So help me god...

Thus the oath was rounded off with a hope that deity or deities of one's faith would help an administrator bear allegiance to the Constitution of India. A clause for conscientious objectors was inserted advising them to only solemnly affirm.

The Honourable Vice President of India, Shri M. Hamid Ansari, administered the oath to the Officer Trainees of the 89th Foundation Course. Prior to that, the inaugural ceremony started off with the national anthem, address by the Course Coordinator,  Director of the Academy, his Excellency the Governor of Uttarakhand and by the honourable Vice President. It may be of interest to note that the honourable VP is an alumnus of the institute having undergone the Foundation Course himself in 1961. One may find the gist of the dignitaries' speeches in news reports. Hence, I am skipping that part.

The course coordinator and the faculty introduced the course module to the OTs in rest of the sessions. A session on Official Language Policy was helpful in shattering myths and preconceived notions regarding the official language. The distinction between national language and official language (rashtra bhasha and raj bhasha) was clearly explained. The visiting faculty, Shmt. Veena Upadhyaya highlighted the nuances in various laws enacted to promote the official language. The question and answer session was informative as well, as the OTs brought in a contemporary perspective in understanding the language debate.

The inaugural ceremony and the orientation sessions were held in the Sampoornanand Auditorium located opposite to the reception area of the academy. The auditorium has an impressive octagonal roof and can seat, as per my estimate, close to 400 people at a time. The auditorium may double up as a theatre for one noticed the cluster of stage lamps overhead on the stage. I was reminded of my days as the lights boy for RK Hall (IIT KGP) dramatics team. It involved rotating a dial on the resistor from a cubby hole above the stage and out of view of the audience. I was a witness for many a fade in and a fade out and gimmicky light effects. The sound was crisp owing to the Bose sound system in place.

The OTs once free from the classes were seen clicking pictures of themselves in the ceremonial attire, around the campus. A point midway between Karmshila and Kalindi buildings (Karmshila houses the Officers' mess, Library, class rooms and Kalindi houses the VIP guest house) offers good view of the mountains all the way up to the Gangotri on a clear day, according to the guide to the peaks placed on a bronze plaque there.

The bandhgala is a tough dress to wear for long periods of time. I felt suffocated and hot all the while I was wearing it, for a good 8 hours. 

I got some time to explore the Gandhi Smriti Library. It is well stocked with journals, books, magazines, reference books, news papers, terminals for accessing the net etc. The feature that attracted my attention the most was the not insubstantial collection of fiction. The duration of Foundation Course, Phase 1 and 2 can be well spent with these books. 

The grind of the FC starts from tomorrow with the famed PT at the polo grounds at 5.55 am. The polo grounds are around 1.5 km from and below the Ganga hostel, reached by a steep path. The ascent will be a challenge. But then which ascent has not been a challenge? And it is not even the Everest, for crying out loud. It is a side of the Happy Valley. As a slogan goes, "No race, no rally, just enjoy the Happy Valley."

I clicked few photos of the campus. Next post, may be? However, I prefer my thousand words to my one blurry photo.

I do not see this daily blogging habit sustaining over a long time. May be this may turn in to a weekly update affair. Let us see how it goes.

Rainbow Batch and the Registration Day

Registration day did not disappoint from the perspective of form filling and form submission. Everyone was each other's surety/witness/kindred soul and other things.

I wish I had Google Glass on. It would have been a cinch to ID a person. To ease the process, one is required to wear the identity card on person at all times.

The stairs and the steep slope has me huffing and puffing by the time I reach the mess. How did we manage to get so out of shape?! Now, it is a full fledged ego war between me and the stairs. It is a Kung Fu Pandaesque situation. If I stop looking at the stairs as plain stairs and and imagine in their stead delicious wafers arranged as steps, perhaps I may yet climb them. Or I would be biting in to them. Or I might just roll down from the mess all the way to the hostel. In which case the Indiana Joneses of the batch may well be advised to dodge the Rolling Stone.

I had a sneak peak at the gym and the badminton, tennis courts. The gym is as they say, world-class. There were many plans made for paying a visit to the said place at the earliest and every day at unearthly hours. I see myself visiting it only in my wildest dreams. Good luck fellow OTs with the gym plans.

Probably in an indication of things to come, a lovely rainbow adorned the sky as the day drew to a close. Was it a sign? I would like to call our batch of 89th FC the 'Rainbow Batch.'

Registered a rainbow on the Registration Day

The batch is diverse and it is a good thing. However, the North East seems to be under represented. Correct me if I am wrong.

Talking of signs, while on the way from Patiala to Mussoorie, at an unschedule road side stop, one of our party came across two fat cobras 6 ft in length, it seems. And that, according to him, was a good sign. Perhaps he was currying my favour. I would have liked to know for whom it was a good sign. For him for seeing? Or for me for not seeing? That then is a glimpse of the vast underbelly of superstition. It should be cut and the entrails of ignorance ripped out.

Where were we?

The premises look spic and span now. Workers were seen putting few last minute touches. Mud was being scooped out of the grooves in the pavement. Railings were being wiped and wiped again to a fine sheen.  LBSNAA is fully geared up to host the visiting dignitary tomorrow. Us OTs (Officer Trainees) are expected to turn out in the ceremonial attire- a white/black Jodhpuri suit for the gentlemen OTs and saree for lady OTs.

The batch celebrated the birthday of a fellow OT and it was a fine occasion to get a taste of the esprit de corps (and the birthday cake) that I hope will come to define our batch, the Rainbow Batch.

89th FC at Labasna- An introduction

In the time honoured tradition of starting a blog the moment one reaches LBSNAA, Mussoorie, I too have started a blog. This is tacky and caters to many cliches. So be it.

I arrived here after passing through four states- Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. Let us just say we opted for the scenic route, crossing Ambala, Jagadhri, Poanta Sahib, Dehradun and also towns with exotic names like Sela Qui, Herbertpur etc. Crossed the Yamuna at Poanta Sahib and numerous dry bed tributaries enroute. Passed through Kalesar National Park, which was the most pleasant part of the drive.

I will skip the mundane details of room allotment etc. I have been allotted a hostel that is infamous for being far from the main academic complex and at significant altitudinal difference. I had once suggested, in a manner of jest, that the stairs are my worst enemy. Looks like I got my comeuppance at the hands of stairs. Or the feet of the stairs.

Therefore, it should surprise no one that my first meal at Mussoorie happened to be at the Ganga Dhaba- a simple fare of chow and coffee. Why does it seem to me like I am beginning to relive my KGP times whence the standard midnight snack used to be always a greasy chow, a greasier omelette and a twice boiled chai? Taking the connect with KGP further, the academic blocks are named Karmshila and Gyanshila. They remind one of the Vikramshila complex of KGP. In one of its auditoria then under construction, I recited Sri Sri's "Nenu Saitham" poem in a weird, vain, creepy theatrical performance lost on wet cemented walls, bamboo support pillars, lost in echoes that still stay with me.

Be that as it may, the LBSNAA campus is pretty except for the infernal gradient differences. There is a flurry of renovation work going on under the watchful eyes of the PWD personnel. The campus is being spruced up in preparation for the visit of a high constitutional dignitary.

Therefore one finds the potholes of the road leading to LBSNAA from the Library Point topped up with tar. It is not a road that does not have a pot hole or a patchwork of tar on potholes.

Talking of Library Point, not much seems to have changed on the Mall road in all these eight years since I last visited this place. I was young, lean, with a full crop of hair, full of enthu and fresh out of college. Eight years hence I may have to admit that a lot of the zeal has faded and the idealist of yesteryears is a jaded realist of the present. I remember the excitement on spotting Ruskin Bond at a book store in Landour. It was the first time I had ever seen a writer, a famous, celebrated writer. Alas! I had not read a single book of Bond's (and in a telling damnation, still have not read any of his work) and therefore I watched him from afar autographing copies of his books for fans. Perhaps, one day I too will be a writer and I will beckon the awkward, gawking youngster in, give him a book and encourage him to read. Books should be our good friends, not daunting challenges as it so often happens to me.

Kulri area has changed a lot. There are glitzier shops, more neon and tackier clothed people than in the past. And down below, Dehra Dun shimmered like gold nuggets in a bed of hot, murky water. The city has sprawled over time. What was once a pretty sight of crisp lights from the city, like fireflies amassed in millions at the foot of the Queen of the hills, is now more like an aerial view  of a generic Indian city at night.

The shock of the mismatch between memory and reality morphed in to a shock of the mismatch between online and offline worlds. I met only a few people so far and they were kind enough to remember my name and call it out. I of course drew a total blank. I have never been good with faces and names and their proper matching. Hopefully that drawback will be remedied here. The mismatch between offline and online selves is what I would call Facebook dissonance. One is a decent looking, airbrushed image online, all witty and dripping with sarcasm, gregarious, with inexhaustible time to poke nose in others' business, online. Offline, you find a different person, diffident, warts and all and tongue tied. Not just me, but others too. So, we will have to recalibrate, I am guessing. Like a fellow wimwian had pointed that I look handsome in the display pic. :) I need to increase my glamour in real life too. :) People seem friendly.

The registration process is scheduled for the whole day tomorrow. Form filling, form submitting, duplicates, triplicates, signatures at 100 different places, photographs with and without signature on them, blue ink, ball point pens only, glue, staplers, folders, files are but few of the issues one has to grapple tomorrow. Not to mention the mad dash from place to place and finding out the location of various counters. At least that was the de riguer at my previous "Registration Day" experiences at engineering college, management school and private and public sector jobs. Will this be different? Only time will tell.

The funny thing about the opening and the closing days of these programmes is that one gets to see the campus and every nook of it on both these days. On the registration day you are figuring out what is where and trying not to get lost (like I did in the main building of KGP.) On the closing day though, one visits these places in a bureaucrat's version of treasure hunt, getting NOCs from all and sundry, reminding one that so many places in the campus do exist despite your own obliviousness.

So that is the first day's account. Like all things with beginners, I am sure it is high on the beginner's enthu. The name of the blog by the way is from the pronunciation of LBSNAA.