MY EXPERIENCES WITH THE ARMY – PART IV

I was undergoing the 25th Higher Command course at the College of Combat, Mhow (Madhya Pradesh). I admired and was stunned with the Army’s outstanding capability to provide logistics at the most remote and hostile places in terms of weather, terrain and connectivity. After returning from a Northern tour to J&K, Thoise, Leh and Siachin, I was oozing with overwhelming respect for the Army, its dedication and commitment. I felt that it was the Army that was keeping Kashmir with India through its commitment and strategic sense.

One day, I was sitting with a few Army course mates at the bar (even though I don’t drink) and enjoying their conversation. I told them that I am very fond of old Hindi songs and a particular song: Aa laut ke aaja mere meet, which I used to hear at my nana and nani’s place on Murphy radio, and which was Binaca #1 song in the year had me captivated. I told them that it would be nice to visit Rani Roopmati’s palace or pavilion, at Mandu, about 75 kms from Mhow.

(Pic courtesy: www.bcmtouring.com )
(Pic courtesy: www.bcmtouring.com )

I had intended it as a casual visit with a few of us going there on a sunday forenoon in a leisurely sort of way.  So often, in the Navy, we have undertaken such visits to Lonavala,  or Hamla at the spur of the moment.

Three days later, a thick document landed in my locker.  It was titled: ‘Orders for the Visit of HC 25 Officers to Rani Roopmati’s Palace’. It had various appendices and annexures. I noticed from the long list of addresses that it wasn’t addressed to the President of the United States and Secretary General of the UN. Most others had been taken care off.  Amongst other things, the orders covered:

1. Recce.
2. Advance party and complete logistics (spelled ‘lgs’ in the orders) the men of this party had to carry. This included such small items as ash trays, saunf and tooth-picks to such big items as kitchen-tent, portable urinals, lamps, serving trays, wash basins etc.
3. A complete appendix and annexures on transport (tpt); who to report to at what time; fuel and lubricants to carry.
4. Medical contingencies.
5. Other contingencies and alternate plans with a map of the area with route chart and alternate route.
6. A list of telephone numbers that may be of use.
7. Reports to be submitted.
8. Detailed (as if this was not detailed enough) briefing would be held at….etc.

Suddenly, the casual visit was no more casual. As the lyrics of the 1959 movie Rani Roopmati starring Bharat Bhushan and Nirupa Roy, reverberated in my ears, I didn’t think of Rani Roopmati or her Pavilion in Mandu from where she could gaze at the palace of her love Baaz Bahadur. I didn’t think of Bharat Vyas, SN Tripathi and Mukesh who put the enigmatic song together that haunted me for years. Curiously, I thought of Naidus of Coimbatore, Tamilnadu (where I was posted in 1978-79). Whenever they got the urge to rough it out in the hills on an annual adventure picnic, their advance party carried air-conditioned tents for them and all the necessities of life that they were used to. And then, they would arrive to be one with Nature.

Late in the night, after reading the detailed orders, I switched on my cassette-deck and listened to Aa laut ke aa ja mere meet. Laut ke aa? Well, we hadn’t even started yet; and the song had already lost its enigma, nostalgia and fascination.

(Pic courtesy: hindikaraokesongs.com)
(Pic courtesy: hindikaraokesongs.com)

IN DEFENCE OF BEER OR BEER IN DEFENCE

During my drinking days, the one drink that I really relished was Beer. I used to love ads and jokes about the virtues of this ale; the only sparkling drink I could afford at all times, whether posted aboard or ashore or even abroad. For example: ‘Beer drinkers make better lovers’; or, ‘Beer drinkers live longer’.

The one joke that I detested was:

When I drink wine, the music of heavens plays softly in my ears; a slow warmth envelops me like mist in the mountains; and magical elation uplifts my mood. I can hear the jingle of distant bells……Beer, on the other hand, makes me burp.”

I, on the other hand, felt completely at home with beer and could drink it in gallons. My idea of ecstasy was to have beer on a beach in the afternoon and then sleep on the warm sand under a tree.

My home station is Kandaghat in Shimla Hills, exactly ten kms from the famous and country’s earliest Mohan Meakin’s Brewery. Golden Eagle is their brand of beer; the only beer made with spring water in India as opposed to ground water used for all the other beers. Mohan Meakin’s Brewery actually came up in 1855 at Kasauli and brewed Lion Beer. But, it soon shifted to Solan near my hometown and it is still there. Every time we pass the place, whether by road or by train, the strong smell of the brew overpowers us.

image-20120720020035

And then, one day, we visited the Brewery. It was an experience to taste the brew at its various stages. Also, the posters from the British days filled us with nostalgia. When we left the brewery, we were high on both counts.

After I joined the Navy, we could have foreign beers such as Carlsberg and Heineken. But, the first beer that I actually had abroad was the Russian Peeva during the visit of my ship Himgiri to the Black Sea port of Odessa in 1976. Ugh, what a taste it was as compared to the light ale that we were used to. Some of the officers from the ship suggested that it was perhaps recirculated beer. Most people stuck to Vodka after that; the popular drink of the Russians.

I always liked Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels having been made into movies. However, the only thing that cheesed me off was his trade-mark Martini in all the movies. Last to last year in April, I rejoiced, when I heard the news that Daniel Craig, as James Bond, in the next Bond movie would be swigging a beer. Cheers (Read: ‘Bond With The Brand’) I haven’t seen Skyfall; but, those who have seen it can tell me if he actually turns out to be a better lover because of Heineken?

Of all the incidents that I remember about my beer-drinking days, the one in Coimbatore, whereat I was posted as a young Lieutenant takes the cake. Being the junior most officer posted in Navy’s Leadership School named Agrani (to be pronounced as agranhi or Leading; however, most people have come to pronounce it as Aggraani, making it Fire Queen), I was made in-charge of producing a play to be staged in the Southern Naval Command Annual Dramatic Competition at Cochin. I made the trials and tribulations of looking for a drama and the potential actors into a play called ‘Hamara Drama’. To cut a long story short, we bagged the Best Play award and I got the Best Actor.

We were already in high spirits. However, after driving back from Cochin to Coimbatore on my co-actor Amarjeet Bajwa’s Bullet, the celebrations started in real earnest. Those days a 750 ml bottle of beer used to cost all of Five Rupees. Bajwa and I finished 95 Rupees worth of beer that night; this we came to know next morning. This makes roughly two gallons of beer in each tummy.

What do we do with this much beer? Yes, some of it goes out the Peeva way. However, we still had enough to put us in seventh heaven. That’s the time when sleep doesn’t come easily. So, against all sane warning, we went for a drunken drive and landed up in an army styled camp at Madhukarai firing range. This range is next to a hill. I looked at the nearest end of the hill with steep rocks and thorny bushes and in my drunken stupor declared to Bajwa that I felt like climbing the hill as nostalgia about my home station in Shimla Hills had overpowered me. He looked at the steep climb and concluded that it was like inviting sure death. Anyway, before he could talk me out of the idiotic idea, I had already started climbing. Looking back, we now think that one small slip and we won’t have been here to tell the story. It took us nearly an hour and a half to reach the hill-top. It was three in the morning when we reached the temple door-step.

I was about to enter the temple when Bajwa reminded me that the correct way to enter the temple was after ringing the brass bell hanging from a chain. On his orders, I went about ringing the bell in great earnestness. Suddenly we had the temple pujari, running down the hill shouting something in Tamil that we knew was: “Ghost, ghost”.

Running down the hill? Well, at this stage we discovered that on that side of the hill, there were steps from the foothill all the way up and that the steps were lit with tube-lights. And to think we nearly lost our lives climbing over slippery and steep rocks. But, then that’s the effect of beer for you.

Then there was another time when I got sozzled with beer. And this time it was not after drinking more than a gallon of it. I was undergoing the higher command course with the army and we were visiting the North East. At Kalimpong, there was an evening party for us. By this time, I had given up drinking; however, my course mates insisted I have some. I accepted. It came out that after just two mugs of it, I was already feeling high. So when the next time the steward came to serve me, I took out the white serviette and saw the bottle. It was a bottle of one He Man beer and it was 8 % strong whereas the normal lager is about 5 %. It was then revealed to me that in that part of the world, it was difficult for bar owners to obtain hard liquor permits. So, they obtained what could be easily obtained; that is, beer permit. And, since the locals wanted their money’s worth or literally bang for their buck, they preferred to go to the maximum strength permissible.

(Pic courtesy: www.travellers-content.co.uk)
(Pic courtesy: www.travellers-content.co.uk)

Later, of course, I discovered that there are other equally strong beers such as Khajuraho, Kalyani Black Label and Haywards 5000; however, I always preferred the light variety so that one could spend hours devouring it and feel nice about it.

When I went to Spain, I discovered that their beer Cerveza is really light beer both in alcohol content and in colour. I also came to know that after Germany, Spain is the second most beer-guzzling country in Europe. On the evenings of the weekends, any bar would have about a hundred young people inside and another three to five hundred outside drinking beer. I felt totally at home there and guzzled beer in large quantities.

Urdu poets can write voluminous tributes to grape wines and even have songs and ghazals about them; but, to me, my loveliest piece of poetry is a sign at a roadside bar in my part of the world: CHILD BEAR SERVED HEAR. I still freak out on that.

Child Bear

THE LURE OF THE SEA

You breathe the air, you value it, but, rarely are you in love with it; for example when you go to the hills. You sail over the sea and you can’t help falling in love with it. It is around you; but, soon, you have it in your veins. It lends a distinct touch of romanticism by itself and to all objects around it: the sun, the moon, the stars, land, hills, rocks and beaches.

The lure of the sea becomes so strong that you can’t resist it. It is that strange enigma that draws you closer, serenades you, bewitches you, overpowers you and makes you a willing slave to be taken by it wherever it wants you to go.

Ever since the time Man discovered that seas connect lands, man have ventured into the sea to discover brave new world. Folklore, fiction and recorded history have lent adequate sentimentality to the discoveries beyond the seas; from Stevenson’s Treasure Island to Hemingway’s The Old Man And The Sea, from Columbus’s discovery of America to Nicholas Monsarrat’s The Cruel Sea. The fact is that even pirates have added to the romanticism of the seas.

(Courtesy: www.facebook.com/MakeYourOwnQuotes)
(Courtesy: www.facebook.com/MakeYourOwnQuotes)

You read, you hear, you see and then you join the Navy; to fight against visible and invisible enemies. Soon, the sea becomes your life; you can’t live without it. The way you do things at sea, your language, your conduct, indeed your very being becomes different from those of land-lubbers. The more they look at you with awe, the more you want to be at sea, your home. The days and months spent away from the sea are considered wasted and you start to rue the moment you are posted ashore. How nice it would be – you day-dream – if you could spend your life at sea without having to go ashore?

(Courtesy: www.facebook.com/MakeYourOwnQuotes)
(Courtesy: www.facebook.com/MakeYourOwnQuotes)

The serene, dark-blue, slate-grey or even black sea tempts you. On a moonlit night, it provides a most inviting picture. Sea-gulls waft over it to break the monotony of looking at its rugged vastness; dolphins tell of approaching land; and, sea horses when the winds are strong, present another beautiful picture. Indeed, looking at every mood of the sea, you realise you can never get bored. Even from ashore as you sit, reclining against a rock, you wistfully read Byron: ‘Roll on thou dark blue ocean’. You can’t help observing that sea and its surroundings are virtual heaven on earth.

(Courtesy: www.facebook.com/MakeYourOwnQuotes)
(Courtesy: www.facebook.com/MakeYourOwnQuotes)

Lets cut to the time when the sea gets rough. You can’t believe it is the same tranquil sea lulling you into a siesta on a  hot summer afternoon. Its transformation is as if your pet-dog, nestling against your feet and lovingly caressing you with its warm and soft fur, suddenly decides to get charged-up and bite you in your calf, drawing blood and enormous pain. Whilst earlier you used to get conscious of its serene beauty, now its might and truculence impinge on your senses. Whilst the sea churns itself in response to weather it churns your innards too if you are sailing over it.

It makes the ship roll from side to side or pitch from end to end and sometimes apply a sadistic motion called the cork-screw-motion; which is a combination of roll and pitch. Anywhere you are on the ship, for example, standing your watch on the Bridge, there are many occasions when you are airborne (one of the many reasons why Navy is called a truly three-dimensional service!) you hold on to the nearest support and pray that your sea-legs that you developed over years would be strong and steady enough to steady you. You pray that at least you won’t puke all over and let people around you know that you aren’t as much of a sea-man as you pretended to be.

You go down to the mess and don’t feel like eating anything. It is because there is rising matter in your food-pipe and the food that you eat can only go down if it competes against the rising matter. There must be some way, you tell yourself,  to calm the sea within even when the one without is roaring. Nothing helps. In any case, on the dining table, the crockery sways and slides from side to side and you have to synchronise all the moving parts including the spoon in your hand to help the food inside the mouth.

At moments like these, you ask yourself: why do men go to sea? To discover the brave new world, to conquer, to control? Oh God, you tell yourself, teach me to be brave.

It would have been alright if you had to just be at sea. But, you have to close-up on watch and conduct exercises and evolutions. In one of these, I had a Leander (Giri class) frigate engaged with me on the tanker Aditya in RAS or Replenishment At Sea. At one moment, I saw that on the Leander, half the forecastle (pronounced foxle) dipped into the sea and came back with an exploding wash. I closed my eyes and prayed that the six sailors on their foxle would be still there when it emerges out of the sea. I could count only five and I was about to raise alarm. But, after the wash cleared I noticed the sixth one clinging for dear life to the breakwater ahead of the 4.5 inch gun-mounting. It was touch and go. It is frequently so at sea.

Leander7

I have never puked at sea though once I came very close to it on a Petya because of the sickening GT (Gas Turbines) exhaust fumes within the ship. I was one of the fortunate ones who are at home in any sea conditions. But, I have seen people wrenching their guts out until there is nothing left to throw up.

So, finally, after days and nights of the wretchedness, you return to harbour. As you step ashore you are still dazed from the experience. The steady land doesn’t respond like the rhythmic roll and pitch that you got used to and now, it is over land, that you tend to stumble; somewhat similar to Sandra Bullock’s landing from a space capsule on a Hawaiian island in the movie  Gravity.

Two days in harbour…and, you start going for morning jogs, evening clubs, tennis, swimming, movies and meeting friends. It doesn’t sound real at all. It sounds listless, lifeless, dull and devoid of interest. It is crazy but you long to be at sea again…tossing about, wind bringing damp salt to your face, battling against elements and be counted as a man. You say to yourself without pretence, without rancour: Sea is where I like to be; sea is me.

Sea2

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

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

1. Bureaucratic Red-Tapism.

2. Cronyism.

3. Hyper Protocol Consciousness.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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