Category: Humour

First a caution before reading this post: Do you remember what Alfred Einstein said about Mahatma Gandhi? You do! Well, nevertheless I am refreshing your memory; he said, “Coming generations will scarcely believe that such a man of flesh and blood ever walked the earth.” It was the same with CN in the Navy. He was a unique person. He was thinking out of box even before they had devised boxes.

The problem was that he was a TASO (Torpedo Anti-Submarine Officer) and often applied TAS solutions to anti-ship and anti-air problems too. In this aspect, he never grew out-of-the-anti-submarine ‘box’ in which the Navy had placed him as a young Lieutenant.

During those days the Navy had suddenly woken up to the dangers of anti-ship missiles launched by other ships or aircraft. Anti-Missile Defence was such a buzzword that anyone who wanted to be seen as avanguard in his thinking talked about jamming the incoming missiles, chaff and volley of gun shots to divert it from the course.

Suddenly, the TAS guys, who erstwhile ruled the roost in the Navy, found themselves taking the back seats. Not CN though. He felt that TAS would always be relevant.
So, in order to join the AMD debate, he came up with a ‘paper’ that embarked on the concept of boom barriers around the ship on collapsible struts. The idea, as painstakingly explained by him was that if such boom barriers could work against submarines and torpedoes (in harbour), surely these would work against missiles too against ships at sea. The barrier would be in the form of a metal net that would make an umbrella around the ship. It would trap the incoming missile like fish getting caught in the net and the ship would be safe. Q.E.D.

Hare-brained? Well, with the name he had made in the TAS world, this ‘paper’ went all the way up to the Chief of the Naval Staff who promptly called me and said, “Lieutenant Commander Ravi; I consulted an astrologer who told me that after you retire from the Navy, you would start a group on Humour in Uniform. Will you please ensure that you tell about this in that group to bring some cheer in the lives of its members? After all, why should I be the only person who should die laughing?”

“Aye, Aye, Sir” I told him.

So here you are, ladies and gents. As for me, orders are orders; can’t break the promise I made to the CNS.

First a little explanation for the civilian and non-navy friends:

A ship is normally controlled from the Bridge. In the accompanying picture you can see what a Bridge looks like. This is where all the navigational and engine controls are there besides some controls for weapons, sensors and countermeasures. The watch (usually extends to four hours) on the Bridge is under an Officer of the Watch (OOW). Everyone is on his feet except the Captain who sits on a swivel chair. It is called the Captain’s Chair. During the time when the Fleet staff is embarked, to the left side of the Bridge, another swivel chair is screwed on for the Fleet Commander. Else, most of the times, only the Captain sits on Captain’s chair.

The watches are named after the part of the day/night: 0800 to 1200 hours is the Forenoon Watch and so on. The night watches are: the First Watch from 8 PM (2000 hrs) to midnight, Middle Watch from midnight to 4 AM (0400 hrs) and Morning Watch from 4 AM to 8 AM (0400 hrs to 0800 hrs). In the night watches too (despite your day’s routine), you remain on your feet. It is the OOW’s duty to keep the ship safe (navigationally and otherwise) during his Watch. He also tests a whole lot of things during his Watch so as to keep the ship fighting-fit.

And now for the anecdote:

An OOW was on Morning Watch (0400 hrs to 0800 hrs) and since nothing much was happening, thought of doing something that is sacrilegious on a ship (during my 35 years I have never done it except when I was the Captain): that is, to rest his weary feet by sitting on the Captain’s Chair. He reckoned that the time was 0530 hrs (5:30 AM) and the Captain was not expected on the Bridge until 0630 hrs (that is, 30 minutes after Hands Call at 0600 hrs).

As he climbed up on the chair, he felt like the most popular music group of our times – Carpenters; that is, on Top of the World. Ah, he said to himself, now this is Life with a capital L. Initially, he was most awkward and afraid but as he immersed fully in the chair and swivelled it around, confidence came to him like Divya Shakti to Arjuna. The more he sat, the more he was convinced that Life’s biggest happiness is defined as: ‘Sitting on the Captain’s Chair in the wee hours of the morning’.

Immersed in his fantasy, he had lost track of something that the Shastras tell us never to lose track of; that is, Time. So, when unknowing to him, the Captain emerged on the Bridge in the darkness, our ecstatic OOW was deep inside the Captain’s Chair. Now, it takes a person some time to get used to the darkness. Captain took perhaps ten seconds and asked in his booming voice: “All well, Officer of the Watch?”

OOW jumped out of the Captain’s Chair as if high voltage live-wire had touched him, regained his presence of mind, and shouted in clear and crisp voice: “Captain’s Chair tested and found correct”.

As OOW, you have to have your wits about to react to any situation and this OOW demonstrated these ably.

The Captain too let it go at that. I am sure he must have tested a few Captain’s chairs during his time of being the OOW.

I was posted on the minesweeper Karwar after completing my Bridge Watchkeeping undertrainee period on the second Leander Class Frigate Himgiri. It was quite a come-down. Himgiri had the latest in radars and sensors and propulsion; whereas, Karwar took you a century behind in time. However, in the end I learnt more on Karwar than on Himgiri.

First of all, on a small ship, you are all by yourself; there ain’t Training Officers and Assistant Training Officers who pounce at you from unsuspecting quarters and at odd times. Secondly, you find yourself suddenly responsible for every action and inaction of yours. And thirdly, there is no one you can turn to in case you land in the gooey stuff.

There was another great thing about Karwar. It was similar to buying a second or third hand Yezdi and forced to learn mobike mechanics the hard way. There were problems galore in every nook and cranny and we were the one who had to find answers. And guess what? We did!

It had an open Bridge with an awning that kept us from sun, rain, winds and gales. We used to jump with collective joy when the Kelvin Hughes radar used to actually paint the land. Expecting it to pick up small boats at sea was like asking a child to journey up to the moon by his paper plane! Also, unlike on Himgiri, we didn’t have to exercise emergencies and contingencies since these used to occur at the drop of a hat.

The worst were the navigation aids. The best nav aids on board were Eye Balls Mk I. This never-fail instrument would never fail us, come hell or thunder storm. It sometimes required protection and we had one readily available: the hood of the Kelvin Hughes PPI. That hood was of no use on the radar since it never picked up anything. Hence, the hood could be used on Eye Balls Mk I for protection against rain and fierce winds.

What about the engines? Well, the diesel reciprocating engines behaved well. However, due to low speeds during minesweeping, there used to be unburnt fuel deposits in the funnel. A lot of excitement used to be caused by frequent funnel fires. But, the men knew what to do and that was a great thing. There was never any panic.

What about the gyro? I used to think that the most common use of the gyro was to give us exercises in breakdowns. After the breakdowns, if the electric people managed to get it going, it would be good enough for pointing out only cardinal directions.

With all this, if you think we were meant for minesweeping duties close to coast in Bombay only, you are mistaken. There is nary a port on the Western seaboard that Karwar didn’t sweep the approach channel to. Going to Goa and other such ports was great fun as one would do some close coastal navigation and hence lack of radar and reliable gyro didn’t stand in the way of our successfully navigating to these ports. However, ports like Porbandar used to pose huge problems since we had to cross large (by Karwar standards) swathes of sea without being in visual touch of any land. We used to feel like Christopher Columbus who had set sail to discover India but had landed in America. We had many such experiences.

Once, we were returning from Porbandar to Bombay. On the way, the weather turned bad. Continuous gales and sea kept us from resting even for a minute. The ship’s dead reckoning position put us at about 55 miles from Bombay Floating Light and then the gyro did its breakdown-act’ that it had perfected. There hadn’t been a ‘fix’ for hours and we were not sure whether we were on the right track to Bombay. Many a times, the fishermen used to help us in similar situations by pointing towards Bombay. But, that forenoon, there was not a fisherman in sight. My CO looked at me and I looked back at him and then he looked at me in despair and I looked at him in despair. He again looked at me in desperation and I was about to return to him an equivalent look when our XO Sanjiv Vasant Kulkarni walked up to the Bridge. SV had – and since I met him recently, has – world’s best smile. When God was moulding men and women, God had very kindly made him the most positive and encouragingly smiling gentleman ever. He took the scene at the Bridge in and then beamed his smile to let it become sunnier. CO and I refused to budge. We were lost at sea and beaming smiles hardly uplifted our mood. So, SV asked us as to what had happened. We told him.

SV went to the side of the Bridge, sniffed the air, looked around and like a seer called to discover water in a parched land, he suddenly pointed towards his right and said, “That’s where Bombay is.”

Totally lost as we were, we didn’t even question him and a few hours later, with his frequent pointed directions, we were at BFL (Bombay Floating Light)

I was curious to know more about this method of navigation since I had not learnt it in ND School or during my watchkeeping tenure on Himgiri. So, after we returned and sat in the wardroom nursing our Oranjebooms, I asked him to explain.

His explanation was as simple as the honest simplicity that was his hallmark: He had recently got married and his wife worked in Bank of Baroda at Cuffe Parade, Bombay. Wherever he went, he knew the precise direction to Bank of Baroda, Cuffe Parade!

I became a communicator in subsequent years. But, I often wondered why the NHQ had to spend so much of money buying navigation instruments when all they had to do was to get people married and let Beacons of Love navigate their ships.

Out of all the evolutions and exercises that the ships participate in at sea, the favourite of the Fleet Commander and his staff is Fuelling. It is because the entire Fleet is at close quarters and easy to take charge of, with beautifully concocted signals such as: “Where are you going?” and “Read back your station” and “Are you always confused like this?”. The feel of being ‘in control’ can never be achieved with the Fleet spread out and out of visual range of the boss and his staff.

Fuelling also gives the Fleet Commander a photo opp of the largest number of ships engaged at close quarters (for posterity) (as in the accompanying photo). These are also nightmares for the communicator because signals fly up and down on all circuits and by all means: Tactical Primary, hand-sets, Flag Hoist, Semaphore and Flashing Light. The only saving grace is that the Navigator is far too busy himself to laugh at “communication inefficiency” on these.

Within a year of my becoming a commissioned officer, the Indian Navy acquired INS Shakti from Germany. This was the second ship named Shakti (the third one was commissioned in 2011). As a Sub Lieutenant, I saw that within five years of the war with the Pakis, so much was the stress on fuelling and utilising Shakti, that I had visualised that in the next war, the entire Fleet, immediately after leaving harbour, would start fuelling from Shakti and the Pakis would be totally flummoxed.

We had a Fleet Commander who was so fond of fuelling that if a ship on the horizon conveyed its respect to the Fleet Commander with the customary: “Request permission to proceed as previously directed”, the Fleet Commander would immediately give her a standby station on the port or starboard of Shakti for “Token Fuelling” and allow it to go only after the act.

My Captain on Talwar, the late AR Dabir (RIP), used to detest these ‘fuelling’ serials. When you are in your fuelling station, you are just about a 100 to 120 feet away from the tanker. Even at that close distance, the entire Fleet Staff including the Fleet Commander, who would be on board the tanker during these serials, would put the binoculars, hanging around their necks, to their eyes and subject your ship to close scrutiny. My Army friends are familiar with the eyeball-to-eyeball situation at Nathula. Well, this is similar to that but much closer. And….the ‘enemy’ is you-know-who.

Signals emanating from the Fleet Commander and his staff don’t await your being hooked on for fuelling. These start with your being at the standby station, to your making approach and continue until you have ‘disengaged’ and proceeded out of the microscopic gaze of the Fleet Cdr and the staff. You feel like one of those frogs that the medical interns are taught to dissect before they (the interns, that is) can try their hands on human beings. Signals used to range from “A porthole is open”, “There is unnecessary movement on the deck”, “Your boat gripes are dirty” and “The fifth man on the haul rope is not wearing half inflated life jacket” and so on. To say that it is an endless volley of signals is not too much off the mark….it is indeed, more like a running commentary during a football match.

Captain Dabir used to smoke a lot under stress. Most of it was during fuelling when it was not permitted to do so. Once, we were connected with Shakti being on our starboard (right) and being subjected to leery gazes by the Fleet Cdr and co. A ship is a ‘she’ I often reasoned in my mind and these kind of glances would invite the provisions of some or the other section of the Indian Penal Code!

Anyway, the latest signal from the Fleet Cdr on Tactical Primary read: “You are slow like Chinese naval men.” I had no experience with Chinese naval men, but, I reckoned this was not the right time to take the signal to the Captain. So I took it from the yeoman and put it in my pocket. Little did I know that this act of mine was also being observed through the binocs. Next, I was called by FOO on PWSL, a walkie-talkie set prevalent during those days, and told that the Fleet Commander wanted that the signal be shown to the Captain immediately.

I had no choice now but to edge closer to the Captain on the Starboard wing. He looked at me and asked, “Another one?” I confirmed this to him by nodding my head. “Well” he said, “Make to Flag: Spare us your derisive ones, for heavens sake.” I dutifully wrote it down if only to give satisfaction to the microscopic gazes of our bête noire. And then I asked him what to do with the signal received from the Fleet Cdr. He said, “Do you remember what we did with his last one? Do the same.”

I came back to the Bridge (out of scrutinising gaze), threw the latest signal into the dustbin and made to Flag: Your last acknowledged.

I still remember the flourish with which Captain Dabir used to salute the Fleet Commander at the time of disengaging after the Still Pipe. The last part of the salute used to be decoded by me (communicators are good at decoding everything), “Good riddance…….for the time being at least.”

But, he never said that aloud. No point in adding fuel to the fire.

I was posted as Assistant Director in the Directorate of Tactics at Naval Headquarters, New Delhi, in the year 1987, after my sea tenure on Indian Naval Ship Ganga.

It was sweltering heat in the capital with temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius on almost everyday basis. Many of us in A Block Hutments dreamt of air-conditioning. But, I was told that air-conditioning was for Flag Officers only. For commoners like me, we only had to do mind conditioning.

Commodore Ravi Sikka joined as the Director and he was a computer whiz-kid. He was to tactics what Captain Paulraj was to technology. Indeed, the original INFI (Indian Navy Fighting Instructions) were devised by him and he was then working on complex mathematical modeling of some advanced tactics.

With that, he was perpetually on his PC. He called me one day and said that he wanted air conditioning installed in his office since his PC was getting over heated every now and then. I dished out my newly acquired knowledge of AC being permitted for Major Generals and above and equivalents only.

He said some of his friends who were Brigadiers had managed to get air-conditioners installed in their offices on the grounds of computer-work and could I visit them in Army Headquarters to study the model with the purpose of emulating it in his office.

I, therefore, dutifully set out to the office of Brigadier X. When I entered the office, I saw the Brig sitting comfortably on an executive chair behind a plush table. I noticed that the AC was on and the temperature was barely half of the outside temperature.

Curiously, to his left, on a smaller table, I saw a clerk working on a PC. Now this was quite a sight and I quickly understood that after getting the AC installed, the Brigadier saab had left the actual working of the PC to the clerk.

I was quite a moonh-phut (loud-mouth) at that time and I could not resist telling the Brigadier that a PC was supposed to be PERSONAL (and I laid due emphasis on the word) Computer.

The Brig wasn’t offended at all. He replied quite amiably in Hindi, “Yeh (pointing out to the clerk) bhi PERSONAL he hai; yeh mera PA (Personal Assistant) hai.”

You just can’t beat the Army men. They have answers for everything.