Category: Navy – Nostalgia

When I was in school, we used to have any number of these small books available helping us to pass our exams without – what they promised – tears or too much of effort. These were named, just like For Dummies series, English Without Tears, Maths Without Tears and so on.

I present you here, based on my extensive observations, Annual Inspection Without Tears.

Annual Inspection of a ship is to the ship’s company (crew) what ACR is to an individual (Please also read ACR Season). It is normally divided into three parts: Harbour Inspection in which over days the Fleet Staff Officers check their respective departments for maintenance of equipment, books, drills etc; Divisions and Rounds in which the Fleet Commander checks the ship’s company for the turnout and compartments for their cleanliness and upkeep; and finally Sea Inspection for the readiness of the ship’s departments for combat.

The preparation starts as early as a month or two before. Generally, the Fleet publishes a calendar of annual inspections of ships. However, bright, upcoming COs, in case they find out that their ships are not scheduled for inspection, call on the Fleet Commander and convince him to inspect their ships. When the Fleet Commander accepts, they return to their ships, call their Heads of Departments and address them in this manner, “I don’t know what’s wrong with the Fleet Commander. I told him that we were inspected by the last Fleet Commander less than 6 months before. However, he insisted on inspecting us next month before I finally hand over command. Anyway, gentlemen, despite my best efforts to wriggle out of it, it has become a fait accompli. Fortunately, I have the best team of HODs in the Fleet and you would hold my hand, I am sure.”

And then start the frantic preparations. The Fleet Commanders generally pass instructions that no fresh paint is to be applied unless necessary. Fortunately, bright and upcoming COs having bright and upcoming XOs (Executive Officers or Second-in-Command) do find that almost the entire ship’s painting is necessary. Their reasoning goes like this that if a ship just before decommissioning can be painted, what is wrong with painting before something as important as Annual Inspection?

What should be the focus of the other preparation? Well, I can think of many significant things.

One of the most significant is to follow Sun Tzu’s advice in Art of War: “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

Now, you are likely to tell me that there is no war going on and there is no enemy and hence Sun Tzu is not applicable; it is only an annual inspection. That is where you err and the successful CO doesn’t. He replaces the word War with Annual Inspection and enemy with Fleet Commander and everything falls into place. If you know, and I mean really know your Fleet Commander, you will not fear the result of a hundred battles…er…annual inspections. Do your homework and find out what are the likes and dislikes of the Fleet Commander. Lets say, the Fleet Commander has suddenly taken fancy to fluorescent NBCD (Nuclear Biological Chemical Defence) stickers to be placed along the NBCD citadel in the ship, it should naturally become Priority #1 item. How to get these stickers in case these are not naval stores items? Ha, ha, haven’t you heard of the expression: Beg, Borrow, or Steal? In short, you have to become Bhutto, the PM of Pakistan after India demonstrated capability to explode nuclear devices; he said, “We will starve, we will live on grass; but we must have a nuclear devise ourselves”. And indeed, as history unfolded, they starved, they lived on grass, but they had nuclear bomb. With this kind of tenacity, he would have got ten out of ten in Annual Inspection.

You have to make a list of all the Likes and Dislikes of the Fleet Commander and some of the influential members of his staff, eg, FOO or Fleet Operations Officer and ensure that you have answers to those.

The second step is to prepare an Annual Inspection Report. You should know that no one ever reads this voluminous report. Hence, do not waste your time getting all the facts right. It is not going to change anything. On the other hand, everything that the Fleet Commander and his staff ever conveyed to you, however insignificant it sounded, must be addressed in this report in bold or italics or highlighted. The expression that you should use over and over again is: As per Fleet Commander’s directions. For example: “As per Fleet Commander’s directions, the ship now has a full-fledged gym. Last two months’ data shows that officers and sailors alike use the gym regularly. A large percentage has also been visiting on Sundays and holidays. In the last PET (Physical Efficiency Test), conducted on 14 Mar 14, 85 percent of the ship’s company is now in Excellent grading”. You have given the credit to the Fleet Commander, where it is due, and you will live to see this being converted into excellent grading during the Annual Inspection.

Indeed, this report should be comprehensive enough to cover every little thing ever told to the ship by these important dignitaries. Another thing to cover in the report can be explained by me by giving you the example of Sachin Tendulakar as a batsman. He used to play psychological warfare with the bowlers and make them bowl to him the balls that he wanted. Some such thing has to be smartly done in the AI report. You have to carefully steer them in checking you for your strong points and not your week points. For example, lets say, you have recently kitted up all your sailors and spent time and energy in making sure they have all good fitting uniforms, your report must steer them into inspecting you there. If Jai and Veeru can get away with “Jail mein pistaul aa gaya hai” in Sholay, you can smartly channelise their energies into searching for the pistaul on your ship.

In harbour inspection, do not forget to prove the Admiral right; it will pay rich dividends. For example, lets say, the Fleet Commander is very fond of pulling up carpets in order to look for dust underneath; he would never pardon you for making him look idiotic by finding no dust underneath. A smart CO, therefore, makes sure that a handful of dust is inadvertently left there so that the Fleet Commander’s prepared ML (Moral Lecture) about stress on cleanship would not be wasted.

What about the Sea Inspection? Surely you cannot pull wool over anyone’s eyes there. Think again. Here, communications are the most important aspect. Irrespective of what action is taken on the drills and exercises given by the Fleet Staff, they come to know about it only through reports. You may remember this from one of John Winton books. When a Fire Drill was going on one of the ships that he had joined, nothing whatsoever was being done as far Fire Drill was concerned. However, all the reports between various positions involved with the Fire Drill were perfect. Hence, if the Captain was monitoring it on the broadcast he would have been reassured of the correctness of all the actions.

Here I cannot fail to give you two examples. One is of a hot-rod Gunnery Officer on one of the ships wherein I was posted as SCO or Signal Communication Officer. If he had ever come on board the ship on a Sunday to have beer and biriyani with his family and found that CO was also visiting with his guests, he would make a series of announcements about armament drills for the benefit of the Captain. The Captain would now get the impression that his Guns was so hard-working that even on a Sunday he was engaged with his men to improve drills.

The second example is that of a hot-rod CO of a ship of a sister ship. In exercises with aircraft, whilst own Gunnery radars were not picking up any of the incoming strikes, his ship would invariably report aircraft detected on certain range and bearing and then follow it up with all kinds of detailed reports. I too called the dockyard teams to fine-tune my own systems so that they too would pick up incoming strikes as promptly. But, it was of no avail. Finally, I had to invite the hot-rod CO for PLD (Pre Lunch Drinks) in order to learn from him the ropes. Beer loosened the tongue and he told me the truth that actually, even their systems hardly ever picked up the strikes. All that they did was to monitor the aircraft communications and as soon as the aircraft were within communication range, they would make all kinds of reports until they received a Bravo Zulu (Well Done) from the Flotilla Commander.

Alright, enough, guys. This is only a glimpse of Annual Inspection Without Tears. If you are interested, and your Annual Inspection is actually due, write to me and I shall give you more practical hints.

Before I close, I must leave you with a thought. Human-touch stories always are admired. So, if during the Admiral’s Walk Around the ship, you can have the lovely photographs of handicapped children that your ship adopted through Welfare Funds and these kids are photographed in their school receiving the prizes, you – not them – are the winner. Also, a few of quotes by important people (remember there is no one as important as the Fleet Commander) can be put in the alleyways. Admirals are adept at giving pearls of wisdom starting with the same letter; eg, Courage, Commitment, Consistency, Calm, and Clarity. His five or seven Cs, Gs, Ms or Ss – whatever letter takes his fancy – should be prominently displayed everywhere, preferably with his picture showing his own commitment.

If you ever go to Spain and want to watch the macho sports of bull-fighting, you would learn, to your surprise that bull-fighting is a carefully enacted play in three parts. In the third part, the bull hardly has any choice but to die. He knows it, the toreros know it, the matador knows it, the pincers know it and everyone in the bull-ring knows it. There are, however, some amongst the spectators who do not know it. They would do well to read Sun Tzu and The Art of War.

ACR or Annual Confidential Report is the most important report on an officer. In the Indian Navy, depending upon one’s rank, an ACR would be due by a fixed date. The period of say a month or so leading up to this date, the actual writing of ACR by one’s IO (Initiating Officer), is called the ACR Season. There is no other season of the year like this. During Diwali season, for example, one is in festive and somewhat extravagant mood. Similarly, during Christmas season, one is in musical and forgiving mood. During ACR season, one is at one’s best behaviour.  It is a period of great hope; but, it is also a period of great trepidation and anxiety. Thank God it is Annual and hence after one goes through it, one can live it up for the next one year. It is the time of the year when – in case you want to become something in the Navy – you have to put your best foot forward. You can’t hide, as you may do, say, during Holi season. You have to get noticed and noticed in a positive way. It has to be tackled at several fronts including professional, social and domestic.

During the year leading up to the ACR, you know that the Captain (in the Navy the CO of a ship is called Captain irrespective of his rank) has been happy with your performance. But, there is many a slip between the cup and the lip. Unless this happiness is translated into adequate PP (Promotion Potential) and PQ (Personal Qualification) marks, it is somewhat similar to ‘Jungle mein more naacha kisane dekha?’ (A peacock dancing in a forest goes unnoticed).

The Captain, therefore, has to be kept in right mood and humour until the day when he has signed the ACR, sealed and sent to the RO (Reviewing Officer). You also know that last impression is the lasting one and hence what you do in the ACR Month or Season substantially and many a times totally overshadows your performance for the rest of the year. Following measures are, therefore, only too prudent to be kept in mind:

There should be no attempt whatsoever to even remotely disagree or differ with the Captain professionally or socially. Lets say his favourite batsman is Kambli and you know he is in the team only because of his closeness to Sachin Tendulkar. Else, you feel he plays only for himself and lacks range of shots. But, is this the right time of the year to point out various inadequacies of this overrated batsman? For heavens’ sake NO, in capitals. This is the time to bring out what a lovely straight drive Kambli possesses and his tenacity in occupying crease for several hours – carefully omitting to add – without scoring a single run.

Similarly, why are new, shining white uniforms and peak caps lying in the wardrobe? Now is the time of the year to start wearing them. Earlier you never had time to have a proper haircut; in any case you fancied yourself looking like Amitabh Bachchan. But, for the sake of the old-fashioned Captain (who feels that an officer with a proper haircut is a smart officer),  you better have a smart crew-cut.

Your Good Morning Sir also should have the requisite zing about it. You should be around to laugh the loudest when the Captain cracks those hackneyed jokes of his for the hundredth times. Your body language should exude your wholeheartedly agreeing with the fact about the Captain is the smartest and wittiest man this side of Suez.

Every opportunity should now onwards be taken to side with the Captain in any discussion. So, if he feels that RAS (Replenishment At Sea through jack-stay between two ships) is a wastage of time, you should have done your home-work to bring out how many ships in the last war, were crippled or sunk by enemy planes and other enemy action just because they were engaged in RAS. “Sitting ducks” is the expression to use with him whilst describing ships engaged in RAS.

ACR Month is also the period of the year when you must remember that Navy is not a vocation but a way of life. Hence, there is nothing like not impressing the Captain and his wife (good-lady as our army counterparts call her) during off working hours. So, when you espy them out out for a walk with their dumb looking Labrador, you and your wife should join them as almost going in the same direction.  “Labs make the best pet dogs” should be your opening shot. Your wife should now chip in to say how you yourself were planning to own one as soon as you finish with the ship’s tenure. Indeed, you should add ruminatively if Lucy (Captain’s bitch) would litter, you would be the first one to take one of the pups as no one could be as adorable as Lucy.

Somehow, the Captain also has to know about your other hidden talents. These would tip the scale in your favour considering that sometimes, to decide the selected candidates in the Promotion Board, the board has been known to go down to the second decimal points of PP plus PQ marks of almost similarly qualified officers.

In this your wife’s utterances come in handy: “Vijay is (fictitious name; no need to take offence in case your or your husband’s name is Vijay in the same manner some of you took offence to mention of Pahargunj in my story Raksha. For heavens’ sake, these are just names) very fond of painting. Coincidentally, his favourite subject is dogs. In our home place Dehradun, his paintings sell like hot cakes”.

And you add with a twinkle in your eyes: “Hot dogs, that is”. There isn’t a Captain worth his salt who doesn’t appreciate humour.

You should also be alive to slipping in your other interests. “Rekha is nowhere near the truth, Sir; I hardly get time to paint these days. One comes home quite late from the ship. Irrespective of howsoever late it may be, I have to go for a few games of squash racquets…ha, ha…old habits die hard….and then, I just can’t go to sleep until I have read something in bed….so painting is only about once in a month or two.”

How about inviting them over socially during this period? A big NO, NO. Your Captain, don’t forget, is also quite cautious during this period. He has to write a pen-picture about you. All that you are doing is helping him with the right words and phrases to describe you. You overdo it and you have hit yourself on the toe with a hammer. In any case, unless you actually have a few dog paintings and books at home, there is no point in inviting them. Possibly what you can do is to take a photograph of Lucy to a local painter, get a painting made, sign it and Rekha can gift it to ma’am.

Now, the story from the other side! No one would tell you this but I am telling you.

The Captain has actually gone through this period several times in the past. He knows and has tried every trick that you can come up with. He has already assessed you during the year. However, he tells himself with a chuckle that there is no harm in pushing through important plans on his ship during the ACR season. He knows his officers would never fail him during this period. He doesn’t even have to order; he kind of suggests or requests and lo and behold it gets done. I know of a brother officer on one of the ships that I served on about whom Captain was absolutely sure that he was really sweating for his ACR. Hence, knowing that in his particular department, a whole lot of work was pending, the Captain delayed sending his report (a Captain may do so up to three months depending upon circumstances) by a few months. Everything was accomplished.

ACR is a game, ladies and gentlemen, that two can play……and, hold your breath, both can win.

There must be thousands like me in the armed forces of India; we join at a very young age (I was 19 when I joined the Naval Academy or NAVAC at Cochin (now called Kochi) in 1973) and retire when we do not have much life left to see (I retired in end Feb 2010 as Commodore at the age of 56). The other day, on Facebook, I saw security executives in my present corporate where I work celebrating four years (to them it appears a long time with the present trend of job-hopping) of having been there in the same industry. I spent 37 years in the Indian Navy and I could have celebrated this feat nine times over!

I was given the President’s Commission on 01 July 1975 and just a few days back my course-mates and I greeted one another on having completed 40 years of commissioned life. At the time of joining, some of my course-mates were suave, smart, confident and in with the naval way of life. To me, it was all very strange (if I were a girl, I would have been called Alice irrespective of what my parents would have named me!). One or two of the course-mates even appeared to have been from a different planet; one still appears thus. I must have been the most awkward and unlike a Labrador, the least trainable.

What fascinated me about the Navy? The short answer is books and movies; I lapped them up during my boyhood days and imagined myself standing on the deck of a ship like, say, Willie Keith in Caine Mutiny or George Ericson in The Cruel Sea. I also had this strange wanderlust and hence going to sea was as far as I could get from the hills of Himachal where I had been for all my childhood and boyhood years. Now that I have retired from the Navy though the sea is still as fascinating (Please read ‘The Lure Of The Sea’), my next fascination is about matters of philosophy and meta-physics (you will find my writings on these in the Philosophy section of this blog)

So, one fine day, from my home-station in Simla (now spelt Shimla), in May 1973, I took a train to Cochin to be trained (tough job for them!) to become an Indian Navy officer. Here are the last two pictures with my people before Navy claimed me:

You must have seen two things in the above pictures: the short hair-cut that I supported in preparation for the Naval life and the huge smile. As soon as I landed up at Cochin they modified both. The journey to Cochin from Simla had taken only two and half days and how much my hair would have grown in less than three days? However, the urgency with which I was taken to the barber (barbarian?) made it seem like I was some hirsute sadhu who had emerged from the caves in the hills after long hibernation. I couldn’t believe the mirror when this barbarian had finished with me; all resemblance to a wantonly college-going teenager was gone forever. My snake-leather belt, large brass buckle and my bell-bots were all gone. Even civvies for us were the muftis with a neck-tie. Uniform became a way of life in profession, in spare time, in thoughts and even in sub-consciousness.

The next were my seniors who appeared to be direct descendants of Goebbels; they made me wipe my smile as if it was an ugly scar. One of them got used to ragging me with a simple monosyllable word repeated ad-inifinitum (one of the two in his extensive vocabulary; the other being No). An intelligent conversation with him went like this:

A: Why didn’t you report to me yesterday?
Me: Sir, I broke my leg.
A: So?
Me: I reported to the hospital.
A: So?
Me: They put my leg in a cast. It is still in the cast as you can see.
A: So?

“So, Sir, I prayed whole night to God to make me a bird” I wanted to add, “But, then He told me I would have to do without a brain because He had given you the bird(‘s)-brain.”

I also found out that neither my seniors nor any of the staff at NAVAC respected time of the day or night; one could be asked to do front-rolls immediately after dinner or do somersaults in the middle of the time. I was also to learn, at great cost to my dignity (or whatever remained of it) and physique that during war we may have to change various rigs in less than a minute each time lest the enemy should steal advantage over us. And, in order to prevent enemy from seeking this advantage, those of us who couldn’t finish rig-changing in a minute’s time had to go through the kind of torture that the enemy would have unleashed on all.

These staff and seniors, totally bereft of even the remotest traces of civility, made me do things that were well beyond my own endurance and stamina and against my loudest protestations. For example, they predicted that if they threw me in the deep end of the swimming pool, I would automatically learn swimming. I knew it was impossible and I tried my best to tell them so. However, they insisted on the correctness of their theory. Lo, and behold, after a few dunkings and after my having drunk gallons of chlorinated water, it is they who were proved right and I automatically learnt swimming. Late at night in my bed I formed the opinion that it wasn’t correct that God listened to the godly and righteous people; He also listened to such devils.

In likewise manner, I automatically learnt many a thing and discovered newer limits for my own endurance and stamina.

I learnt, for example, that one could go to sleep whilst standing erect on the bridge of Cadet Training Ship Delhi with binoculars in hand tied to a lanyard around the neck.

I also learnt about Relativity of Time; four hours spent in the club (Officers Institute) in the drunken company of my course mates would pass in a jiffy; whilst the same four hours during the middle watch on the ship appeared like four years.

To add to the misery of training days was the naval lingo that had quaint feel about it. One had to say “Aye aye Sir” if one wanted to say “Yes Sir”; port for left, starboard for right, and “very good” whilst acknowledging a report even if the report was about an impending collision.

I remember seeing the Daily Orders for the first time and laughed that even in an official document personnel were called by their nicknames such as Popti for our physical training instructor until it was explained to me after considerable front-rolling and bend-stretches that it wasn’t Popti but PO PTI (Petty Officer Physical Training Instructor).

Armed forces are, I gradually learnt, always training. Many years later, when I was the Director of Maritime Warfare Centre at Mumbai (I am the only officer who has been Director of all three MWCs in the Navy involved in tactical operational training of Command teams), the motto on the Large Screen Display in the auditorium was by General Patton: ‘The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war’. Armed forces, therefore, are always sweating.

On Cadet Training Ship INS Delhi, our only contact with the civilian world was to be taken for what was called RWR (Road Walk and Run) along the Marine Drive in Bombay. What a world awaited us, we thought; Bombay, the dream city of Hindi films (not yet bastardised to ‘Bollywood’) and glamour, the city of marines and window to the rest of the world, the city of money, and the city of possibilities. And when I finally joined it, honestly, there was this air about us that put us on a pedestal. During those days, you rubbed shoulders with the elite and they were dying to be seen with you. During my Acting Sub Lieutenant days, we could sit in the Ante Room and enjoy the company of Nutan and Tanuja. A video of those days is going around showing really big film stars, singers and music directors attending the Navy Ball.

Forty years back, I remember, I had gone in uniform to receive a senior officer at Bombay Central. After receiving him, as I stood in the queue for a cab to take me back to my ship INS Himgiri, a cop who was directing people into cabs, beckoned me at the end of the queue, stopped the next cab for me, put me into it, without any protest or demurring from anyone ahead of me in the queue. It felt really nice being a uniformed naval officer.

And what about going abroad? For a boy from a small town in Himachal, who was awed by walking and running along the Marine Drive in Bombay, stepping on a foreign shore was ecstasy indeed. Our CO said we were to be ambassadors of our great country and as I covered in ‘Foreign Jaunts’, it felt great to be in the naval-diplomatic role wherever we went. Many decades later, in the year 2001, as the Indian Navy organised its International Fleet Review in Mumbai, the motto selected by them was ‘Bridges of Friendship Across the Seas’. I remember our visit to Odessa in erstwhile USSR (now in Ukraine) on Himgiri, my second ship as a commissioned officer after three weeks on Vikrant in harbour. The official reception was held on the second evening. All the lovely Russian damsels attending the reception asked us why the officers were not attending the reception. We were flummoxed until the mystery unfolded. In foreign shores, sailors go on shore leave in uniform whereas officers go out in civvies. Some of these damsels, fascinated by naval uniforms, gave company to some of the sailors over drinks, dancing and dinner. When they inquired from these sailors the meaning of two crossed anchors badges on their sleeves, the sailors responded that they were officers (conveniently forgetting to add that they were Petty Officers!) and hence permitted to wear uniform ashore whereas the other ranks had to perforce go out in civvies.

The fascination for naval uniform abroad was to be seen to be believed. I have seen in real life and in pictures people stopping to have their pictures clicked with men in uniform.

During the training period and in our formative years in the Navy, we almost totally forgot about our families. My only sister, for example, got married when I was a cadet, holy-stoning the decks of INS Delhi (erstwhile HMS Achilles that took part in the famous Battle of the River Plate against German battleship Graf Spee, together with HMS Ajax and HMS Exeter. The movie was shot in 1956 and the ship had already been transferred to us in 1958. During the shooting an aerial photo shoot was to be redone because when the reel was developed, it came out that a Sikh sailor, complete with his turban, had come out on the upper deck of Delhi!). I never attended her marriage or any other marriage; I was married to the Navy.

We did manage to fall in love and get married (Please read ‘Lyn And I – Scene By Scene‘); but, the Navy proudly and correctly told our wives that Navy happened to be our first love and they could, at best, be Number Two. The wives themselves had no doubt and never tried to be Numero Uno in our lives. Strangely, the ladies too learnt the ropes through the automatic process that I mentioned above. Whilst we had learnt quick rig-changing, my wife learnt the art of quick packing and unpacking both on permanent as well as temporary duties. They also automatically learnt how to get the best from MES (Military Engineering Service); for example, how many incandescent bulbs of what wattage they were entitled to in exchange for how many. They waited endlessly for us to return to harbour; only to see us off again on another mission, which, they complained the newspaper man and the dhoodhwalla knew all about; but, which “thanks to your stupid secrecy norms, you don’t tell us”.

Our first child, Arjun, was born immediately after my father’s untimely death in an accident and hence under trying circumstances. Our second child, Arun, was born when I was away for a month to Andaman and Nicobar islands on my ship INS Ganga with Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and his Italian wife Sonia embarked. Lyn, my wife, walked to the hospital, quickly delivered and returned home so as to look after the first one too. Now that we were raising a family – and in my case, under most difficult conditions (as you would have gathered from the blog ‘Lyn And I – Scene By Scene’) – for the nth time, the automatic process came in handy. Both the children too became fiercely independent (Read ‘Diminishing Dad‘), capable and accomplished almost entirely on their own. The other day, my erstwhile coxswain of INS Aditya, a retired Petty Officer, brought his daughter for selection in ICSI (Institute of Company Secretaries of India) run institute called CCGRT (Centre for Corporate Governance Research and Training). She is from a small town in Andhra and just 12th standard pass. She had to compete against graduates and diploma holders but she easily got selected, thanks to the automatic learning process of the armed forces.

During our days there was a joke about a naval officer’s involvement with his family (I believe the joke is still prevalent). A naval officer was asked how big his two children were. He pointed out with his hands, not vertically, but horizontally. This was rather quaint way of bringing out the size of his children and he was asked to explain. He responded, “I see them in the bed only; when I leave in the morning they are still in bed, when I return late at night, they have already gone to bed.”

Ask a naval officer as to what are his most nostalgic experiences in the Navy. With very few exceptions, he would answer:

#1, the Midshipman Tenure. It was a rank unique to the Navy when one was not quite a commissioned officer yet and also not a cadet. This lasted for only six months whereas we would have wanted it to last a lifetime; you’d start getting some perks of being and officer and yet not too much of responsibility. Indeed, in the naval slang a Midshipman used to be called Snotty as he would be frequently wiping his nose on his sleeve. Our Midshipman tenure was on INS Tir, an erstwhile River Class Frigate of the Royal Navy; and we had a ball, even though we had to do hot-bunking (the number of bunks in our mess being much less than the number of Midshipmen on the premise that a certain number would be on duty by rotation all the times).

#2, the Command of a Ship, Submarine or Aircraft. A Commanding Officer is next to God. Indeed, as the old timers used to say: “Ham God nahin hain, par, God se kam bhi nahin hain.” (I am not God; but I am no less than God). The responsibility that the nation places on a CO of a ship, submarine or aircraft at sea is as mammoth as the unfettered powers given to him; you can’t afford to make mistakes; people’s lives are dependent on you. During our training years we used to wonder how the CO, even whilst asleep in his cabin, instinctively knew what revolutions the ship did by the sound of the engines and whether we were headed into danger. Two decades later when I commanded my own ship, I realised that it comes to you automatically.

#3, to be given an official transport (vehicle). Ahh, for this, during our days, one had to be a very senior officer! And then, the moment this honour (Read: Navy And Staff Cars) was bestowed on you, you sat at the left rear of an Ambassador car, saluted back with a flourish all those who saluted you and failed to recognise your erstwhile friends lest they should ask you to share the prized possession.

Nearly 37 long years went as if in a jiffy. And before you can pause, the Navy retires you. Three days after I retired from the Navy on 28th Feb 2010, I wrote a blog ‘I Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest – Did I?’ in which I concluded “I have no desire to fly over the cuckoo’s nest. The loony bunch is family, for heaven’s sake.” There is nowhere to go. Five years later, after working in India’s largest corporate, there is still nowhere to go; Navy is the only home I knew, the only life I had.

We hadn’t seen any life on civvie street at all. The civilians must be smart in their own ways; after all they command large organisations, governments and countries, whereas all that we do is to command ships, submarines and aircraft. However, frankly, I haven’t met anyone half as smart as a naval officer! In my case, in the Naval Academy, in the Ante Room, I distinctly remember that we waited for someone smart to switch on the television as one, we hadn’t seen one before; and two, with its complex sounding controls such as Contrast, Brightness, V hold and H hold, people would laugh at us if we didn’t know how to get a picture that didn’t jump on the screen. Years later, we were handling with ease, the most complex Electronic Warfare and Action Information systems. The Navy lets you learn all these – well, by now even you know the process – automatically.

Navy was life, a system that used to work; and I know it still works. We were always responsible and accountable for all our actions and non actions; except perhaps during our Midshipmen days. And then you are faced with the lack of discipline and accountability to that extent wherein people die and no one is to be blamed; wherein brand new bridges collapse and no one is accountable; wherein after 40 years of promises and more promises, we still don’t have an OROP (One Rank One Pension) and everyone assures you it would be there shortly.

A Navy man is totally at home when he is at sea as I wrote in Lure of the Sea. But, the moment he is out, he pines for the sea, the only life he’s had.

Now that after retirement I am employed in a corporate, I am able to see the difference in work culture: you have people specifically for specific duties as given in their JDs or Job Descriptions. In the armed forces, one is expected to do everything as and when the need arises; and many a times someone else’s job too. No one tells you how; you learn as you go along. If the armed forces were to be a play or drama, there is rarely a prepared script or dialogues or plot; you ad-lib the entire thing. People’s lives are at stake, at times, and hence you better get your role right; the first time itself without any rehearsals. For example: “That over there is Tiger Hill. Now get it vacated of intruders.”

Why did I think of the Navy as a drama or a play when I was in active service? Well, come to think of it, even life is like that. But, I had one more reason: my fondness for acting and directing honed from my school and college days. In the NAVAC or Naval Academy, on the positive side, I was much in demand for plays and skits, even extempore ones during camps. On the negative side, I recall that a boxing bout between me and my course mate was stopped by the referee on the ground that whilst the entire thing looked very impressive complete with wincing and all that, he was sure that we should stop acting and get on with real boxing for a change. Actual blood and bruises followed after that and then only our officers and instructors were happy. Histrionics have their time and place elsewhere in the Navy, I learnt.

One such opportunity came my way when I was posted to Navy’s Leadership School at INS Agrani in Coimbatore. One fine day, our CO called a senior colleague and me to his office and said a letter had arrived from Southern Naval Command at Cochin for us to field a team at the Annual Dramatic Championship. He said the responsibility for taking this task on rested on my shoulders since I was the junior most officer posted there. He said my colleague Amarjit Bajwa would help me out.

Bajwa and I took our task rather seriously and that night discussed our strategy over several bottles of beer that continued till wee hours of the morning. In our drunken stupor a brainwave hit us; which is, that in order to enact a play, we require a script. So, next day we started searching in our library for play scripts. We found that the library was loaded with books on current affairs, history, poems, stories and the like; however, there was not a single play. In the next few days, we ransacked various libraries in and around Coimbatore; but we couldn’t find a suitable play.

We even went to the Staff College Library in Wellington by Bajwa’s Bullet mobike. But, it appeared that whilst in real – life in the armed forces, everybody is acting, there was a dearth of good play-scripts to help out people acting on stage.

After these expeditions, we involved a few sailors in doing a play. Various problems came our way. One prominent one was that most of the play scripts had some female cast. Our tall Regulating Petty Officer (Naval Police) was persuaded by us to put on a saree and shifting his role from being a terror in office to being a terror at home. But, somehow even the donning of Saree made no difference to his austere and upright naval police looks.

We tried a few sailors for their suitability in various roles and found that they were typically suited only for one role!

Dejected, one day, I performed various roles for Bajwa that I had performed in school and college and some that I would have wanted to do. In his no-nonsense mood, he wasn’t tickled. In one of these, I made him sit on a bench complete with his turban and beard. But imagining him as a girl, I approached him with a large sunflower, and wearing a tapori cap and started a dialogue that I had heard in one of Sunil Dutt’s movies, “Dilo dildaar, gulo gulzaar, ahd-e-bahaar, rango khumaar, film star, mallika-tarunnam, malika-e-jahan….” Before, I could finish with “….roop ki raani, baharon ki mallika…” Bajwa had given up on me as a gone case nut.

The date for staging the play was getting closer and it had come to last one week. Let alone rehearsing the play for a prestigious event, we hadn’t even selected a play. That day Bajwa was so annoyed with me that he could have eaten me alive.

That night, I wrote the script for a three-act-play titled Hamara Drama. Whatever we had done in search and preparation for the play was put in the first two acts. In the last act, Bajwa and I were sitting dejected that we still didn’t have a play and that everything had failed. And then yet another brainwave occurred to me and I tell him, “Why don’t we present our search for a suitable play and a cast as a play…is mein khushi hai, gham hai, bebasi hai, suspense hai, comedy hai, tragedy hai….aur kahin kahin to paagalpan bhi hai…hahahaha…hahahaha..exactly like our navy life..” The play ended there with a freeze shot. Bajwa and I, until the last day, kept adding to the dialogues in order to make them more satirical and comical.

When we went to Cochin for presenting the play, our hearts sank seeing the plays of other establishments. Each one of them had elaborate sets, cast, background music and other props. We had nothing. But, now, at that late stage could do nothing about it.

Ours was the last play on the second day. Each play was to be one hour’s duration with ten minutes given for changing sets. During our preparation time, Bajwa and I were sitting with the audience in uniform. When the curtain opened, we got up from the audience and performed on stage. It was a riot. The audience roared with every dialogue. For example, at one stage, I told Bajwa that I could do the famous Rajesh Khanna’s Anand movie dialogue, “Babu moshaye, ye zindagi ek rang manch hai aur ham sabb ismein kaam karne wali kathputliyan; in kathputliyon ki dore ooper waale ke haath mein hai. Kab, kahan, kaise kis kis ko uthana hai ye koi nahin jaanata…ha, ha, ha…ha, ha, ha..” And Bajwa asked me on stage, “But, what has this got to do with the naval audience?” And then I told him that we could modify it…and I enacted the modified dialogue:

“Babu moshaye, yeh navy ek rang manch hai aur hum sabb is mein kaam karne waale afsar ya sailor. Ham sabaki dore DOP (Directorate of Personnel) ke haath mein hai. Kabb, kaise, kahan kis kis ka transfer ho jaaye yeh koi nahin jaanata..ha, ha, ha…ha, ha, ha...”

I espied C-in-C and his wife in the front row having side-splitting laughs. It was difficult to proceed from one dialogue to the other throughout the play as the laughter and applause won’t die down. No one could believe we could actually present a play, a humorous take on how we did things in the Navy or for that matter in the armed forces.

The jury was unanimous in voting for Hamara Drama as the Best Play and yours truly as the Best Actor.

Some pictures of the play are still there with me but they are lying in my home-station Kandaghat in the baggage yet to be unpacked, after my retirement in Feb 2010. I shall, subsequently, put them up when I visit Kandaghat next. In the meantime, Bajwa could persuade his wife Jaya to search in his baggage and find some pictures (he himself is on his ship at sea). She was able to find one and I am putting it up:

Many years later, in the year 2003, I directed the inaugural play in Mulla Auditorium in Mumbai. The Chief of the Naval Staff was the Chief Guest. My son Arjun acted in it. I adapted it from a Moliere’s play and called it Suddenly In The Park. Navy is a life’s drama in which your families are also acting and involved!

I did many other plays. For example, in Peter Shaffer’s farcical play called Black Comedy, I was Schuppanzigh, the German electrician, sent to repair the fuse since the entire play is as if performed in the dark.

I also directed and acted in Mahesh Dattani’s play on incest called ’30 Days in September’. The fauji audiences are normally used to only two type of plays: comedies and suspense-dramas. We were not sure how the audience would view a serious play on incest. Our C-in-C summed up the response by saying, “If Mahesh Dattani had been present tonight at the staging of his play by this team, he would have really felt proud. I was, of course, the bad guy, the perpetrator of incest. For many months after the staging of the play, women and girls, in naval residential areas would scream and run for cover after seeing me.

The last one I did was in 2007, a Neil Simon play called ‘Come Blow Your Horn’. I also acted as the father of Alan and Buddy Baker. Just before the curtains, Aunt Gussie who was all the while only talked about made her appearance. The only problem was that we hadn’t got anyone to do Aunty’s role. So, after my last appearance as father, I quickly changed my clothes and make up and appeared as Aunt Gussie!

In the final scene of this three act play me appearing as Aunt Gussie with Buddy, the spoiled brat

That was true reflection of what Navy is all about; we change roles together with the situation; and, we do absolutely strange roles that people least expect us to do. We don’t ever say we ain’t ready for a particular role.

We also do many roles on the stage but not half as difficult or strange as in real life.

Babu moshaye, yeh Navy ek rangmanch hai…..

The other day when I put up here yet another post about our staff course (I think the post was ‘The Great Wanderlust In Staff College’, one of the ladies mentioned that I must bring out a post regarding the parallel ‘staff course’ that goes on in DSSC (Defence Services Staff College). This one involves the ladies, that is.

His name was Selvaraj. Before long many of the DHs (Desperate Housewives) had enrolled for his baking, cooking and chocolate making classes. Initially, after the ladies tried their hand at it on their own at home (that is, without the baker cum cook cum magician showing them how to), we would get bread that could be used to drive nails in the walls. However, gradually, they improved. In the end, if you can make out a psc (passed staff course) officer by his penchant for making simple things complicated, pssc (passed Selvaraj’s staff course) ladies can be made out from the excellence of their baking and chocolate making skills. So years later when an officer and his wife (“good lady” as our Army counterparts call her!) invite you for dinner and you get the distinct aroma of home-baked breads followed by chocolates after dessert, you are bound to ask (directing the question neutrally between the two of them): “When did you complete your staff course?” Post dinner conversation then would assuredly be about Selvaraj and his varied skills.

I hope the Staff College has honoured the services of Selvaraj (that have made significant contribution towards the grooming of “good ladies” of the army and (possibly) wicked ones of the navy and the air-force) by erecting a small memorial shaped like a chocolate wrapped in shining coloured paper tied with golden or silver thread or ribbon.

Anyway, let me get back to the narrative.

We were out for about ten days for FAT (Forward Area Tour) to the North East. At one time it used to be towards J&K but then, our “friendly neighbour to the North West” (that is how we used to refer to Pakistan during Staff Course! As I mentioned, we excelled in making simply things complicated) decided to ‘bleed us by a thousand cuts’; and it was decided that going closer to our “friendly neighbour to the North East” provided us with greater hope of returning alive. We took off from Coimbatore (A&EHU (Aircraft and Engine Hauling Unit, Sulur to be exact) and landed in Bagdogra. As soon as we started negotiating the NE hills, we became familiar with one land slide or the other and many a times, life did hang from a thin thread. For example, we were stuck on a precipitous road because there was a land-slide ahead. And then a huge rock decided to dislodge itself from the hill and came down on our convoy (if you recall from a previous anecdote ‘Bridging The Gap In Staff College’ our foursome was busy at Bridge when this happened). As per eye-witnesses’ account, it is only at the last-minute that the rock decided to alter course from directly heading towards disrupting our Bridge game and our lives and pass precariously between our one tonner and a three tonner behind us. It was, as you say so often in the armed forces, touch and go.

Here is a picture of some of my pals during the FAT:

So with these kinds of hair-raising experiences, we were now headed back to DSSC and the talk started about “lady wives” or “good ladies“. One of the Army course mates (he is an excellent singer) broke into: “Chala jaata hoon kisi ki dhun mein…” (I keep going singing her tune….) and we all joined in. One of the stanzas is translated into:

[lineate][/lineate]That world will be so different[lineate][/lineate]When she’d come near me, I swear[lineate][/lineate]She would, at times, try to free her arms from mine[lineate][/lineate]And then, at times, she’d embrace me;[lineate][/lineate]She’d come into my arms, holding all kinds of dreams for me.[lineate][/lineate]

 

We were young and honestly the thought of reuniting with our loved ones was becoming stronger by the moment. One of the Army officers started painting the scene of his reunion distinctly: “She’d be clad in her best saree, with large vermilion bindi (dot on the forehead), holding a pooja thali (prayer plate), waiting for me at the door itself…..”

And then we disembarked from the buses and headed home with our rucksacks and bags. I can patch up the story of others later; but, here was the scene at my home:

Both Arjun and Arun were at home watching Micky Mouse cartoons on the telly and our maid Regina was busy in the kitchen. But, there was no sign of Lyn. A & A said she’d be returning home any time (it was seven in the evening) as she was wont to do almost everyday.

After Lyn returned at about 9 PM (late for a hill-station like Coonoor), then the story came out.

Most of the ladies in the ‘Staff Course’ of Selvaraj’s cooking and baking classes had formed a group. Every evening, one lady by rotation would invite all the others to demonstrate her newly acquired culinary skills. The ladies had a feast every evening for ten days of our FAT. They knew about our return that evening and hence had organised a valedictory feast and that’s why it continued till 9 PM. Sorry, she said, but most often than not flights and buses arrived late and 9 PM wasn’t that much of a waiting for the men.

Next day, as we compared notes, all the other officers confirmed that they went through similar waits.

And that included the army officers whose “good ladies” were imagined to be waiting for them with pooja thalis, in red sarees and vermilion bindis.

Thankfully for Selvaraj we didn’t meet him on that night; else, we would have taught him a thing or two about cooking and baking.