Year: 2013

Southern Naval Command has had some really nice gentlemen as C-in-C’s. Also, it had some toughies: Vice Admiral Ronnie Pereira was the Area Commander or FOCSOUTH before it became a command. And then there was Vice Admiral Oscar Stanley Dawson. When he died on the 23rd Oct 2011 in Bangalore at the age of 87, we were all saddened. The reason was that Dawson represented the last of the Admirals of the Indian Navy who had Navy as their first and last love. In his case it was true in another manner too since he died a bachelor. Dawson also represented that breed of senior officers who carried a very hard exterior but a heart of gold. He was simply consistent about his first and only love: the Indian Navy.

The thing with people like Dawson was that they assumed that everyone else was a bachelor too and had nothing else to do but to live for the Indian Navy 24/7 and all hours of day and night. As C-in-C South in Cochin, for example, he had a Commanding Officer report to him in Dress No 2s (ceremonial) for his maid-servant not knowing where saab was when C-in-C phoned his house. His reasoning went like this: “What’s the point in giving you residential phones if I cannot contact you when I want to?”

Even though it had been a few years since the dacoit movie Sholay had been released, people affectionately compared him as C-in-C South with Gabbar Singh of Sholay and often repeated the memorable dialogue of the movie by replacing Gabbar with Dawson, viz, “Dawson se tumhen ek hi aadmi bacha sakta hai, vo hai Dawson.” And I can vouch for many hard boiled commanding officers wetting their pants, at a distance of Pachaas, pachaas kos door from Cochin at the mere mention of his name.

Dawson was convinced that people go to sea to have a “jolly good time”. Hence, his logic went, their lives should be made miserable when they return to harbour for the erroneously worded R&R (Rest and Recreation). Anyone entering Cochin during his tenure as C-in-C knew that it would have been centuries (probably Before Christ) when anyone in Dawson family ever had rest and recreation.

Most often than not R&R was translated by Admiral Dawson as Ragraa and more Ragraa. Many wanted to avoid Cochin and sail directly for Bombay whilst crossing from East to West coast and vice-versa. But, Dawson quickly got them out of such vain fantasies and to reality of having to enter his command.

If you were a ship entering Cochin after days of sailing under tough conditions, your misery would start from the evening before entering Cochin harbour. First the Alizes would come and buzz you from INS Garuda, India’s First Naval Air Station commissioned in May 1953, eight years before the Navy acquired its first aircraft carrier INS Vikrant.  Coinciding with the acquisition of INS Vikrant, the Indian Navy acquired ASW aircraft Alizes from the French, which were formed into 310 Cobra squadron. One year earlier, the Indian Navy also acquired the British Sea Hawks Fighter aircraft which constituted the 300 White Tiger squadron.

The Alizes were largely used for ASW (Anti Submarine Warfare) role but could also be used for reconnaissance and bombing (68mm) and AS 12 Anti-ship missiles. In the 1961 Liberation of Goa from the Portuguese, Alizes were used for reconnaissance and patrol and during the 1971 Indo-Pakistan war, they were used for both ASW patrols and in anti-surface role.

In case you survived attack by the Alizes, Dawson would have the helicopters based at Garuda to slam the daylights (or night-lights depending upon the time) out of you.

And then, no sooner that you would have secured alongside (it wasn’t easy coming alongside in Cochin due to currents and winds) that the underwater saboteurs and craft would be ready to make you feel welcome by attacking you from underwater and attaching such lovely contraptions to your underwater hull as limpet mines.

After finishing my Long Communications course at Cochin, I took over as the Signal Communication Officer of INS Talwar at Vizag. Within a day of my taking over from Deepak Agarwal, we sailed for Bombay, touching the Sri Lanka port of Trincomalee on the way. We had a lot of fun at Trinco with official reception on Himgiri and other unofficial engagements including visit to Colombo.

But, now, we were to enter Cochin and reckon with Alizes and underwater saboteurs. Talwar had the latest Electronic Warfare equipment ELT116 from Elettronica company of Italy and a multi-band radio interceptor RS160 from USA. I remained closed up in the Electronic Warfare Room throughout.

In the afternoon, under CO’s instructions, LtCdr Guha, the Electrical Officer had converted the ship to look like a merchant ship (basically altering the position of side lights (Red and Green). In a warship, these bow lights are seen ahead of the main steaming lights (White) on the foremast and the mainmast whereas a merchant ship has them aft. Similarly, warships have their Bridge ahead below the foremast whereas merchant ships have it right aft. One more difference is there in that the warships normally don’t show any lights other than these navigation lights whereas the merchant ships aren’t so careful. Guha did a very good job of the camouflage and we were sure the Alizes won’t be able to find us.

At about 2 AM, we found the Alizes though! How? First their CSF radar was intercepted on ELT 116. Then their unrestricted natter was being picked up on RS 160 clearly. I must add here that time and again in exercises it has been proved that the air boys are not very discreet with their communications assuming that since they are alone in the sky in silent hours, no one can eavesdrop on them. They also speak in PL (Plain Language) to obtain reassurance from each other.

I reported the fact of their interception to CO Cdr AR Dabir and gave him snippets of their natter. He told me to record it.

On entering Cochin at I.N. Jetty, within an hour we were called for the debrief of last night’s Exercise Hamla. This was the C-in-C’s opportunity to chew our balls for having slept over when the Alizes attacked us.

Now, I have noticed that the debriefs of exercises are often much more impressive than the exercises; especially when the debrief is being held in the hallowed premises of SMWT (School for Maritime Warfare and Tactics; which I had the privilege to command many years later). The plans are displayed and you don’t find a flaw in those. Then SMWT gives out the conduct the exercise and lessons learnt and then the concerned forces are asked to speak just for five minutes each. SMWT must have been very faithful to Dawson because they ripped us apart. The buzz in the auditorium was that Dawson would have us for lunch.

In the end, AR Dabir got up to speak. I had already given the cassette of the Alize recording to the SMWT staff. As soon as he took the podium, the natter was loud and clear in the auditorium.

Cobra One to Cobra Leader: We have a contact on the horizon; do you have it too?
Cobra Leader to Cobra One: Affirmative; I have it too. What does it look like?
Cobra One: To me it looks like solidified salt at this hour of the night.
Cobra Leader: Yes, its lights are clearly visible now; some merchant ship.
Cobra One: But where is that damned Talwar?
Cobra Leader: I won’t be surprised if the sea has devoured it for keeping us awake at this hour of night.
Cobra One: Request instructions.
Cobra Leader: Return to base. We did our best trying to find it.

There was total silence in the auditorium. But, we could clearly hear the heartbeat of the CO of the Cobra Squadron!

Balls got chewed, that day too, by Admiral Dawson. Fortunately, ours were intact.

During our days (sorry to begin with a cliché), an appointment at the Weapon Acceptance Trials Team was considered the most professional appointment for an executive officer of the rank of Lieutenant or Lieutenant Commander, during a break between sea tenures.

Ships of the Godavari class (modified Leander class) were ready for trials and commissioning when I joined WATT (B) after my tenures on Talwar and Himgiri as Signal Communication Officer and waiting for being the commissioning SCO of Ganga.

Those were heady days. Every week, at Mazagon Docks, some trial or the other was scheduled. Godavari class of ships were, in case of weapons and sensors (the area of focus of WATT), hybrids of a motley of western, Indian and Russian technologies. The challenges lay in ensuring that all these not only worked but worked optimally and without interference.

Now WATT is not an extension of your designing efforts. It has been rightly placed on the other side of the designers and installers of ships and equipment. It means business. I am aware that strong lobbying efforts by vested interests have now taken out the fangs from WATT. But, at that time, we were the ultimate Acceptance Authority of weapons and sensors. Our signals were made direct to Naval Headquarters with copy to Command Headquarters, Warship Overseeing Team (WOT), the ship and various other concerned authorities.

The Bible of WATT was British Book of Reference (BR 4050) and it was clear to us that it wasn’t our job to somehow meet acceptance standards or to produce a complete list of defects. We were the acceptance trials authority and our job was to recommend whether the concerned compartment or equipment met acceptance standards or not. A recommendation from us to NHQ during those days was never challenged with due regard to our professional expertise.

Godavari class of ships was a feather in the cap of naval designers. But, as seen by us at WATT, Godavari was a nightmare for trials of electronic compartments and equipment. I am sure that the professional directorates at NHQ including DND learnt a lot through our trial reports.

Take the case of Electronic Warfare trials. As a young Lieutenant, I walked into the EW Compartment of Godavari, carved out of the aft portion of the Operations Room, and declared that it didn’t meet the Installation Inspection trials. DND personally intervened but I held my ground that a Water Tight door leading to the EW compartment interfered with the electronic continuity of the compartment; and that it had to be a screen door. Later design of EW compartment if Ganga was changed because of my “bull headedness”.

Allow me to mention as to what happens if you ain’t “bull-headed”. One day, we were conducting Sea Acceptance Trials of Godavari. The EW compartment reported to the bridge an intercept on V/UHF Intercept Receiver. Bridge naturally asked EWO to analyse. Lo and behold, the intercept would come on and go off and then come on loud and clear. Such intermittent intercepts are hallmarks of submarine transmissions. After observing for sometime, EWO told the Bridge that it was a possible submarine intercept. The entire fleet went into a tizzy since it was not uncommon for our “north-western friendly neighbour” to send one of their subs to monitor our Fleet movements.

Sitting there in the EWO, I noticed that an EW operator was fiddling with one of the panel push buttons of the main Electronic equipment we had obtained from the Italians. I also noticed that everytime he pressed a particular push button, it caused an intercept to appear on the V/UHF Intercept Receiver. I confirmed it by ordering the operator to press and release the push button a number of times. When I reported this to Bridge, the excitement of looking for a Paki intruding submarine was suddenly abated.

I have given you just one example of hundreds why it was a nightmare to conduct Godavari’s trials

Now, we come to the other angle. The Commanding Officer of a ship quickly wants to get over with the trials so that he can “join the Fleet as soon as possible” and do what the other Fleet COs are doing;  ie, brightening their prospects of becoming Flag Officers. Keki Pestonji was no different. He had to make a balance between having healthy equipment on board for the rest of the life of Godavari and exhibiting the professional skills of his team.

One day, with the endless trials, he got thoroughly fed up and asked as to what were the holdups. He was told that there was a young Lieut named Ravi who was taking Communication and EW trials rather too seriously. He called me to his cabin and said, “Youngster I want you to complete all trials by day after tomorrow. Is that understood?” I took out my notebook and ventured to respond that my trials would take about a month!

Anyway, we finished all the Harbour Acceptance Trials within the next 45 days and then started sailing for SATs, ie, Sea Acceptance Trials.

One day at sea, he called me for dinner together with DD (EW) who had been sent from NHQ to oversee the trials. Keki Sir had laid it nice and thick for us: three course dinner with all the finery, pomp and show. He opened a bottle of Riesling wine from his personal collection over dinner.

During pre dinner drinks and during the dinner, he came up with various theories on various subjects ranging from trials, sailors in the navy, life in the armed forces and books, movies and political leadership. On several occasions, I interjected with my, “I tend to disagree with you.” Most often than not, being a gracious host, he ignored my disagreement.

The dinner having got over, we sat nursing our liqueur. Keki Pestonji embarked on yet another subject. I was about to open my mouth with, “I disagree with you, Sir”; but, within no time he sharply looked at me. The look said it all: “Youngster; I have given you sumptuous dinner, best of drinks and a wonderful evening in Captain’s cabin as if you are a VIP. At the end of it you continue disagreeing with me even before I can finish my point. Tell me why shouldn’t you be launched into outer space?”

That night I bolted my cabin door from inside when I went to sleep. Keki P gave up on me as an officer without future.

As ACOP (HRD) he came to staff college to give out our appointments. He won’t have believed a good-for-nothing communicator actually won the Lentaigne Medal that year.

I am sure the Navy gained by our being bull-headed as acceptance authority of weapons and sensors. But, I am also sure we didn’t make many friends during those days. It wasn’t our job to win popularity-contests.

Ships’ canteens have great fascination for army officers and their ladies. They forget the fact that officers and sailors in the navy salute with their palms inwards because they couldn’t have saluted the queen with dirty palms through cleaning and holy-stoning the decks; but, from their distance they see only glamour and star lights. Fortunately,  the air force officers and ladies are different; from their height they don’t see us at all.

What fauji rum is to civilians, navy canteen items is to army. When a Major’s wife flaunts Cobra perfume in the regimental mess party and lets it to be known to others that her brother got it from Viraat, it is now incumbent on the Colonel too to find a ‘brother’ in the Navy.

They don’t like our ribbons upside down but perfumes from ships’ canteens in any juxtaposition are welcome.

And lest you feel the fascination wears down over years, recently I carried loads of perfumes for my sister, after many years of her husband and me having retired from the fauj.

Thus, when my Higher Command course reached Mumbai on their Southern tour that included Hyderabad, Bangalore and Port Blair: suddenly the navy officers Anil Sharma and I were much in demand.

From the list obtained from the DSs, it turned out that most of the items were available on one of the Giris on Berth F. We trooped there en-masse. Unfortunately, the gangway had been removed because of some crane movement at that particular time. So I told the DSs that we could accomplish our given task after lunch on Viraat where we had all been invited. But, they all insisted that since the items were confirmed to be readily available there, we would be taking too much of a chance to let them go.

So, I shouted across to the gangway staff, got a jumping ladder lowered and we raided the ship’s canteen. On the return journey, the items had to be lowered down by a heaving line.

Over lunch, the only talk was as to who had managed to get what. We had some sad and long faces who had found that others had managed better.

Bye bye to ships after we left Mumbai. A few days later, we reached Port Blair and there, during the FORTAN reception, my DSs and course mates observed that I was surrounded by young LtCdrs and their ladies. I told them that they were all COs of LCUs and I had known them from my earlier tenures.

The first question they asked was, “LCUs, well, well, well….how well stocked are your ships’ canteens?”

The Mumbai stampede repeated there though we didn’t have to climb jumping ladders.

The AN32 that carried us back to Mhow via Vizag (lunch and refuelling halt) had lovely smell about it with some of us testing the perfume sprays for genuineness.

We like their piping hot samosas at 118 Hanif Brigade near Siachin. We return the favour to them by giving them Mayfairs at Kala Pani.

I was lucky to have done my higher command course with the army. I have written a number of articles in the then College of Combat about the army’s ops that I got glimpses of. I maintain that the nation has to be thankful to the Indian Army that Kashmir is still with India; and that’s not just because of their fighting spirit. When I last took the Naval Higher Command Course to J & K, I was impressed with Sadhbhavana and the strategic sense that has come to the Indian Army. I salute the Indian Army.

Most navy officers know the worth of our brave Army. Hence, anytime their army counterparts need ‘perfumes and powders’ they feel great obliging them. What is p&p in comparison to Kashmir and keeping this country intact?

I guess it would do a fine post to journey along various stages of an officer’s career in the navy together with the changing preferences of various canteen items.

The first few items that one is introduced to are Kraft Cheese and Luncheon Meat to go with the drinks such as Johnnie Walker and Teacher’s and even Chivas Regal. Then there are Rothman’s cigs to impress people ashore and to get movie tickets instantly.

Then, as soon as you get a girlfriend,  you initially start buying chocolates and as intimacy builds up, you graduate to Yardleys and Toscas. At the same time you start investing in Brut for yourself; no point in her smelling sweet and you smelling like a pig.

As soon as you become a bundleman (navy’s slang for a married man; for, he takes a bundle home), first you interest her into all your bachelor days things; but, she is smarter. She soon knows what exactly she wants. She is the one who tells you what about Maggi Chicken soup and oils including olive oil. Kraft cheese, at this stage gives way to cheese spread. It is easy to make sandwiches with and those glasses she loves them. She also asks for Tabasco and Maggi sauce.

Once in a while when you get tempted to relive bachelor days, you take a few chocolates home and few packets of After Eight mints. But, she tells you it is wastage off money.

That’s the time when you truly start obliging army officers with all that bachelor days stuff.

You are a certified bundleman for the rest of your life.

This one involves my dearest friend Ranjit Singh many years after the Ganga incident of KKK and NKM (Read; ‘We Take Callin On Rather Seriously’). Incidentally, Ranjit and I served on INS Ganga together.

But, the second one of the incidents is a second hand account by me.

I was posted as Commander Work-up in WWO (Warship Work-up Organisation) in Vizag after my Staff Course in Wellington. Ranjit was commanding a missile boat Prachand. My office was on the first floor of Fleet Office building overseeing the finger jetties whereat Ranjit’s ship was often berthed.

One afternoon, Ranjit sauntered into my office, his face flush and his usual ear-to-ear grin beaming like a lighthouse. I almost heard notes of Henry Mancini’s Baby Elephant Walk, much popular during our days.

He lowered himself into a chair opposite mine and said, “Don’t ask me what happened today.”

It was 4 post meridiem and the fumes of beer emanating from him were enough to make me too a part of Henry Mancini’s famous tune. In any case, Ranjit was swaying even in his chair.

So, I dutifully asked him, “What happened RB?”

“I called on CO Kirpan: HSB. In fact he asked me to call on him”!

Kirpan class of ships were given to really hot and upwardly mobile officers of the rank of Commander. They, therefore, felt obliged to stay in the upper stratosphere. So, for CO Kirpan to descend to ground level and ask a mere CO Prachand (the older class of Missile Boats that we obtained from Russia; they have been known as Killers since the famous attack successfully carried out by them on Karachi harbour on 4th December 1971) was a mystery to me. Until Ranjit explained, that is.

Before that, for the sake of our civilian friends I must describe a gunnery firing at sea.

You can’t always fire your ship’s guns on a towed target where you can actually see the results. This is rather a cumbersome exercise to tow a target all the way to sea and then fire on it. It is easier to carry out an off-set firing on a ship as a target with the target ship observing the fall-of shots and reporting to the firing ships the corrections. The target ship, therefore also becomes the rake reporting ship. The codes used for reporting the falls of shots are: Straddle, if it is Bull’s Eye and other combinations such as Up 200, Right 100 and so on.

The rake reporting ship doesn’t do it simply by eye-ball estimate. It has a scale instrument to observe the splash of shots and then report on the circuit. This circuit is controlled by the Fleet Commander and a number of Straddle reports would naturally invite a Bravo Zulu (Well Done) signal from him for the firing ship.

Now, with Ranjit’s beer laced narrative, it came out that in the next EFXP (Eastern Fleet Exercise Programme) , Kirpan would be one of the firing ships and Ranjit’s ship Prachand would be the rake reporting ship. HSB had therefore asked Ranjit to call on him so that all his shots would be automatically reported as Straddle by Ranjit.

If Ranjit is to be believed, and there is no reason not to, every time a new can of Heineken was opened for him, he fervently shouted “Straddle” as if his rake reporting task had already begun.

After Ranjit left, I asked my coxswain to fetch the room spray and liberally use it in my office to get rid of the fumes before my boss would get the impression I was pissed on duty.

Bull’s Eye achieved by mere calling-on!

For the benefit of other-than-armed-forces readers, I must first explain what a Calling-on is; especially in the Navy. It is a ritual, a getting-to-know each other when a new officer joins a station. It can be done both formally when the officer calling on is received with a guard of honour in ceremonial rig. It is mandatory for those who take over as Commanding Officers and join in senior positions. The Call is made by the officer in junior position on the one in senior position; eg, when an officer takes over as Commanding Officer he calls-on the senior officers in station such as the Fleet Commander, the C-in-C, the ASD (Admiral Superintendent Dockyard) and many others authorities including Commanding Officers senior to him. If a senior authority such as C-in-C takes over, the others in station call-on him and for important people, he even returns calls.

Now, it is obvious that you can’t just barge into the office of a senior officer at your will and expect to call-on. So, you make a signal to him: ‘Requesting Time convenient to Call on you’. In the Navy, this signal is called an RTC (from the initials of the message) signal. The senior officer may just give you a time in his signal reply; in this case it would be a formal call-on in ceremonial rig complete with the guard of honour being paraded. On the other hand he may just signal: ‘Consider calls made and returned; Will be Delighted to See you informally at_____(date and time). As is easy to guess, this signal is called a WDS signal. On receiving the WDS signal, you informally call on the senior officer in working rig.

I hope you have understood the procedure and the signals and now we proceed with the incident:

One day, CO Ganga, was in one of his naughty moods (it wasn’t rare to find KKK in those moods). I was his SCO (Signal Communication Officer) and he asked me how could he go about having free drinks and lunch and fun at someone’s expense. During such times, as I had quickly learnt, it used to be prudent to feign ignorance and I dutifully feigned loads of it. “Ah” he quipped, “Communicators will never learn. I shall make an RTC signal to a senior officer and hopefully he’d invite me for PLD (Pre-Lunch Drinks) and lunch on a Make and Mend Day (Wednesdays and Saturdays when afternoons are free; a tradition from during the days of sail when sailors used to keep the afternoons of these two days for making and mending various riggings)….it is, dear SCO, as simple as that.”

I saw one serious flaw in this ‘plan‘ and I immediately voiced it: I told him that when he took over as CO, he had already called on all and sundry. “Ah” he dismissed my observation as a child would about going at 100 kmph on his new mobike, “There is Commodore NK Mukherjee who has taken over as CO of INS Angre (the depot establishment for Mumbai) and I haven’t called on him.”

I saw another serious flaw in it and, this time, gingerly voiced it, “But, Sir, he is your course mate; you can’t call-on your own course mate.”

“Says who?” KKK shot back, “In the Navy list his name occurs before mine and hence there is nothing wrong in calling-on him. Now, come on, no more of your ifs and buts; just make the RTC signal to COMBRAX (CO Angre is also referred to as Commodore Naval Barracks).”

There is only so far a communicator would go. Once a decision is taken, a communicator worth his salt does what he is told to do. I dutifully made the RTC signal from Ganga to Angre (on that Friday afternoon) and KKK expected a WDS from the latter with invitation for lunch. He even told me how he would do justice to the beer since with perpetual sailing he hadn’t gone on a binge for a long time.

Five times in the afternoon he called me to check up if the WDS reply had arrived. By late evening, I was able to confirm to him that a reply had indeed arrived. He was triumphant about having successfully (and cleverly) plotted to have free drinks etc and told me to read out the signal aloud.

I read: CONSIDER CALLS PAID AND RETURNED. WILL HAVE LUNCH ON YOUR SHIP AT 1245 HOURS TOMORROW, SATURDAY.

He took the signal from me and after staring at it for several minutes, he retorted, “Obviously CO Angre has a smarter SCO than I have”!!!

I told him I would try to do better next time!!!

Unlike our army counterparts who get ‘sahayaks‘ or flunkies to do their chores, the navy officers and ladies have to do everything at home on their own.

When I was undergoing my staff duties course the DSSC (Defence Services Staff College) in Wellington (Nilgiris) I was already of the rank of Commander (equivalent to Lt Col in the army and Wg Cdr in the air force). My wife and I unpacked and set up our house whereas our neighbouring army officers had men doing such jobs. On being posted out, we started packing two weeks in advance, whereas the army officers did the entire thing in two days with a battery of men attending to it. This contrast was also there when we invited people at home; we served on our own whereas they had their flunkies to do it.

I am tempted to relate this incident to you so as to further clear the air. Even our army counterparts are surprised that we don’t have “free” servants. And since we live in metropolitan cities, even the hired help in the form of maid servants is hard to obtain.

As a Cdr in the Navy I stayed opposite a Brigadier in SP Marg flats in New Delhi. One day, we were getting ready to go to an official party when there was a ring at the door. It was the lady next door, the Brigadier’s wife. Unfortunately my wife had opened the door whilst polishing my evening rig’s black shoes. The lady told my wife, “Look at the way the naval officers treat their wives; I mean, it is inhuman to make you polish his shoes. Call him, I will teach him some sense.”

All this was in mock anger because they had become good friends with us and knew our reality.

My wife’s reply, however, took the wind out of her mock anger, “Sorry, he can’t come now since he is ironing my saree.”

When our elder son was born in 1984, our need for a maid servant became the name of famous pictures in Hollywood: paramount. We had to get one since it was now becoming difficult for Lyn to manage especially when I went out sailing.

Our efforts to find one appeared to us more than our combined efforts in producing a son. We appeared to have everything: ‘A’ type accommodation in Meena building in NOFRA (Naval Officers Flats Residential Area) after 22 months of station seniority; a servant quarter and large hearts.

Finally,  after weeks of waiting, one maid servant came to interview us on a sunday. Our interview, in which we eventually failed, went like this:

Maid: Kitne log hain? (Possibly she had learnt this from Gabbar Singh in the movie ‘Sholay’) (How many of you are here?)
We: Do aur ek chhota bachcha. (Only two and an infant)
Maid: Theek hai. Guest kitana aata hai? (Good, how many guests you get?)
We assured her that we hardly get guests.
Maid: Annual leave poora lenge ke nahin? (Will you go on your full annual leave (60 days) or not?)

I told her that earlier we weren’t so particular but now, since my father died recently, I would be taking full leave to go to my home place to look after my widowed mother.
This was very satisfactory to our potential maid and I winked to my wife that so far we had done good.

We didn’t know what was to come. Somewhat similar of those who sleep in their homes oblivious of the fact that Tsunami is just around the corner from them.

Maid: TV hai naa? Mujhe Chitrahaar aur Sunday movie ka shauk hai. (I hope you have a television since I like watching the popular show Chitrahaar)

We had recently acquired a Dyanora Black and White portable TV, the only one I could afford. I proudly pointed towards our possession. The potential maid had one look at it and said, “Ye to chhota hai aur Black and White hai.” (This is small and black and white)

I have seen many of these court cases in the movies wherein the prosecution, through relentless cross-examination, makes the accused accept his guilt. At this juncture, the accused just hangs his head in shame. A similar thing happened to my wife and I. We hung our heads in shame with the evidence of our poverty.

In the night, my wife whispered to me just before saying good night: “At least buy me a new Jhadoo”. (Broom)

“Don’t take this to heart”, I told her, “Marriages…..and maids are made in heaven and eventually we would get the maid God had made for us.”

And we did.

My father and mother and many people from my dad’s office had come to Shimla (that time still spelt the British way: Simla) railway station to see me off on my way to Naval Academy at Cochin (later Kochi). What a coincidence that my starting and destination stations changed the spellings of their names later. However, it was nothing in comparison to the transformation that had to take place with and within me. As the train chugged along on the now world heritage track, I looked back and waved at them. Little did I know that the next time I would see them, I would have grown more than I ever did before.

Beyond Delhi, I was fascinated with everything that I was seeing out of the window of the First Class compartment. It was the first time I had ventured this far from home and I soaked in all land, people, villages, rivers and rivulets and different languages that I heard during my over two days of journey. I wrote a 48 pages letter to my parents describing all this. Later, in NAVAC, when the letter was given to my Div O (Divisional Officer), Lieutenant SD Sharma, he read the entire thing (I quickly learnt that there was nothing like ‘private’ thoughts and mails in our formative years) and called me and chastised me to avoid going into such lengthy harangues “without any substance”. “All that you have actually wanted to write and was worth describing” he admonished me, “Can be written on the back of a five paisa stamp.” Many years later, my CO on Ganga too told me, “If what you want to say cannot be said in a single page, no one is interested in it.”

I too, therefore, quickly learnt the naval lingo, short and crisp replies to short and crisp questions. Eg,

[lineate][/lineate]Q: How is life?[lineate][/lineate]Ans: Shit.[lineate][/lineate]Q: What you doing now?[lineate][/lineate]Ans: Coolex.[lineate][/lineate]

I also learnt that in order to keep pace with this ‘bikini – speech’, most navy officers read such ‘literature’ as comic books and cartoons. Major General Arjan Ray in his ‘Kashmir Diary’ bemoaned that the average vocabulary of an army officer was 300 words. Navy was no different. In my Cadet’s Journal on Delhi, I titled our first sailing to Port Blair as ‘Breakfast at Port Blair’. The Div O’s comments read, “What has this article got to do with breakfast?” I still have that journal with me. So, whilst the army-man describes features as, “See twelve O’ Clock, you will find a flat top hill; call it Flat Top Hill”, you quickly learn in the navy too to call a spade a spade. Imagination is for the non-professionals.

On my blog, therefore, the very first article, on retirement (On 28th Feb 10, before that I couldn’t have indulged in a blog) is titled: ‘I Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Did I?’ Was it a great job dome having removed these ‘kinks’ of language? Yes and no? Yes, because an uniformed service must have a uniform way of talking and writing that everybody understands. When a missile is coming towards you, you want to hear ‘Alarm missile starboard’ and get on with the automatic and mechanical responses of mind, body and equipment and not hear stories about the fire-ball looking like something straight out of Armageddon. No, because the missile is not coming at you all the time and your total cloning ensures that later in your career, when the bug bites you regarding ‘out of box thinking’, you find that the navy never gave you a chance to think out of the box. One of the senior officers, for example, tried to make Letters of Proceedings (LOPs) (a monthly report of happenings in and around the ship) “interesting”. It wreaked hell. Everyone was confused.

A navy officer, I learnt gradually, when he looks at the sunset, almost mechanically reports “Gyro error nil or such and such” and never describes its changing colours and hues and shapes.

At the lunch table, in NAVAC, we were initiated into uniformed way of describing things as follows:

Question by the Senior Cadet: What is on the menu Kay Dutt?

Answer: Sir, Mulligatawny Soup….and, garlic bread…and Sir, Chicken Braised for non vegetarians and Sir Cheese Cutlets for vegetarians, ….and cabbage fougard, mint potatoes, and then topped by Diplomat pudding….Sir.

Senior Cadet: Bull shit, Kay Dutt, there are too many pauses in your description and ‘ands’ and too many ‘Sirs’. It has to be like this (His demo was like the disclaimer in a television ad about a public issue of a company: at break neck speed without a pause; much like Mahadevan’s ‘Breathless’): Mulligatawny Soup, Garlic Bread, Braised Chicken within brackets NV, Cheese Cutlets within brackets V, cabbage fougard, mint potatoes and Diplomat pudding.

I was a turbaned Sikh a few years before I joined NAVAC. After I cut my hair, my hair were still like that of Beatles’ (the current fad at that time) and curly. I wore a snake-skin belt with a large brass oval-shaped buckle, bell-bottomed trousers and a shirt with elephant eared collar. First the POGI (It took me some time to find out what a Pogi (the way I pronounced it)) meant) took me to a barber. There were no mirrors there. So after a mere ten minutes of this ‘artist’s’ handiwork, when I came to my assigned room and looked at myself in the mirror, I wondered whether it was a mirror that I was looking into or a large poster of another man…a POW perhaps or a survivor of a holocaust.

Throughout my naval career I tried to find that curly-haired boy with snake-skin belt but I couldn’t. I had lost him for good.

Did I miss him? Well, even after I retired from the Navy, when my hair start touching my ear lobes and shoulder, I have a haircut without being told by anyone to do so. The requirement or the need for it has gone into my blood like good scotch that I had after I became a commissioned officer.

During my first leave from NAVAC, I met my civilian friend in Simla. He was trying to tell me about the breakup with his GF Asha. He was going round and round in circles. I told him to come straight to the point and summed up for him in crisp sentences: “Asha and you friends for long; Both enjoyed and promised. Now, Asha ditched you and left you high n’ dry. You want to know the reason. Well, it is because of your idiotically long hair, snake-skin belt, bell bots and funny shirt. Move with times Deepak; have a proper haircut and decent clothes and you will be back in reckoning.”

I had always wanted to be a communicator; I like the nice ring to the word and imagined myself as an enlightened human being communicating with fellow netizens on this earth, with nature and God. Therefore, in the Navy, when the time came for me to do my specialisation, I decided to specialise in Communications and Electronic Warfare. However, I soon realised that one can’t help becoming a navigator when the call of duty demands. The first time I donned the role of a navigator was when I became the ‘other officer’ (other than the XO, (Executive Officer or second-in-command, that is) on the minesweeper Karwar. I totalled more miles there than in my watch-keeping tenure on Himgiri, even though we sailed like crazy on Himgiri and even went to a three nation foreign cruise too. There is hardly a port on the West coast of India (big, small or minor) that I didn’t navigate my way through as the other officer on Karwar.

However, after my specialisation in Communications, I wasn’t prepared to become the navigator of Himgiri. But, such is fate; you don’t chase it as much as fate chases you. And it was all because of our CO: Captain Jerry Patel. He was the world’s most avid Anti-Submarine Warfare  Officer. When he was Director of ASW School, and we, undergoing Long Communications course, visited him in his school, he made us feel like worms that we had chosen to waste our time in the Indian Navy doing anything other than ASW. So, when he became CO of Himgiri, naturally, he considered that the only role Himgiri had to perform was to complete its trials of indigenous SONAR developed by a team under the famous Captain Paul Raj.

After long trials at sea when we returned to Bombay, it came out that Paul Raj and his team won’t be ready for trials in a hurry after setting right the anomalies and defects observed. The debrief done on board brought out that it would take minimum of six weeks. So, my course-mate Billoo, who was the Navigator of the ship, asked Jerry if he could proceed on a month’s leave and, since we were expected to be in harbour, I could carry out NO’s duties in addition to my own.

Billoo’s leave was duly sanctioned and he hadn’t yet left station when news came from Cochin that Paul Raj felt that we should progress trials in other areas whilst defectation was in progress. Billoo wanted to be recalled from leave; but, Jerry told him that like Lord Rama honouring the mere word of his father Dasharath, he, Jerry, had never gone back on his word. We merrily sailed and the plus point was that I collected a lot of Pilotage Fee that kept me in good ‘spirits’ for months after that.

However, the bad news was that Jerry, though excellent in ASW, wasn’t a great ship-handler. Billoo told me later, after the hair-raising experience that I was subjected to, that in the interests of the safety of the ship, many a times, he had quietly passed orders to the MCR (Machinery Control Room) and Wheel House, different from the orders concocted by the CO. However, I was not well versed in such stratagems.

We were to enter Cochin on a certain morning after several incident-free entering and leaving harbour sorties in Goa. In the night before, they signaled us a berth on the trots in Mattancherry Channel. We hadn’t been there earlier. So, I worked out a plan totally by myself without going through Billoo’s earlier N.O.’s notes. After that, before CO made his Night Orders, I discussed the plan with CO on the chart and he approved it without any alterations. We were to enter with a slight flood; but, I assured CO that it would be alright. According to the plan, after passing the head rope to the closest mooring buoy, the ship would swing on its own with the current, and would thus be facing towards the entrance of the channel. This would also enable us quick getaway whilst leaving harbour.

In the morning at about 6:30 AM Special Sea Dutymen for entering harbour closed up. Everything went according to the plan made by me. However, when we came to the entrance of the Mattancherry Channel, near Malabar Hotel, suddenly, without any warning, Jerry said we should try a stern-board approach to the trots so as to head the tide all the while! I was aghast. And that’s where, later day wisdom imparted too late by Billoo, would have come in handy!

So, here was Himgiri entering harbour and somewhere near the Starboard hand buoy near Malabar Hotel, CO suddenly decided to go stern-board. Following sequence followed:

1. We tried to turn around with engines and wheel. The Foxle Officer, Vincent Dhanraj was giving us distances from the buoy and in agitated voice he kept telling us that we were coming rather close to the buoy since the tide and the current were pushing us to the buoy.

2. At one time, when we were too close to the buoy for comfort, CO had no choice but to give Full astern both engines. The Engine Room took some time in responding but when it did, it took our breath away. The navigable width of the channel at this point is only about a cable (200 yards) and suddenly we started going full speed towards the vessels at the trots on the other side of the vessel.

3. Many of these vessels started warning us by ‘all available means’ (and you thought George Bush is the only one who ever used this expression!) These included beating drums, doing curious Zulu dances and the like and emergency pressing of ship’s siren as if it was midnight on the night of 31^st Dec and 1^st of Jan.

4. By this time, we had already started giving orders to reverse the trend of our going astern towards these hapless vessels and fishing boats. First, “stop both engines” order was given. Nothing happened; and the people on these vessels started doing much more vigorous version of Zulu dance and even bhangra to ward off the evil of our hitting them with full force. So, in quick succession, orders such as “slow ahead both engines” and “half ahead both engines were given. We felt that we would have hit the vessels astern and hence finally “full ahead both engines” was given.

5. By this time, the current had made us abreast of Malabar Hotel. Some of the foreigners there had heard a lot about Indian Navy coming of age and initially they were cheering our “bold Manoeuvres” through loud clapping. But soon, they saw us approaching them in full speed like a rogue missile. So they started running helter-skelter. The fishermen on that side of the channel had hurriedly started casting off their boats to evade a Tsunami called Himgiri hitting them.

6. Fortunately, after a series of orders and me visibly praying to all sorts of gods post my quick transformation into a believer, we found ourselves the first of the mooring buoys. Every piece of hair on my head was pointing towards the sky. We lowered the whaler with the buoy jumpers. They themselves were finding it difficult to approach the buoy because by this time the flood had really built up into a strong current.

7. In the midst of all this, the CO spotted Captain Paul Raj standing at the jetty, a little distance from the trots. He smilingly waved at him as if nothing had happened and told me, “Send a boat for him immediately. We can’t have him waiting there.”

8. I just looked at him wondrously; here we were with just one boat with buoy jumpers trying valiantly to approach the buoy and hence secure the ship lying in precarious position and there he was telling me to send the boat to receive Captain Paul Raj!

Finally, to cut a long story short, we secured at the trots and CO stopped trotting. After, we returned to Bombay, he came down to the wardroom to attend a wining-out of an officer and he good-naturedly told everyone: “Never go against the advice of your navigator, even if he is only a stand-by navigator”!