Humour – Page 14 – Sunbyanyname

THREE THINGS I’D LIKE TO CHANGE IF I WERE TO JOIN THE ARMED FORCES AGAIN – PART I

The Three Things that I would like to change, if I were to join armed forces again are:

1. Bureaucratic Red-Tapism.

2. Cronyism.

3. Hyper Protocol Consciousness.

In this Part I, I shall deal with BRT or Babugiri. On commissioning of a ship, we hoist, on the main mast, a pennant or pendant called the Commissioning Pennant or Pendant. When the ship is decommissioned, it hoists a Decommissioning Pennant whose length is proportional to the number of years of service the ship has done. I wish, at the time of decommissioning, they’d hoist the Bureaucratic Red-Tape too that the ship had to suffer. This goes on becoming longer and longer with every year spent in service. On second thought, I think the only reason the BRT is not hoisted at decommissioning of a ship is because it doesn’t cease there. Like Tennyson’s Brook, it goes on forever.

An Indian Naval Ship being decommissioned displays the Decommissioning Pennant (Pic courtesy: www.thehindu.com)

Here is an anecdote I remember. I was Commander Work-up in Warship Work-up Organisation in Vizag. During those days WWO wasn’t an independent entity under FOST but was considered as an appendage to the Fleet Staff. Hence, I was privileged to attend meetings of Commanding Officers chaired by the Fleet Commander. Commander NS Rawat (Chhotu Rawat) joined the Eastern Fleet as CO of the newly commissioned corvette INS Khanjar. For one of these meets he had given an agenda point that the number of written records and returns that a ship had to render was abnormally high. This not only kept the ship’s staff from attending to their operational tasks but also, small ships like corvettes had very limited secretarial staff and with just one Writer (a navy term for secretarial staff) on board it was well-nigh impossible to produce the plethora of records and returns on every conceivable subject.

This point, like all points for which the authorities don’t have ready answers to, was hotly debated for the next one hour. Highly sharp naval operational minds churned the grey matter from one side of the brain to the other and lo and behold they had the solution ready. Rawat was told to send an analysis in four parts: Part I containing those Returns and Records that were considered necessary; Part II containing those Returns and Records that could be done away with; Part III containing those Returns and Records that, with little modification, could be subsumed in Part I; and finally Part IV containing those Records and Returns that didn’t exist earlier but had now become necessary. “And” the Fleet Commander added with satisfaction at having dexterously solved a complex problem, “You better send this in sextuplicate so that five Fleet Staff officers can simultaneously peruse the document and arrive at a quick decision.”

I looked at Chhotu Rawat’s face. Very soon he’d had enough and he left the Navy. That class of ships were given to the Navy’s most outstanding officers to command and he was the commissioning CO at that. Here is another real tale from HQ ENC (no marks to me for creativity and innovation) In a Half Yearly Command Staff Meeting, I, as Director of Tactical Trainer in Vizag gave an agenda point that ships and units were always on the receiving end of Bureaucratic Red-Tapism and that NMS (New Management System that gave financial powers to officers at various hierarchical levels) had virtually failed. NMS was the Navy’s effort to take over Management of its own finances from the bureaucrats in the government. My point was that NMS only replaced one set of bureaucrats with another. First of all, it required guts (on my part) to give this as an agenda point. The staff officers at HQENC by-passed it but it was selected by C-in-C personally. The decision given was that if an issue/sanction was given within one month it would be referred to as a Green issue (parallel to Green Customs channel at the airports). However, if it was more than three months old, it would be referred to as Red issue. For the in-between period, it would be called an Amber issue. Did this cut down BRT and increase efficiency? You betcha! A few months later, I received an urgent letter from HQENC to this effect: “Your Return of Red, Amber, Green issues at HQENC for the month of March 1998 still awaited. Request expedite”.

Armed forces all over the world detest bureaucracy. However, there is nothing like a bureaucrat in white uniform. Outwardly, he/she would like us to believe that that he/she wants to put great distances between he/she and babus; but, some of them behave worse than babus “just to be on safe side”. Many such white uniformed babus become sticklers to regulations and rules and they know every rule in the world that can deny you what you have asked for. Many a times, you may not have asked for anything to improve quality of life; but, indeed, in your estimate it would be an operational and critical requirement. Its criticality and operational emergency, however, starts resting as soon as it reaches the sanctioning or recommending authority.

(Pic courtesy: articles.thetimesofindia.indiatimes.com)

The highest forum in which such things are discussed is the Quarterly Command Staff Meeting wherein the C-in-C is face to face with all operational heads and Commanding Officers. In babugiri there is no other meeting that beats its approach. For a point to come up in the QCM, it would have started at the ship’s level about three to six months in advance. After that the concerned staff officer at HQ would have selected only that point for which he has some sort of answer. Once, CO of a Missile Boat in Mumbai put up a point that unlike big ships, Missile Boats don’t have any transport given to them (their COs are too junior (LtCdr only) to deserve transport. However, in harbour, many times they have to take their machinery parts, pumps and motors to dockyard centres for repairs. Hence, could the dockyard lighter be requisitioned by them to facilitate this?

The entire Command staff had (serious and well-thought of) views on this. CO of MB was asked such highly pertinent questions as to how many times in the last two years did he actually require such lighter? The poor chap didn’t have this data. He kept saying “very often” but, the Command staff desired exact number to be able to take (intelligent) decision. Finally, the decision given was, “CSO (P&A) to study the problem together with ND (MB) and come up with recommendations in the next QCM.

The CO of missile boat must have been thrilled that his ship would start receiving the services of the dockyard lighter before the next general elections or the next five-year plan.

If a defect occurs on a ship which affects its operational role, it has to report this defect as OPDEF (Operational Defect). This procedure was started a few decades back so that adequate pressure could be brought on the shore authorities to urgently attend to such defects, either in the Fleet Maintenance Unit or in the Naval Dockyard. However, this opened a Pandora’s box. In the morning meetings, C-in-C would keep on seeing such OPDEFs but after days and weeks nothing done. So, the smarter ships’ COs found a smart way out to get over CinC seeing these on regular basis and thereby earning the wrath of Command staff officers. They simply would negotiate with HQ and Dockyard so that such OPDEFs wherein nothing could be done weren’t reported. With this curious shortcut, if a ship had to be sailed on an operational mission, the CSO (Ops) or COO would frantically start phoning ships to find their real status. Eventually, they came up with a new term (bureaucrats or babus are good at devising great sounding new terms). Hold your breath; this new term is called STA or Ship Tied Alongside or in other word: By-God-OPDEF. However, soon people found newer means to cheat on this too.

I have given you BRT only in operational matters so far. Can you imagine the BRT in administrative and Logistic matters? Smart COs, through their “excellent liaison and inter personal relations” manage to get the moon for their ships. Others become good at writing letters and replies and have a great future as blog writers after leaving the Navy.

What about the gargantuan bureaucratic organisation that we have in the Navy called the Controller of Defence Accounts? Once again, I am steering clear from babugiri in our own transfer and temporary duty claims and I am giving you one of the several operational examples that I have.

In the year 1995-6, after my tenure as Commander Viraat, I was appointed to Viraat Project Team to oversee the Short Refit of Viraat at CSL, Kochi. We, in VPT were very conscious of the need for Viraat to complete its SR in time. For this we had to run around making PERT charts, critical paths, alternates and so on. One of the items of SR was the overhauling of one of the three Turbo Alternators. Whereas for most of the other overhauls, spares were to be contracted by the Yard, ie, CSL; for the TAs, the spares were to be ‘Navy Supply’. Navy was to contract some of these from the Pune based firm Alfa Laval. They refused to ship these to Kochi until, as per the contract, they would receive 90 percent of the payment post factory inspection. The ball lay in CDA (Navy)’s court. I spoke to the concerned Account Officers at CDA and then made a Fax to Alfa Laval: HAVE SPOKEN TO CDA. THEY PROMISES TO RELEASE PAYMENTS. KINDLY SHIP THE VALVES AT MY ASSURANCE.

Next day, I received the following Fax from them, “GRATEFUL TO YOU FOR YOUR PROMISE. IT IS FOR YOUR INFORMATION THAT DESPITE SIMILAR PROMISES IN THE PAST, PAYMENTS NOT RECEIVED FOR OUR FOLLOWING BILLS”. This list ran into two pages of Bills of the past four years.

Before I finish, I want to give you three good examples too; two of my own and one of Commander Ponappa (a Logistic Officer who was different). I discontinued most ship’s returns and records when I took over as Flotilla Commander in Vizag. I encouraged Commanding Officers (in numbers, I had more ships under me than the Fleet Commander) to report things only by exception; otherwise, I would take for granted that everything was ops. In Vizag, as Command Communication Officer I authorised all officers to book calls on Naval Trunks when I found out that the usability and efficiency of leased telephone lines from P&T were merely 20 to 30 percent. Commander Ponappa became SLOGO in HQWNC. He had set up for himself personal standards for according sanctions. Once I went to him to get a sanction for I&M (Incidental and Miscellaneous) Grant. I handed over an advance copy of our request to him and told him formal copy would arrive by mail. He took action on that itself and by the time I left his office, he handed over the typed and signed sanction to me.

For the most of the Navy, such examples are very rare. Enormous time and energy is dissipated on such babugiri. People are given awards and honours depending upon how fast they have been able to get sanctions and approvals on “personal liaison and inter personal relations”. Yet, ask any Navy officer; he lets you know that he hates BRT or babugiri and that it is this babugiri that has kept our country from becoming a great power. However, the truth is that as soon as he reaches a position of authority, he is as bad, if not more, as a babu on the civvie street.

This is first of the three things that I would like to change if I were to join armed forces again. The other two follow.

ENTER COCHIN AT YOUR OWN RISK

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.

Admiral Oscar Stanley Dawson as the Chief of the Naval Staff

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.

IN WATT (B) WE WERE BULL HEADED

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.

INS Godavari - a feather in the cap of naval designers — INS Godavari – a feather in the cap of naval designers

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.

SHIP’S CANTEENS AND ARMY OFFICERS

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.

Some of the popular Ship's Canteen items — Some of the popular Ship’s Canteen items

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.

TAKING CALLING ON RATHER SERIOUSLY – PART II

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!

WE TAKE CALLING ON RATHER SERIOUSLY

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!!!

THE OTHER SIDE OF A FAUJI’S WORTH

A ‘fauji‘ is the Hindi or more accurately Urdu word for an Indian military man. Most Indians hold the fauji in high esteem. However, most of them steer clear from emulating the “impossible and impractical” virtues of a fauji, the biggest being: Service before self.

Last year in the month of June I did a piece on Armed Forces And The Indian Society. I had brought out that except for sporadic incidents, like the spat the soldiers recently had with their superiors in Leh; or General VK Singh, the 24th Chief of the Army Staff, trying to sort out the civil-military relationship balance through the curious instrument of his dates of birth, by and large, the Indian public holds its armed forces in great esteem. Many of our countrymen privately fantasize about the armed forces taking over the governance of the country and instil some discipline and accountability in our civic life.

However, in the same article I had brought out the increasing chasm between the civil society and the armed forces due to the decline of values in the former and due to an all time low having achieved in civil military relations (Please also read: ‘Admiral And Mantriji’) Therefore, after more than six decades of independence, we are in a curious state whence the politicians require the armed forces not just to deter and protect the nation from foreign aggression, but also to sort out the mess that they have made of the internal situation. The army lost its cutting edge by being sucked into insurgencies and law and order situations. Post 26/11 Mumbai attacks, the GoI in a contorted wisdom made the Indian Navy responsible for coastal security; thus making it one of the only leading navies in the world so charged. Surprisingly, whilst making the faujis responsible for things that should have been sorted out by good governance, the politicians and bureaucracy have relentlessly desisted from conceding even an inch to the armed forces in matters of governance.

In August this year, reacting to the killing of five Indian soldiers by the Pakistanis, Bhim Singh, a Minister in Bihar government, commented that people join armed forces to be martyred. Was this an apt description of the worth of the armed forces or faujis as seen by our netas? The sad part is that majority in our country would answer that question in the affirmative.

Kargil War - An Uphill Task against all odds for the 'fauji' (Pic courtesy: defenceforumindia.com) — Kargil War – An Uphill Task against all odds for the ‘fauji’ (Pic courtesy: defenceforumindia.com)

The life of a fauji is tough both in peace and during war and LIC. Anytime he/she can get killed. Even when alive a fauji, more often than not, lives the life of deprivation. So, how does the country honour him? No one wants to give him anything but all are vying to get something from him. The industry employs a highly skilled jawan (he becomes highly skilled because of years of discipline, training and technology that he is brought face to face with) as a security guard on abysmally low wages so as to exploit his inherent loyalty and integrity. For the bureaucrat, he is a headache since they have to think ways and means of denying what is due to him, eg, OROP or One Rank One Pay, Rank Pay and other allowances. As far as inter se protocols are concerned, a fauji has been deliberately pushed down the ladder far below the police and the bureaucracy.

Whilst the civilians fantasize about a military rule to end corruption and inefficiency everywhere, the military too fantasizes about war when the worth of the fauji is felt by the civilians. As the English poet Francis Quarles wrote in 1632:

Our God and soldier we alike adore.
Even at the brink of danger; not before;
After deliverance, both alike requited.
Our God’s forgotten, and our soldiers slighted.

The society at large doesn’t comprehend the life of the fauji that is not visible to it, eg, on the border, at sea and when he is silently engaged in doing what he has pledged to do. However, it sees the fauji during parades, in the clubs and canteens and it appears to the civilians that the faujis are having a jolly good time in their pomp and glory.

Here is a light-hearted anecdote about the worth of a ‘fauji’. This is a thirty years old incident and hence indicates that it is not now that the rot has set in though now it is worsened considerably.

I was on temporary duty to Naval Headquarters from Mumbai where I was posted. I was a LtCdr then. I was going to stay in the SP Marg Officers Mess (at that time it was a common mess for Army and Navy officers; much before ‘jointmanship’ dictated that we have separate messes) (Read: ‘Anything But Jointmanship)

I alighted at the New Delhi Railway station having arrived there by fauji friendly Frontier Mail. (Read: Crossing Frontiers In The Frontier Mail)

Chugging my suitcase (no one had heard of trolleys at that time) I located an auto-rickshaw. Delhi auto-rickshaws were notorious for not going by the meter and for overcharging. So, I wanted to settle the fare with him before the journey.

“How much?” I asked the driver deliberately in Punjabi so that he would know I was from that part of the world and not easy to be deceived.

“Forty bucks” he too replied in Punjabi.

Now I knew that the fare would be only 25 bucks but considering the night-time, he could add another 5 bucks. But certainly 40 bucks was downright cheating.

I protested and haggled. But he won’t budge.

Finally, I told him that I was a fauji so that he would have a modicum of respect.

“Ah” he said joyously, “Then you just give me a bottle of rum.”

I had to give him all of Rupees forty since the bottle of rum (though much cheaper) had already been given by me to the TTE in the train for procuring reservation.

After joining the Indian Armed Forces, it doesn’t take a fauji much time to realise his true worth to the civilians and yet he continues to serve selflessly.

CROSSING FRONTIERS IN THE FRONTIER MAIL

When you join the armed forces, you are perpetually on the move: you are transferred every now and then so that like rolling stones you’d not gather moss as also to learn all the ropes at all the stations; you are also sent on temporary duties. Hence, you become as much familiar with railways as railways are with you.

Three years back I wrote a piece on The Great Indian Train Journey. Although I didn’t describe the armed forces part of it, the armed forces personnel are at home with the railways.

If one were to travel from Bombay to New Delhi and beyond, the one train that was ‘fauji‘ friendly was the Frontier Mail; you could find many armed forces personnel taking the plunge into the train at the last minute and the TTEs generally obliged the ‘faujis‘, not because of their love for the armed forces but because of the promise of unadulterated armed forces quota rum that accompanied the ‘faujis’ like faithful dogs.

The Frontier Mail, started in September 1928 derived its name from its run of more than 2000 kms from Bombay (Churchgate) to Peshawar, the city at India’s border or frontier with Afghanistan. It was the nation’s first high-speed train and did the journey of 2335 kms in 72 hours.

Frontier Mail (Pic courtesy: www.iaslic1955.org)

In 1930 the London Times had rated Frontier MaIl as the world’s best train. In 1996, its name was changed to Golden Temple Mail. However, it was still the Frontier Mail when I was to board it at Mumbai. And, this time I had a proper reservation and hence no need to exchange good rum for a berth.

When I was at Mumbai Central Railway station waiting for the train, I spotted at least two other fauji officers also waiting. How did I make out that they were fauji? Well, one had Ray Ban goggles in their cover on his belt. The second was a Sikh and his demeanour exuded army. One look at the reservation chart confirmed my inference.

One of them, the one with Ray Ban introduced himself as Major Mehta. I wanted to avoid conversation as I had come to the last part of a James Hedley Chase book that I was reading after my boyhood days, just for fun, and the suspense was killing me.

But it was not to be. Mehta said, “So Ravi Sir, up to where are you going?”

“Delhi” I retorted sharply so that he’d get the hint and shut up.

Army ensures its officers are made of sterner stuff. Undeterred Mehta asked, “Proper Delhi or beyond that?”

How would Major Mehta know anything about my home station Kandaghat in Shimla Hills near Solan? (Read: ‘Home Is Where The Heart Is – Kandaghat In Shimla Hills’)

“Beyond that” I answered whilst turning the page.

“Up to where, Ravi Sir” he asked.

I suspected Mehta’s family were lawyers of repute and adept at cross-examining hardened criminals.

“I might take a bus from outside Ambala Cantt”, I told him irritably.

“Bus to where, Ravi Sir” he asked me ignoring my irritability.

“Bus to hell” I nearly blurted out but at the last minute replaced it with, “Bus to North.”

I had decided that even though Mark Woodward in the Chase novel was certain to face the music because of the dead body having been found behind the roses; but, I would kill Major Mehta if he were to ask me, “North? Where in North, Sir?” and then dispose of the body when the train would cross over a river.

He looked straight into my eyes and asked calmly, “North? Where in North, Sir?”

‘Should I be a Gandhian or should I become Bhagat Singh?’ was for me the equivalent of the Shakespearian ‘To be or not to be’. I had clenched my fists.

Major Mehta suddenly through chuckles asked me, “Ain’t you going to Kandaghat, Ravi bhaiyya?”

“What the hell. …..”, I started; but he continued, “I am going to Solan. I am a class mate of your younger brother JP. I have been to your house Whispering Winds several times.”

To hell with Mark Woodward and JH Chase. In any case I was trying to reread it after many many years.

We had a marvellous time together in the train and later bus. And we didn’t know how time flew. And yes, the rum bottle was opened not for the TTE but for two of us who had crossed several frontiers in the Frontier Mail.

SHE WASN’T MAID FOR US

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.

REMOVING CURLS AND KINKS

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.

The way I looked two years before I joined the Navy

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.”

ARE INDIAN ELECTIONS FAIRY-TALES?

No, I haven’t gone crazy; I am seriously asking this question even though I am well aware of the fact that the world over, Indian parliamentary elections are seen as the greatest exercise in democracy. But, for heaven’s sake, India or Indian democracy is not just about periodic elections even though the Indian political parties and independents have raised their ambition of fighting and winning elections as an end in itself. It is precisely this shortcoming in our system that has landed us in this morass (Read: ‘How Proud Should We Be Of Indian Republic At 62?’ that I wrote on 26 Jan 2011).

This article is, therefore, focussed on three things:

Our unrealistic expectations from elections.
How we are manipulated by the political parties?
Don’t we have to demand things from our polity and from ourselves rather than to just periodically vote?

Take the euphoria regarding the two Prime Ministerial candidates: Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi. In social media, in addition to electronic and print media, we have divided ourselves into two camps: the NaMo camp and Rahul baba camp. In public debates, the supporters of one or the other endlessly tell us that they admit that their party has made mistakes and done evil things; but, it is still not as bad as when the other party was in ‘power‘.

Lets take Narendra Modi camp first. As soon as NaMo becomes the next PM, following will happen:

1. Our netas, babus and people at large will shun corruption. All of us are waiting for a strong PM to be there so that we can all mend our ways.

2. Good governance will return to our country. It was last seen in 6th century AD during the period of the Guptas.

3. People will start being more efficient and punctual in offices. Right now we have a ‘chalta hai’ attitude only because we don’t have a strong PM.

4. Our trains and flights will be on time. With a weak PM, they have no choice but to be perpetually running late.

5. Industrial output and hence GDP would show a sudden spurt. Our industrialists are totally nationalist people. The industrial output, therefore, suffers only because of the indecision of the government.

6. Education and employment for all would remarkably improve. Even with the excellent(!) commitment of our teachers and employers, these have suffered only because the government didn’t have clear sense of purpose.

7. Long pending police reforms would be straightway implemented as they have been in Gujarat.

8. Our foreign relations would straightway improve especially with our neighbouring countries. After years of lack of vision by successive governments, suddenly, we shall have a visionary with commendable and proven clarity of thought in these matters.

9. Pakistan wouldn’t dare to send terrorists to our country because of zero tolerance of NaMo towards such people. Indeed, even though an earlier immature PM had declared with bravado, “Ham unaki naani yaad dila denge“; NaMo wouldn’t give such childish threats but actually make them remember their ancestors.

10. Modernity would reach our villages in addition to some basics such as food, water, roads, electricity and schools.

11. We would have a foolproof security and defence umbrella. It couldn’t have been there with a weak PM.

12. People of all communities will start living in harmony as they do in Gujarat!

13. Scientists and technocrats would start doing original research rather than reverse engineering of western inventions.

14. In short, India will once again take its rightful position as the Golden Peacock.

Are elections fairy tales? This is why we believe in gods and goddesses; irrespective of the mess we are in, gods will be reborn in our midst and suddenly set right decades of neglect, corruption, inefficiency and immortality.

Lets take another god-in-the-making Rahul Gandhi. Recently, in order to have a squeaky-clean image – the kind his antennae told him the Indian public wanted – he, whilst holding post as the Vice President of Congress, denigrated his own Prime Minister and the party for having moved in the parliament an ordinance that would allow even convicted members to continue in office.

Surprisingly, the Congress supporters hailed the ‘bold step’ of the ‘future-hope-of-the-country’ Rahul Gandhi who had shown as much sagacity as the retired Army Chief General VK Singh in publicly finding faults with the army he was commanding. People’s hopes – mixed as they are – rest on the following pillars:

If voted to ‘power‘ as the Prime Minister, Rahul would stand between the corrupt ministers and the nation’s interests.
He may be party to corrupt and dubious decisions, but he still carries a conscience; the one commodity that is lacking in others.
He has his fingers on the pulse of the people. Hence, if voted to ‘power‘, unlike others, he would listen to the people and do course corrections when required.
Eight years of Congress misrule now and decades of it earlier would be wiped out simply by electing him to ‘power‘.
The volte-face by Rahul Gandhi is a resounding victory for people’s power especially power of the social media.

Ain’t our fairy-tale expectations from our ‘angels’ far higher than what we are supposed to do ourselves in democracy? What is the difference between us and a certain minister Bhim Singh from Bihar who said, “Soldiers are meant to die”? Ain’t we expecting too much that any government or PM can set right the rot that has set in our society since they are being paid or voted to set them right?

I don’t like the way people on social media take sides with either Congress or the BJP for any issue of import concerning our country and its people. For example, on the issue of pogrom of thousands of Sikhs in the national capital, the pro Congress group blames the pro BJP group of being non-secular and vice-versa. On the issue of corruption, each group pretends to be holier-than-thou.

Every issue of significance, therefore, gets mired in vituperative politics and we never get to pragmatic solutions. What is true of Facebook is also true of debate, both public and in the media.

If we collectively or individually not lock our senses behind the façade of my-party-greater, we’d know that despite each fan club assuming posture of superiority and morality, there is nothing to choose between the two major parties; both have been there and done that!

Let me share some facts:

1.BJP had a major issue of Bofors when they were in opposition but didn’t do anything about it when they came to power.

2. BJP didn’t push for a white paper on irrigation scam in Maharashtra after Congress leaked it out to the media that some part of the loot went to BJP too.

3. Congress’s own record of secularism is even more pathetic than that of BJP. However, BJP never pushes debate on this issue since it is sure Ram Mandir will get it assured votes.

4. Both see advantage in postponing Lok Dal Bill and Women’s Reservation Bill in Parliament.

5. Both didn’t want to do anything about Wikileaks revelations about Swiss Bank accounts of Indian politicians and industrialists.

I can go on and on but isn’t it time sane and aware people in the country stop taking sides on the assumption of a false sense of loyalty? Lets start discussing what the country and its people need without getting into the internecine blame-game. There is nothing like a half-virgin or more or less virgin! Integrity has to be measured in absolute and ethical terms and not in the terms we are discussing now; eg, “Congress is bad but it is better than BJP or vice-versa.”

We are really playing into the muddy hands of these ruffians by adopting this attitude.

Let India win and not Congress or BJP.

Some of my good friends also debate and believe that we the common voters would be directly electing the Prime Minister. The fact is that none of us will be electing a PM; we have to only vote for the right candidate for our constituency. Everything else is just plain wishful thinking. Yes, our votes are important but we can’t directly elect a PM or even government. Whereas, from the public debates, and debates on social media it appears as if they would all be voting directly for NaMo or Rahul G and hence, whilst voting for the right candidate in our constituencies, we should constantly worry about the above fairy-tale wish list for these two worthies

And I am ashamed of the so-called intellectuals who take sides on every issue of significance concerning us. We believe in miracles and miracles sell like hot-cakes in our country. Why, it was only the other day when Lord Krishna produced endless rice from a bowl!

(Pic courtesy - www.hilltop.in — (Pic courtesy – www.hilltop.in

Here is the actual reality of majority of the people that we elect:

Neta1: So wrestling is back in Olympics.

Neta2: Yes, we now stand a chance to win medals.

Neta1: You don’t say that, do you? Medals for what we have been doing in the well of the house?

Neta2: Hmm…

Neta1: Do you think we can also win medals for thumping the tables every time Soniaji speaks?

How quickly we wash our hands off our responsibility and complicity in the ills of society; be these corruption or rapes or immoral acts by god men? The fact is that We the People are corrupt, and immoral. From where do Ponty Chaddhas and Asarams amass their stupendous wealth and power? We are so steeped in commercialisation of religion that we have lost the ability to listen to sane voices that such jamborees as those we witness in the name of religion periodically are actually trivialising the religion. We create Ponty Chaddhas and Asarams. We participate in mere rituals and tamasha in the name of religion. We fan the fires of an increasingly divided society in terms of religion, caste, creed and region. Some of us are trying to make every issue of morality into victimisation of the religion that we belong to.

Lets stop all this before we ask of the government, politicians, religious leaders and babus to set right the Indian society.

As Guru Nanak and Swami Vivekanand said, “Conquer yourself to conquer the world”.

How Naive Can We Get?

Whilst we prepare for forthcoming elections, we have conveniently convinced ourselves that Corruption and Immorality lies at some high level and that people at large seek to be rid of these evils. This is as naïve as ostrich burying its head in sand.

We, as people, fight for our ‘right’ to be corrupt and immoral. These are at all levels of society. You don’t become a Ponty Chaddha and Asaram overnight. People collude to make them so.

Tell the thekedaars of religion, for example, to stop extracting money in the name of religion.
Tell the railway conductors to stop charging underhand money.
Tell the office babu to stop asking for bribes to do the work he is supposed to do.
Tell the traffic cops to deposit all money that they receive for traffic violations.
Tell the patwaris, tehsildaars and kanungos to stop accepting underhand money for revenue records.
Tell the PWD people to stop charging 300 per cent more than the actual value of contracts.
Tell the doctors to declare every income that they receive.
Tell the oil and petrol lobby to sell pure oil and petrol in the market and not adulterated by about 30 to 40 per cent.
Tell the real estate people and constructors that all deals will be above-board.
Tell the industrialists that projects will be run only on declared costs.
Tell the teachers to stop taking private tuitions.
Have F.I.R.’s being lodged in police stations without charging underhand money.
Have a clean judiciary.
Have media who debate issues of concern to us and not the commercial interests of the owners.

I can go on and on. The fact is that whilst thinking of quick-fix solutions to our endemic problems, we tend to forget that we are involved. We have to put our own house in order. Elections are periodic phenomenon but the shortcuts that we take are everyday phenomena.

India cannot change with elections. We need to change first.

Suddenly, elections are not fairy-tale contests between parties and candidates anymore. Suddenly, these are about us.

NIGHTMARISH MEMORIES OF BEING A NAVIGATOR

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.

INS Himgiri (Pic courtesy: www.bharat-rakshak.com)

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.

View of the Buoy as seen from Malabar Hotel

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.

The type of boats that we were heading straight towards

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”!

SPY VERSUS SPY

I was posted on Ganga We returned from our cruise to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia (Read about an anecdote in Jeddah harbour in ‘Gunners Too Are Human – Part III – Gun Salutes’). Frankly, we had gone a wee-bit overboard in our purchases. We did well in our custom-clearance. The custom guys were ‘managed’ very well. Now all that stood between us having these items on board and us having them at home was the Security at the Lion Gate, Naval Dockyard, Bombay.

Once again, the lesser beings there were ‘managed’ very well but there was this Commander-at-Arms who was renowned to be the toughest egg in the entire Navy. It was rumoured that he used to have junior officers for breakfast after – as PGW would say – jumping over their remains with hobnailed shoes. To get past Cdr A was as tough as getting past Satan.

I had a friend on Ganga who was renowned for his resourcefulness. This friend on whilst going out of the Lion Gate smartly parked his vehicle on the side and went to meet Cdr A in his office. He paid his regards; Cdr A wasn’t amused. He talked about this and that: Cdr A wasn’t amused. Finally, my friend came straight to the point. He said he was a law-abiding citizen and would like to take out a few items with Cdr A’s permission.

Established in 1735 (Pic courtesy: indiannavy.nic.in)

Cdr A (brightening; as he had already seen in this an opportunity to chew my friend): When?

My Friend (fearfully): Er…if you permit…tomorrow, Sir.

Cdr A (eyes gleaming now): What kind of items?

My friend (alarmed now but he had reached point of no return): (Rattled out list of items) Cdr A (Visibly on top of the world now since rather than his catching the fish, the fish had come to him!): Don’t worry. Bring the items tomorrow and we shall see.

My friend saluted, dejectedly went to his vehicle and drove off.

Next day, at the appointed hour, he came to the Lion Gate and the entire Lion Gate Security Staff descended on his vehicle and ransacked it. All supervised by Cdr A smiling from ear to ear. To Cdr A’s utter horror and dejection, they found nothing.

At this stage, thoroughly frustrated at having missed a chance to get a Nao Sena Medal, Cdr A bellowed: But, you told me yesterday that you’d be taking out those items today.

My friend: I did Sir; but, knowing how you normally are, I didn’t take chances and took them out yesterday itself!

I could have given highest Gallantry Reward to my friend!

MUMBAI RAINS MEIN TRAFFIC KE SIDE EFFECTS

Three years back I wrote ‘Mumbai Rains’ in this blog and it continues to be very popular. Now, I bring you some of the side-effects of Mumbai Rains and traffic during the rains. One of my friends had put up this:

[lineate][/lineate]Foreigner: In Mumbai, do you drive to the left or the right?[lineate][/lineate]Mumbaiite: In Mumbai, we drive on what’s left of the roads.[lineate][/lineate]

Mumbai is a melting pot of cultures and languages. I came to know recently that ‘highway‘ is a Punjabi word, after all. When your vehicle goes over an unseen ditch or pothole (which happens in Mumbai quite often), you nurse injuries to yourselves and your vehicle and with every jump say in Punjabi: “Hai ve”! (O, my God)

Lets look at some peculiar scenes and situations caused by the havoc on roads as a result of Mumbai Rains.

Swayamvar

Deshpandes are looking for a husband for their elder daughter. She has finished her engineering in computer sciences and has landed a well deserved job at TCS. After her family gave the advertisement in the Matrimonial columns of several dailies, a few eligible boys have pressed their suits. The family has short-listed three of them: Ashok, Ganesh and Sunil. All three boys are also engineers and earning good salaries and from good families. Finally, it has to be Jyoti’s choice. She asks her brother to help. It comes out that since she has to spend the rest of her life with her husband, she wants to be sure (as any girl would) of the essential nature of her man. What if he curses and swears? What if he doesn’t have patience with her? What if he is utterly selfish? Her brother has the most pragmatic plan to find this out, “I shall drive with each one of them from Colaba to Borivali by car. At the end of the journeys, I shall have the answers for you.”

Modern day ‘swayamvar’, tougher than Arjuna shooting with arrow the eye of the fish and most effective way to separate men from boys.

Army Headquarters

During a presentation to the Chief, his Principal Staff Officers are in attendance. The subject is the purchase of the Tatra trucks, the controversy-ridden Tatra trucks.

[lineate][/lineate]Lieutenant General I: Finally, the government has cleared the purchase of these ****ing trucks. It took some coaxing.[lineate][/lineate]The Chief: It always does. But, I guess your team needs to be congratulated for all the hard work put in.[lineate][/lineate]Lieutenant General I: Thank you, Sir[lineate][/lineate]Lieutenant General II: But, Sir, there is a problem. Now that General VK’s assertions have called in question the quality of these vehicles, we need to carry out a rigorous acceptance test-inspection.[lineate][/lineate]Lieutenant General III: We have already prepared for this, Sir. Our engineers have designed an indigenous (stressing on the word so as to invite praise) testing terrain track for the inspections. It would cost only Rupees 5 Crores as compared to the imported track worth 20 Crores.[lineate][/lineate]The Chief: I think we can avoid the wasteful expenditure. Let the vehicles be received in Mumbai and test-drive on Mumbai roads during rains. If they can survive that, they can survive any terrain and conditions.[lineate][/lineate]Lieutenant General I to II (aside): Now why couldn’t we think of that?[lineate][/lineate]Lieutenant General II to I (aside): That’s why he is the Chief and not us.[lineate][/lineate]

III

Times Now’s Evening Top-Story

[lineate][/lineate]Arnab Boswami: This is the third case in the month when a woman in Mumbai has filed for divorce proceedings. She had been suspecting her husband of having an affair. She has been, therefore, timing her husband during his return journey from the office. The duration has been inexplicably (to her) on the increase and that confirmed her deep rooted suspicion that he has been spending time with the other woman, on the side. On the evening before filing the divorce proceedings, her husband spent all of five hours reaching back home. I have on the panel tonight Mister All-is-well Pigvijay Singh from Congress, Mrs. All-men-are-the-same Mamta Besharma, Chairperson of Women’s Commission in India, BJP spokesperson Arun Ketley and finally representative of Aam Aadmi Gharib Das. Let me first put this question to Pigvijay Singh; What is your government doing about this?[lineate][/lineate]PVS: The track record of our government on women’s issues is excellent. You may recall when Nirbhay died in Delhi, Manmohan Singh ji personally went to receive the dead body…[lineate][/lineate]Arnab (Cutting him short, as he always does): No, all this is only a façade. On an everyday basis women are still getting raped. Let me ask Mamta ji: Do you think this is the normal state or an exception that husbands reach back late from work?[lineate][/lineate]MB: This is on the increase, the traditional image of the Indian woman of being a housewife and being at the beck-and-call of her husband hasn’t changed much. We need to make strict laws to force men to return home on time and not to spend time with other women.[lineate][/lineate]Arun Ketley (on alert after MB uttered the word “law”: I don’t think making new laws will change the situation. For every known law, there are at least a dozen loopholes.[lineate][/lineate](Meanwhile the Aam Aadmi representative had been frantically raising his hand to be able to speak but no one pays him attention. Finally, Arnab Goswami, notices him and asks him: I think Gharib Das has something to say on this; are you on the side of the husband or the lady?[lineate][/lineate]Gharib Das (helplessly): I think you have caught the bull by the tail. The issue here is not a women’s issue at all. The issue is why did it take the husband all of five hours to reach home from office. And I will tell you why: it is because of the poor state of the roads in Mumbai during the rains. Anywhere to anywhere takes this much time.[lineate][/lineate]Arnab: I think Gharib Das here is digressing from the issue at hand; let me get back to Mamta now: do you really think making new laws will help?[lineate][/lineate](Poor Gharib Das hold his head in both hands and would have pulled out his hair if there were any left.[lineate][/lineate]

Scene at the Airlines Office

[lineate][/lineate]Harried Manager: For an hour’s flight, we have started calling people two hours in advance “due to traffic congestion in Mumbai” and yet people have been coming late. What should we do?[lineate][/lineate]Efficiency Expert (with solutions to all problems): I think we should start calling them three to four hours in advance. Indeed, for early morning flights, we must suggest to them to spend the night at the airport itself.[lineate][/lineate]Manager (with doubts): But, won’t it be a punishment for travellers?[lineate][/lineate]EE (Confidently): Since when has travel been anything but punishment in and out of Mumbai?[lineate][/lineate]

Scene at Watch Repair Shop

[lineate][/lineate]Irate Customer: This is my third visit to you to collect my repaired watch; every time you tell me you didn’t get time. What do you do with your time?[lineate][/lineate]Watch Repairer: Sir, the same thing what you do with your time; I spend most of my time commuting.[lineate][/lineate]Customer: Well, next time will be my last visit; what should I do if next time the watch is not ready?[lineate][/lineate]Watch Repairer: Sir, I suggest next time you buy a calendar. In Mumbai’s traffic, there is no point in looking at the watch for the time; one requires to keep track of the day and date one embarked on the journey.[lineate][/lineate]

Somewhere in Headquarters of LeT

[lineate][/lineate]Terrorist Chief: We need to plan another attack on Mumbai to avenge the hanging of Shaheed Ajmal Kasab[lineate][/lineate]Loyal Terrorist I: Inshallah, we need to do that; they cannot hang our young, innocent lads like Ajmal bhai.[lineate][/lineate]Loyal Terrorist II: But, we need to wait until the rains are over. During the rains we just can’t even reach our targets.[lineate][/lineate]Terrorist Chief: Trust the Indians for having come up with the ultimate defence against our brave Jehaadis.”

I can go on and on. But, the fact is that we shall soon come to a situation when Mumbaiites will stop going from anywhere to anywhere for fear of ageing on the roads during the rains.

TRAVEL LIGHT IF YOU MUST BY AIR

Suddenly, the age old adage has come alive for the airlines: ‘Travel light, if you must’; not the lean-and-hungry look but the lean-and-mean look. Heavy weights may be alright in politics; they may be of immense value in industry and bureaucracy. But, they are a big No No for the airlines. Reminds you of the Blue Jeans revolution of the sixties and seventies. Until then, the clothes were tailor-made for you. But, with the advent of Blue Jeans it was one-size-fits-all and you had to re-shape yourself to fit into those jeans. They came up with ‘ideal figure’ (Twiggy) and you had no choice but to be ideal.

Similarly, GoAir, for example, has given NoGoAir sign to its male stewards since they are generally heavier than their female counterparts. If it was the other way round, by this time Jantar Mantar would have been full of women activists telling the whole world through their middle fingers that the government must take charge of GoAir for showing sexual discrimination. But, men are supposed to take it lying down. Preity Zinta, the promoter of GoAir, for example, first made inroads into the till then men’s world of cricket and is now chucking out men from a traditionally female world.

(Pic courtesy: blog.mobissimo.in) Preity Zinta promotes GoAir

However, the way the airlines are at it, sky is the limit for traveling light. Anything and everything is chargeable. Very soon we may have little children serving us in the flight in their cute infantile babble, “Uncle, hele iz yore maltini; and aunty, you will like some chicken na?” After all, they weigh the least and the airlines may be able to save a few more crores of rupees by employing them.

Another bright idea that will occur to the airlines is to come up with a dress code for travel. No suits, shoes and ties…in any case you have to remove your jacket, belt and shoes at the Security. So, why wear them at all? The airlines will tout this as a ‘customer friendly’ idea as it results in ‘hassle-free security check’. The airlines tend to gain a few crores per year and it appears that every rupee counts.

I suspect that the airlines will soon come up with another ‘customer friendly’ idea – after all, the customer is the king (Ha ha) as proclaimed by them – which is, to have you visit the gym between check-in and security check. The programme will make you lose a few kilos and the airlines can then squeeze in a few more passengers between the last row and the toilets.

Frequent flyers programme will have additional points for those less than fifty kgs and carrying less than ten kgs of check-in baggage and/or nil cabin baggage.

The very first announcement after you board will be, “Ladies and gentlemen, in order to cut down on unnecessary weighty items in the aircraft, we have done away with in-flight magazines, newspapers and instructions cards for wearing the life jackets. You have ten minutes to download these on your mobile phones by accessing www.GoAir.Wecareforguests site. You may not be able to use your mobiles during the flight as these interfere with the navigation systems.”

What about those who used to carry various kinds of foot-wear: Jogging shoes, sandals, brown shoes to go with brown clothing, black with black, and just one extra pair just in case required. Well, research is on to come up with new modular footwear that can change over from chappals to party-wear by pressing a few light-weight buttons.

Another idea that the airlines are working on is to give all passengers, male or female, close hair-cuts (appropriately called crew-cuts) prior to take-off. This too will be a customer friendly (airlines are committed to be customer-friendly all the way) idea since the airlines will offer to share half the cost of haircut with you at merely Rupees Five Hundred a hair-cut (Frequent Light-weight Flyers will be given such crew-cuts free).

And finally back to the male stewards of flights who have been told it is NoGoAir for them; they might actually have the last laugh when the air-hostesses are told – in the same fashion as instructions from Badminton Association of India last year to female players – to wear as little clothing as possible. At last the male passengers will then say, “Finally, you have come up with a real customer-friendly idea.”

Category: Humour