Category: Navy – Nostalgia

If you have ever voted in any election in India, you are familiar with how they mark your index finger, extending from lower part of nail to skin of the finger, with indelible ink. This ink is produced in a company called Mysore Paints and Varnish Limited, the only company in India authorised to do so. After about 30 to 40 days, there is no trace of this indelible ink left and you are ready to vote again. Joining politics (or for that matter any other profession) has, at best, that so called indelible mark that stays a short time and then you are ready to be a turncoat and align your thinking and conduct with some other vocation.

However, one truly indelible ink is the one with which you are pronounced a fauji. It stays with you forever. Your mannerism, style, conduct and even way of thinking undergo permanent and indelible changes. You are not the same person anymore. As was penned by Rudyard Kipling in his famous poem ‘If’, the day you become a fauji, you suddenly become a man:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
…………………..
…………………..
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

Son? Many a times I view things from my father’s point of view; how it must have been for him to send me to fauj knowing (I know that he knew) that, like those planes on trans-Atlantic flights, once I cross over that crucial point-of-no-return, I am gone forever. He knew that he was not sending me to a new profession, but a new life, family and world.

As I penned in ‘Indian Navy Is The Only Life That I Have Known Or Seen’, it is a totally different life, family and world. Even after you hang your uniform and boots (so as to say), you are left with only one way of problem solving, reacting and dealing with anything at all. I have spent, for example, nearly six years in India’s largest corporate company and even those six years didn’t change the way I dealt with problems. On the other hand, I applied fauji solutions to everything, albeit with a little modification.

My dad never joined the armed forces but for all practical purposes he was a fauji. I remember during my boyhood days, my sister and I were always in constant fear of him. Whenever we would hear his Monga (a German vehicle just like the Army Jonga) approaching (in the silence of the hills the engine noise of the Monga was distinct), we would be like dahine-se-sajj (by the right, dress). As soon as he would be with us, the inquisition would commence starting with if we read the newspaper; and, if we did, what was the national and international news.

He was also punctual like a fauji and always kept appointments dot on time. During my sister’s marriage, for example, he nearly cancelled the time when the baraat (marriage party) didn’t reach on time. Our relatives had tough time calming him down with “kudi daa maamla hai” (It is your daughter’s life).

LIke a fauji he was forever young (jawan) and physically fit.

But, the foremost manner in which he was like a fauji was his problem solving abilities and those related to quickly getting to the core of the matter rather than beating around the bush. The other day a senior colleague wrote a piece in one of the publications about how Indians keep discussing problems and solutions but never get to implementation of any of them. Dad was different. He would do before you could count till ten and in many cases, like a typical Punjabi, do the thinking later.

So, after my initial training in the Naval Academy at Cochin (now Kochi), I joined the Cadet Training Ship INS Delhi. I was excited because it was a dream come true to be finally on board an Indian Naval Ship. To give him credit, dad had tried his utmost to stall my becoming a fauji. He constantly bombarded me with how he was preparing me to become an IAS/IFS officer and that sane, intelligent and respectable people should steer clear of becoming fauji. Dad didn’t succeed and I eventually became what I wanted to become: an Indian Navy officer. However, the present leadership of the country and the current attitude of our countrymen are now succeeding to keep as many young men and women from joining the armed forces as they can with their relentless indifference and disrespect.

Anyway, after the tough routine of my first day on the cruiser Delhi, I burnt the midnight oil in writing to him a detailed letter about how my dream had finally come true.

I wrote about the history of Delhi. I wrote that when she was with the British, she was named HMS Achilles and had taken part in the famous Battle of the River Plate (close to Argentina) with HMS Ajax and HMS Exeter (a battle in which they were pitted against the might Admiral Graf Spee and others). I wrote that in 1948 she joined the Indian Navy as first HMIS Delhi and then INS Delhi on India becoming a republic on 26th Jan 1950. I wrote that she starred in the 1956 movie ‘The Battle of the River Plate’ with John Gregson, Anthony Quayle, and Peter Finch. I wrote that whilst I was in the Naval Academy at Cochin, on one of the afternoons I had seen the movie. I recounted an interesting anecdote that in one of the aerial shoots, the complete scene of Delhi as Achilles was shot with the other ships when the Director Michael Powell frantically asked for the scene to be done again. It was because even though all hatches were kept closed, at the crucial moment, one Sikh sailor emerged from one of the hatches complete with beard and turban.

I also described the 6 – guns of the ship and how she helped to liberate Goa on 18th Dec 1961. I wrote about walking on the quarterdeck of the ship whereat history invariably walked with me and my chest exceeded (in later years, Narendra Modi’s) 56 inches when I walked past the 6 – inch guns with their brass plaque describing the famous battles she had fought and won.

I described the forever humming of the engines and the generators and my bunk in the cadet’s mess. Whilst describing the ship in relation to me, I even quoted the poet:

The guns you fired were my guns,
And the lives you lived were mine

The arrival of this letter at our house Whispering Winds, Kandaghat was described to me by my mom. After dinner, dad and mom slipped into the bed and dad (as he was wont to do) asked my mom to read the son’s letter to him. She read slowly and deliberately all the way from Dear Dad to …….. lives you lived were mine ….. with lots and love and regards to mom and you….yours affectionately Ravi.

After she had finished, dad lay there thinking for sometime and then asked her to read the letter all over again. Mom, thinking that dad had made peace with my having become a fauji and was full of deep fatherly love and high respect for the history and heritage of the Indian Navy, read it the second time, more slowly and and with added emphasis. After finishing she awaited his response. And sure enough, the response came. This was it:

“Kinne paise mang rehya hai?” (How much money is he asking for?)

PS: If dad was the Finance Minister of NaMo, instead of Arun Jaitley, the faujis won’t have to beg on their knees endlessly for OROP.

The story so far:

In Part I, Episode I of this post I described to you that I was made the Naval Liaison Officer (NLO) of Merchant Vessel Nancowry which was part of the Amphibious Task Force (ATF) given the task of taking the army personnel and wherewithal for an Amphibious Assault on Carnicobar from the port of Vizag in Andhra Pradesh. My team had tough time during the midnight embarakation of army personnel.

Read on:

Nancowry was hardly the luxury liner that one reads about or sees in the movies. It had countless portholes. It was tough time for my team and I to instill discipline in hundreds of jawans to keep them closed so that no light would show outside. It appeared to me that CATF (Commander Amphibious Task Force) staff and AFC (Amphibious Force Commander) staff had nothing else to do in the night but to keep making urgent signals to Nancowry to darken ship immediately. And no sooner that my staff would succeed in closing one particular porthole pointed out by AFC that another would open. By the morning, in this Porthole Test Match, the Army had won 127 – 82 to the Navy represented by my staff of just five. We didn’t even know which porthole had light showing through it until we would get a nasty signal. Significantly, in my report post the Amphex, I did mention that in the next Amphex the Navy need to get vessels without any portholes. Saawan me andhe ko hara hi hara dikhaayi deta hai(the one who becomes blind in monsoons sees only greenery). Likewise, I associate Amphex with portholes.

 

My team and I managed to get about 2 hours of sleep each in the wee hours of morning.

If we had this complaint against the Army about the portholes discipline or lack of it, their list of complaints ran into hundreds of pages. If portholes were to be kept closed then messes were stuffy, was one of them. The others ranged from cooking standards, shortage of water and not having to do anything worthwhile at sea.

I had another three days and nights to go before we would reach Carnicobar, our place of amphibious assault. And I reckoned that I had to think fast so that the rest of the time on board won’t be as miserable as the first night.

But, who should I turn to for advice? Captain Kabina, the master of the MV Nancowry was a former Commander of the Indian Navy and that too from my branch: Communication. However, till as long as his ship was chartered to the Indian Navy, for operational purposes, he was to be under my orders as per the Navy Act. Hence, turning to him for advice in an operational matter was ruled out.

The only other person to turn to was Commodore Mukherjee, the AFC. I raised him on the walkie-talkie. One of the difficulties of naval communications is that with the signalese perfected over a period of time, one is never able to convey one’s emotions properly, even if one is on walkie – talkie. It is not like a wife telling a husband, “Sunate ho jee, Bunty ne phir aaj apani nicker phaad di; main to tang aa gayi hoon usake kapade seete seete. Mera sir phata jaa raha hai. (Are you listening? Bunty has again torn his shorts; I am tired of mending his clothes. I have a splitting headache”. Naval communications, on the other hand, go something like this:

One Alpha, this is Charlie Six: Over
This is One Alpha Over, what is the trouble? Over.
(You want to tell him that the trouble is not over but only just begun; but you control your emotions, the unnecessary part of naval communications)
This is Charlie Six: Sir, how to keep the pongoes (naval slang for army personnel) busy? Over.
Charlie Six, this is One Alpha: Find a way. I repeat: find a way. Over and out.

Some of the departmental sailor chiefs who have approached their departmental officers for specific instructions to sort out vague problems have often returned with the age-old order, “Carry on, Chief Saab”. I was stunned that the AFC had subjected me to similar treatment. Urdu poets of yore had wonderful couplets for this situation; one juicy one being:

“Unase mil kar badhi aur dil ki khalish,
Guftugoo bhi hui khaamoshi ki tarah”
(A tryst with her increased the anxiety of my heart,
Discussion took place like total silence)

The inventor of a location or position called Square One must have been happy to see me occupying the position after my guftugoo with the AFC. But, the fact is that one cannot spend one’s life in Square One; one has to move on. I thought and thought and thought and came up with options I had. And finally it hit me like a bolt from the blue. I issued out orders regarding the routine of the day from Hands Call to Pipe Down with Morning and Evening PT (Physical Training) thrown in, in good measure.

It was nice to see hundreds of jawans, NCOs and JCOs and officers lining up the upper decks twice a day and sweating it out to the whistle of our PTI. In an earlier article, I had written how a good haircut is seen to solve most naval problem (Please read ‘Cut, Cut, Cut…..’). Now, a few good rounds of PT at sea solved the following problems:

1. Coming on the upper decks helped jawans to fill up air in their lungs and hence portholes could be kept closed at night.
2. The strenuous (at sea it is strenuous to do these things since one has to do so countering the rolling and pitching of the ship) exercises built up appetites and they attacked their food without complaining (hungry souls hardly complain about quality of cooking).
3. They had something to keep themselves busy at sea. Their officers added their own drills and orders to keep them busy.

In the night, my walkie-talkie crackled again:

Charlie Six this is One Alpha: Over.
One Alpha this is Charlie Six: It is over Sir.
This is One Alpha: Good boy. Roger out.

Next day on the Bridge I wanted to ask senior communicator Captain Kabina how was it that whilst stressful emotions were scarcely conveyed over naval communication nets, feelings of elation were instantly communicated?

I underwent the Higher Command Course with the Army from Jul 1996 to May 1997 (HC 25, that is) in the College of Combat (presently called the Army War College) at Mhow, near Indore in Madhya Pradesh. In our course, there were 37 officers from the Army, six from the IAF and two from the Navy. My first humorous article that appeared in Aug 1996 issue of Combat News is reproduced below.

 

Just before coming for the HC-25, friends gathered around me, with drinks in their hands, re-enacting ‘The Last Supper’. Naturally, the conversation veered around to the Army and their ‘peculiar habits’. It was unknown territory. “Basically, they are nice people,” said one in the manner of a visitor consoling a cancer patient, “And you have nothing to worry”. A civilian friend wanted me to confirm (“just to settle a bet”) if the Army men did everything with their boots on.

After having spent the first month here, I am able to report back that I have met some of the nicest people, who are as normal and professional (if not more) as we pretend to be. The main thing different or peculiar, I found, is the Army’s penchant to use abbreviations and acronyms – a sort of ‘bikini speech’ clothed in minimum words and that too shortened. It is rumoured that our SI (South Indian) Army friends cannot enjoy their food unless they have RSVP, ie, Rasam Sapadam, Varellum, Papadam; and those from P, H and D prefer PPK, ie, Papad, Pickle and Kuchamber.

Human mind has marvelous adaptability. Very soon I got used to living in KLP rather than in an officers’ mess, the former being in more of a mess than the latter. Nowadays, when someone speaks of the ‘conc area’, I am not reminded of the pogroms and when I see ‘junc’ written on a map, I do not associate it with a scrapyard.

Sometimes, of course, various explanations come to my mind as to why the bikini speech. The English language and literati owe a lot to the nautical terms and phrases which are in common usage now. Bikini Speech may be Army’s way of Indianising the English language. After all, how many of the English and the Chinese will be able to identify with the English and Chinese foods that we serve in our messes? On the other hand, the Army man may actually be in a hurry (note how they have changed even short words like night and enemy into shorter ni and en), expecting a ‘short and swift battle’ as the cliche goes. But then an incoming Exocet missile would give only 45 to 60 seconds reaction time before it hits a ship and still we have the time to say ‘Aye-aye Sir’ or acknowledge (not ack) a report by saying “Very Good”.

It may be to inculcate brevity? But this could not be the case. The Army orders are really very long and exhaustive. In Staff College, for example, when we were dumbfounded by nine pages of ‘Parking Instrs’, full of abbreviated words, we asked an Army officer to decipher. He quickly went through the edict and summed up, “Parking anywhere in the College, by student officers, is forbidden”.

Are we selectively brief exhorting our juniors to employ the bikini speech so that we will not have to read lots of junc – sorry – junk? A little FFT (Food For Thought). Whatever be the explanation, the sys appears to work in the Army. So press on Army. Maybe you can prove the makers of MR Coffee wrong and real pleasure may actually be in an ‘instant’. (This was a take on the MR Coffee ad that became quite controversial since it hit instant coffee so suggestively. I am reproducing the ad of those days starring Malaika Arora and Arbaz Khan):

P.S. By publishing this item in the Combat News the Army has proved that they are very nice people indeed but that henceforth, I should avoid conc areas in dark alleys, when they have their boots on (which is all the times).

In the Navy, names of all exercises are suffixed with the letters EX. Hence, we have TACEX as Tactical Exercise, SPRINGEX as a Theatre Level Exercise during Spring Time, REACTIONEX as an Exercise at sea to assess the reactions of the ship’s company, and so on.

The suffix EX also gives rise to a new and entirely naval vocabulary. So, if you come across an officer in the wardroom in totally disengaged state,  and you happen to ask him what is he doing, he is likely to reply with a single coded word: COOLEX; which is roughly the equivalent of the modern teenager telling you that he is chilling.

Navy guys never rue the loss of girl-friends or beloveds (you never come across guys who have chucked themselves under trains or buses because their flames have gone to light up someone else’s life). Hence, other than to signify exercises, the suffix EX doesn’t have another significance for them. The suffix EX also lends some dignity to what they are engaged in. For example, BALLEX sounds frightfully more important than merely admitting that one is having a ball. Many decades back, Wills (Cigarettes) were the sponsors of the Navy Ball in Bombay. Their posters put up all over Bombay – at traffic circles, railway stations, Marine Drive, on the BEST buses, et al – read: THE NAVY IS HAVING A BALL. The navy big-wigs were not amused. Wills didn’t exactly have a ball (of a time) taking down the offending posters.

Many decades back the only use that the Army could think of the Navy was to land troops, tanks and vehicles for them at remote places. Hence, Amphibious Operations assumed tremendous significance. That was precisely the time when one of the most important roles of the Eastern Naval Command at Vizag was to exercise Amphibious Operations. Thus, the concept of AMPHEX (Amphibious Exercise) came into being.

I was involved in a number of Amphexes. My first major involvement was when I was merely a Lieutenant Commander and sent to Vizag on temporary duty. I was happily engaging myself in such activities as young officers often engage in – from rum to rummy, that is, and an activity known in the Navy by its acronym only: FRCS (Other than telling you that CS is Country-Side, I won’t tell you more: my lips are sealed).

One fine day, my ex CO of Agrani, who was appointed as CO Circars (the depot establishment in Vizag) was nominated to become the Amphibious Forces Commander and lead an amphibious force from Vizag to the Anadaman and Nicobar islands. Four passenger liners from the trade were chartered by the Navy to carry troops across to A&N for an amphibious assault. Senior Commanders were appointed as Naval Liaison Officers on three of the ships. However, for a ship called MV Nancowry (the name taken from one of the islands in A&N), I, a junior Lieutenant Commander, was appointed as the NLO. This was because my ex CO had tremendous faith in my abilities; a little more than I had.

I had a Lieutenant, a Sub-Lieutenant and a handful of sailors with me in my team to prepare the ship for over 500 army personnel, their weapons, vehicles and equipment, install naval communications, and control all the operations at sea. We had sleepless nights preparing all the plans and orders. The ship was available for less than 48 hours to familiarise ourselves and make her ready for the embarkation. We prepared detailed orders, for example, for accommodation and messing, ration-embarkation, communications and operations at sea.

With this, it was to be expected that things would go on smoothly. Like most war plans they didn’t even last the first shot.

The embarkation started at night so as to afford a measure of secrecy. My team had even marked the routes for various personnel so as to enable them to reach their messes. However, for the first one hour, no embarkation whatsoever took place. I was getting most jittery because at midnight I was supposed to make a report to Cmde Mukherjee, the AFC, that the embarkation was completed. And here, in the first one hour no embarkation had taken place. The Lieutenant in my team informed me that the army personnel had declined to embark since we had omitted to make provision for the Mandir (Temple). “How serious?” I asked him, barely able to control my anxiety. “Very serious” he replied on the walkie-talkie.

The Commodore wanted to know the progress from me since we were supposed to sail late at night. I told him that gods were being appeased. Taking it as one of my usual remarks (since he had been my CO earlier), he responded with “Very Good”. Some of you may not be familiar with this response but it is a standard response by the senior officer in the navy to acknowledge the report by a junior (I have seen/heard junior officer reporting to the senior excitedly that a certain compartment was on fire and the senior calmly acknowledging it with “Very Good” as if he couldn’t have asked for anything better).

My team and I re-worked everything and the icon of the goddess was installed in a compartment to be occupied by three army pujaris, complete with dhotis, white topis and tilaks. Coconuts were broken, agarbattis lit, pooja was performed, prasad distributed and then only the embarkation started.

We sailed at wee hours of the morning escorted by several naval ships under CATF (Commander Amphibious Task Force). These had started sailing in the evening; the minesweepers having sailed much earlier. One ship was reported to have been torpedoed by a lurking enemy submarine. Luckily, thanks to our having appeased the goddess, we escaped.

Many years later, I underwent Higher Command Course with the Army and realised the importance of Mandir, Masjid, Gurudwara to the jawans wherever they are even at the heights of Leh and Siachin. One lives and learns.

This post is just an introductory post to the series of posts on Amphex and other EXercises. Please await the sequels.

You might think that the title of the article suggests a movie shoot and a burly man sitting on his canvas folding chair shouting these three words through a megaphone, in the manner of a Muslim man shouting to his third (or whatever number) wife, “Talaaq, talaaq, talaaq“.

Well, you are as far away from what this post is about as you can get. This post is about the penchant for haircuts that the armed forces leadership has.

As far as armed forces are concerned, anything at all that needs to be done well requires a haircut – a smart haircut at that.

Lets say, for example, you are expecting a VIP to visit the ship. It is a 5000 Crores of latest destroyer with state of the art weapons and sensors to impress the VIP with. However, we sincerely feel that unless the ship’s company (crew) has a fresh crew-cut, the VIP is unlikely to be impressed. Or, lets say, we want to launch ourselves into Operation Prakaram, going the harm’s way, close to Makaran Coast. Nothing like a fresh haircut, we believe, to put us in the right mood and resolve. You can almost hear the Indian Naval force commander tell his men, “Alright gentlemen, lets tighten our girdles, keep our powder (gun-powder that is) dry and have a close haircut to teach the b——s a lesson.”

This sacred knowledge that wars can be won and success in anything can be achieved by simply having haircuts is passed down from generation to generation – like the gospel truth. It came my way when I was just an Acting Sub-Lieutenant (we acted our roles so well that soon Naval Headquarters finished with the rank itself; but, that’s another story) engaged in earning my watch-keeping certificate on board INS Himgiri. Rear Admiral MR Schunker was our Fleet Commander. The last time when men in his family had hair longer than half an inch was in the 17th century.

The C-in-C in the Western Naval Command was the legendary Vice Admiral Robert Lynsdale Pereira. He was being transferred to Naval Headquarters as the Vice Chief and the Fleet was to give him two farewells: one in harbour with Guard of Honour and Parade and another at sea the traditional way. Parade and Guard rehearsals were being held every morning so that Ronnie (nickname for RL Pereira), as a hardcore gunner, won’t find a flaw. On the penultimate day the Fleet Commander himself was present on the Cruiser Wharf to satisfy himself that everything was ship-shape.

He inspected the Guard and to my horror and utter surprise declared that at least half the men in the Guard required proper haircut. After the Fleet Commander left, these unfortunate men were lined up separately for their unthinkable misdemeanour of not having proper haircut. I went behind the line to have a look and nearly fainted after what I saw. These men were repeatedly given such crew-cuts in the last few days of the rehearsals that the barber would have to probably cut through their scalps to find any more hair.

However, I, a young subaltern, had learnt a valuable lesson about naval readiness states.

Until I left the Navy, this lesson never left me. The truth is that even after leaving the Navy, I associated haircuts with preparation for anything of import. Last to last year I got my son married. Whilst the rest of the family busied themselves in preparations for various functions of the wedding, my primary concern was to have a haircut so that I would look smart as the father of the bridegroom.

What a life we in the Navy lead? We always insist on having short haircuts and never value long hair. Therefore, for most of us, long hair abandon us at a certain age; a kind of hair-today-gone-tomorrow. We keep having haircuts until it is no longer necessary to have haircuts at a certain age.

Hence, whenever the ship’s company is gathered on the deck to read out Warrant of Punishment, it is preceded by a reading of relevant excerpt of the Navy Act 1957. The last line is invariably about haircuts; viz:

“…….or such other punishment as is hair-in-after mentioned….”

Everyone removes his cap at this stage and confirms that there is no hair-in-after.

 

 

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.

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.

In the Part I we agreed that the Army personnel are as nice, as professional and as normal as any of us in the Navy. The one thing different or peculiar about them is the penchant to use abbreviations and acronyms in their writing.

Then there is another very peculiar thing about the army. To understand this, one has to recall ‘A Psalm of Life’ by a certain bloke called Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. HWL in this poem exhorts us to make our lives sublime. “And, departing, leave behind us, footprints on the sands of time.”

Army is convinced that spending as much time as possible with the sand shall make the lives of its personnel sublime. Hence, Army has conceived something called Sand Model and seemingly nice, professional and normal people spend quality time around it as one does around a bonfire during the North Indian festival of Lohri. There is not too much difference between Lohri and Sand Model discussions. During the former, many people sing and dance around the fire. During SMD, ditto. Perhaps the only difference is that the Lohri bonfire burns itself out in an evening; whereas, the SMD can go on and on like Tennyson’s Brook. The Army takes its poems very seriously.

I had earlier seen Sand Model discussions during the Staff Course at Wellington;  and I thought I had seen it all.  None of those had prepared me for SMDs at Higher Command Course in Mhow. As soon as I saw the first Sand Model in Mhow, with my PCK (Pre Course Knowledge) acquired during DSSC, I felt that on the outside chance of prolonging discussions; they may be able to carry on for about 2 – 3 hours. Little did I know that spending a week discussing the course of battle over a sand model is for them as easy as Geoff Boycott playing an entire session during a cricket test match without scoring a run. Sand Model discussions, in Mhow, are not controlled by sand glass shaped for an hour. They wet the sand and make the hour glass dispense it very slowly until it is totally poured out into the lower half in about a week’s time. On the last day, the DS wraps up the discussions by saying that certain aspects could not be discussed properly “due to paucity of time”.

Generally the area is about 50 miles by 50 miles. But, when navy officers goad them to be strategic in their outlook, they increase it to 100 by 100 miles.

The main thing of interest in a Sand Model is an arrow pointing North. Hours into the discussions, the naval officers will still be trying to sort out this all important question: Where are we? On ships, on a radar screen, they know for sure they are at the centre. But, in a sand model,  you could be anywhere.

Another thing that I have discovered in SMDs is that an attack can take place from any direction. It is like the discussions on enemy courses of action in an appreciation; Course B is the most likely but A and C also can’t be ruled out. So, if two days of discussions have taken place on enemy attack from North, West and South West and you have observed a vast expense of land between South and South West over which no discussions have taken place, sooner or later some smart aleck would point out that though difficult because of the riverine area, just as it happened in 1943 in Southern France or some other unheard of country, the enemy might choose a feint from West or North and the main attack might just come from that area in the South and South West.

Great professionals who had immersed deep into their seats after saying their bit in the first two days are jolted into sitting straight in their seats with this “unexpected turn of events”. Suddenly, they look at the smart aleck as Mister Wilson used to look at Dennis and wish he would be elsewhere. However, the smart aleck, not unlike Dennis has done his innocent (?) Boy Scout act and is ostensibly oblivious of the fact that another two days of discussions would ensue due to this ‘unexpected’ development.

The staff is busy moving those curious placards indicating battalions and independent companies etc; more such words of “accretions”, “ab-initio”, “advance”, “axis”, “regroup” etc are heard.

I have often thought what would be the naval equivalent of SMDs in Naval Higher Command courses? I couldn’t come anywhere close to these. We have to, perforce, doff our caps at the Army officers for having come out with something that is so unique that there is nothing anywhere close to it that the navy has.

Sand Model Discussions are something where from the sand will never totally run out; at least for the Army.