called ‘lady luck’) finally smiled when daughter of my dad’s colleague landed up in Symbiosis for her law course. So it was easier for me to get a partner & she managed a couple of her friends for a few of my course mates as well lest they would be ogling at ‘my girl’. Talking of Insynch, I must write here for those who are not familiar with Pune, it is the most popular college festival of Pune, hope it still is. I remember, our ACC (Academy Cadet Captain) did not become the Mr Insynch as was the tradition always with the previous courses, can’t blame him, the ‘jinx’ factor you see. All was going as per schedule and we even practiced a few dance steps. But on one fateful day, terror struck and the LTTE guys chose to blow up Rajiv Gandhi. Now how on earth would Rajiv getting killed have any relation with our jinx, he wasn’t even the PM at that time. But it had, our ‘NDA Ball’ was cancelled as a mark of respect to the departed soul of the ex PM. Now I have very high regards for Rajiv (infact I have such regards for all well educated politicians Manmohan, Chidambram & the likes) but cancelling the NDA Ball??? I cannot put down in words how we faced the Symbiosis girls after that so the story finished even before it commenced. And taking the cue from this cancellation, our squadron commanders and divisional commanders cancelled hosting the dinners which they used to do for the final termers. The ‘jinx’ had struck, big time!!!!! The graduation ceremony was good, & the chief guest was Manmohan Singh, a relatively unknown figure at that time, he was the chairman of UGC, I think, but shot to fame soon afterwards when he became the Finance Minister in the PV Narsimha Rao govt, (I hope I got the spelling right), and rest as they say is history. The pain of cancellation of the Ball was soon forgotten and we ‘passed out’ from the portals of NDA with the Chief of Army Staff Gen Rodrigues (of the first course NDA) being the chief guest. Nischal Sood was now armed with the BSc degree and ready for the Indian Military Academy.
The jinx continued in IMA as well…….

The Journey So Far

Fifteen Years!! is a long time. Starting from the time when India was recovering from a near economic catastrophe with barely a Billion dollar forex reserves....... to now when there's so much of buoyancy, so much confidence of the world, from the Harshad Mehta era to the era of 21000 on the SENSEX, it sure has been a long journey.

The start point was even further back....with us the teenagers joining the famed National Defence Academy at Khadakvasla, Pune and starting what would be an enviable career with the Armed Forces of the country. Not every one is lucky to step into the portals of our now Alma Mater, and still not everyone who does get a chance, passes out of it....our course had approx 304 of us joining as first termers but only 236 or so gracefully passed out.

Ah, NDA the memories are so fresh that it looks like the other day when we joined and passed out. But yes while being there the days & specially the nights seemed so long, moreso in the junior terms.
......to be contd