A Skippers Inning

' The speed of the boss is the speed of the team.' I couldn't have agreed more with this Lee Iacocca quote till I met Sh S Ramaswamy. Proactive, beating the stereotype,overtaking the convention, here was a boss who is a sport both on and off the field. I still remember my first meeting with him when I joined the Thiruvananthapuram office on transfer. Alive to my 'alien-culture,alien language' apprehensions on being posted to extreme South, he was the first person to welcome me to the new place. Arrangements were already in place even before I could collate and project my requirements. To help overcome the language handicap, classes were organised for all the new transferee officers. I found the work place engulfed with vibrancy, the best part of which were the numerous sports competetions, outside excursions, even the mundane office activities had a buzz of live involvement of everyone. The office excelled in its functioning as per the statistics of the higher headquarters. At the end of the day, as Charles Erwin Wilson puts it; "A good boss makes his men realise they have more ability than they think they have so that they consistently do better work than they thought they could."

Sh Ramaswamy relinquished the office of the Regional Director of RBI for the State of Kerala & Lakshadweep in April 2010 on his transfer to Mumbai. We wish him all the best in his new assignment.

Sh S Ramaswamy

Luck by Chance

Style Plus is a lifestyle store near our house. A few days back my wife had purchased some items for children from this store. All this was when I was away to Chennai for work; much against my wish, as it was my daughter's B'day on the 13th March. I got a call a few days back from a lady informing me that I am the winner of a prize for making that purchase from the store. The prize was a week long stay at any of the Resorts owned by Royal Resorts at Goa/Jaipur/Kovalam/Bali(Indonesia). I was clueless about the purchase or the scheme and took it to be some promotional call and told her to call in the evening. We were invited at the Sagara Beach Resort, Kovalam for a presentation on the company.i.e.Royal Resorts. The purpose of the presentation was to introduce us to the membership option of the Royal Resorts which I declined politely. We were handed over the prize which is valid for one year.

Not bad,isn't it,even if it is promotional offer!

Of endings and new beginnings..

Every year we welcome the new year with hope that it will bring all good things to us. Some of us also take indulgence in new year resolutions for all the things we intend including in our lives for our betterment (or percieved betterment).Concurrently it is also the time to look back on the time gone by, a time for retrospection of the highlights of the past year/decade.The past decade can be credited with bringing the world much closer;wide accessibility of mobile phones,greater communication through networking sites, bridging the demand supply gap by proper sample matching through computers. Technology has truly penetrated our lives. Important decisions like marriages are also arranged through matrimonial sites not to mention the everyday decisions which also get a nod of approval after the 'internet research'.

Everything seems to be progressing. Mobile towers are the new symbols of progress of an area/district. The signals emitted by these towers help millions to streamline their everyday affairs. At the same time these towers also interrupt the navigation capability of the 'honey-bees' who innocently start their day to gather nector from flowers, little realising that the powerful signals from these towers will deprive them homecoming in the evening. Unable to navigate and wandering, the end to their tiring day of collecting nector results in their death.The population of honey-bees has dwindled in the last decade. It is only a matter of time when our coming generations will ask us the meaning of 'honey'.

Woman Power

Bhavleen Sodhi (nee Bindra) successfully completed the Basic Combat Training (BCT) at Fort Jackson, Columbia, South Carolina recently. She had joined the US army as a specialist (SPC) in linguistics sometime back. She is presently undergoing Advanced Individual Training (AIT) at a US military academy in Texas. Having undergone such rigorous training bears a testimony to the grit and determination of this Chandigarh girl who studied at Sacred Heart Convent and Shivalik Public School. Married to Sukhjinder Singh Sodhi in 1995, they have two daughters, Vargun and Sargun.

Bhavleen with her husband Sukhjinder Singh Sodhi at the Graduation
Sharing a proud moment with daughters Vargun and Sargun

She will be in active service for four years before becoming a US army reservist. It is a proud moment for her family and friends (we studied together at Shivalik Public School). Now that's what you call 'Woman Power'.

Mohali 55

This post is inspired by a poem of Surjit Pattar. The poem is about the affinity felt for the place of our formative years. A major part of my life was spent in Mohali. As a four year old in 1977, I could hardly understand the change we were heading for when we shifted from a rented accomodation in Sector 15, Chandigarh to our own house in Phase I, Mohali (Pin 160055). Mohali is the name of the village on the old Chandigarh-Ropar highway. Giani Zail Singh re-christened the suburb as Sahibzada Ajit Singh Nagar, a name which is seldom used by anyone. In the initial years, our neighbourhood consisted of less than fifty independent houses and just a few HL and HM series Housing Board houses in Phase I. The area beyond Phase IV remained under cultivation at that time. Till as late as 1984, the population of the township was less than 50K.

There were few schools which itself were in their infantile stage. My elder siblings were admitted to one such school owing to the good marketing skills of its owner cum Principal. I also joined the same school some time later. Mohali was our Malgudi, well insulated from the rest of the world; the place had its own living space, own character and its own unique story; a story which will continue to remain dear to me. The feeling can be rather summed like this - "You can take a Mohali-ite out of Mohali, But you cannot take Mohali out of him."

The feeling of being a fish out of water gripped me when we relocated to Panchkula in 1993. My stay at Panchkula remained transistional as I left for the pre-commission training at Madras 16 (now called Chennai) shortly thereafter.

It was my earnest desire to return to Mohali, a wish which was granted to me recently.

The Broken Pot - a short story

With a lot of gratitude to the friend who shared this story with me.

An elderly Chinese woman had two large pots,each hung on the ends of a pole which she carried across her neck. One of the pots had a crack in it while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water. At the end of the long walks from the stream to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half full. For the full two years this went on daily, with the woman bringing home only one and a half pots of water. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it could only do half of what it had been made for. After two years of what it percieved to be bitter failure, it spoke to the woman one day by the stream.' I am ashamed of myself, because this crack in my side causes the water to leak out all the way back to your house.'

The old woman smiled," Did you notice that there are flowers on your side of the path, but not on the other pot's side? That's because I have always known about your flaw, so I planted flower seeds on your side of the path and everyday while we walk back,you water them. For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table.Without you being just the way you are,there would not be this beauty to grace the house."

Each of us has our unique flaw.But it's the cracks and flaws we each have that make our life together so very interesting and rewarding. You've just got to take each person for what they are and look for the good in them.

Fauji diary - Army tunes

Army tunes have a very special place in the heart of any fauji. These tunes have a virtue of being in the backdrop of all army memories.In my academy days, I was fascinated by 'Troupe Rajasthan', a classic slow march army tune generally played during guard inspection.Earlier on during college, I had liked 'Amazing Grace' from the movie BRAVEHEART. While searching for some dogri tune recently on youtube,I had a serendipity discovery in the form of a youtube user called ShivKumarBatalvi, who has contributed lots of army tunes on youtube; my favourite one being - Ajj dia ratti (Dogri tune).
My battalion has one of the finest pipe bands in the Indian Army; infact it is one of the few who actually play 'Amazing Grace', an extremely difficult number on the pipes. Our Band Major,Sub Hem Raj had the distinction of having been an instructor to the Mauritius army. It was but natural to show case the talent in a cassette during the centenary celebrations of the battalion at Jalandhar in October 2000. The album had classical English tunes on one side and desi dogri tunes on the other besides an introduction by yours truly ( which I always skip while playing the cassette)

The cassette cover