On a Sunday walk to Landour

One develops a territoriality, stakes a claim on a specific spot at their frequently haunted place. It is as if one has acquired ownership rights by virtue of planting one's behind on a seat for long. How much more rightful must the peasant feel who tills the land!

The library has a peculiar smell. It is the smell of books of old, the letters, the pages, the ink, the binding and the glue, the pictures, the characters and the abstractions of human thought- all breathe. They inhale and exhale, a smell of knowledge, a smell of parched curiousity quenched by a rain of Dewey Decimals.

One sits and breathes. Forget sometimes to exhale and sometimes to inhale, according as the plot rises or falls.

One gazes out of the window from time to time, a day changes, days change- yesterday is like tomorrow which will be like today. A bird sings in the back ground, melancholia filters through air thick with the spirits of the unread books, thick with the spirits of books thumbed through, licked, torn, highlighted, mutilated, loved, issued, returned, stolen.

The sun rise was spectacular today.

A sunrise to watch

The full moon loomed larger than life while the sun light lit up the tops of the hills one by one.

Full moon crashing on to pine trees

Vincent Hill catching the first light

We figured a revisit to the Lal Tibba might be a good idea, now that the snow peaks seem tantalizingly close. The sky was a fifty shades of blue.

A shade of blue

However, the view itself was a disappointment, from Lal Tibba. For one, the trees block the view. And the two tourist traps of cafes/tea stalls were closed and access to the 'Govt Approved' binoculars was cut off by multiple locked doors. There were other places from where the view was quite good, like the point where the road forks, near chaar dukaan. Swargarohini massif was yellow beryl in the first rays of the sun. The honour passed to the Gangotri range peaks-Srikanta, Kedarnath and Chaukhambha as the sun light found these peaks at length. One can spot the various buildings of the academy from afar. The maligned Polo Grounds look innocuous enough from these great distances.

Spot the Polo grounds if you can

The quiet of Lal Tibba yielded fantastic opportunity for bird watching. The quiet also attracts the quiet minded people.

One can reach Lal Tibba by taxi but the fun is in walking and taking in the sights. Then there is Doma's Inn, a restaurant with kitsch interior decoration.

Cute kitsch.

It is a good place to pack in some calories exhasuted by nearly 2 hours of walking and pack some more for the next two hours of exhausting walk. All in all a day well spent.

On Wardrobe Malfunctions, High Table Dinners and Science Day Celebrations

It is late in the day. And it was a long day. There will be times in the FC when a day just does not seem to end. The day starts with the PT. Even the most optimistic, rationalizing human being would find it hard to wake up early in the morning and trudge down to Polo grounds in the increasingly biting cold, day after day after day. What may be an unequal compensation for the disruption in sleep, comfort and warmth? A glimpse of the sky shy of dawn and full of stars.

Then there are guest lectures. Thanks to small and very rare mercies like documentaries/short films/clippings being shown in auditoria. If the support staff supports by dimming the ambient lights one can catch up on few much needed winks. Even if one tries sincerely not to sleep in the class, taking such extreme measures as skipping breakfast etc, one can be assured of a visit by the Nidra Devi. 

This day was celebrated as Science Day, commemorating the 105th birth anniversary of Homi J Bhabha. There were couple of lectures on implementation of innovative technologies by government agencies. Contrary to the commonly held belief that the abundant number of government run labs and scientific organizations do negligible work, there are few such government run organizations headed by passionate, knowledgeable, courageous civil servants doing commendable work. However, they may be more an exception than the rule. We still have a large number of autonomous, semi-autonomous, deemed autonomous, wannabe autonomous and other manner of organizations purportedly researching weighty matters in science and technology, guzzling public funds like many fat caterpillars and nothing to show for their years of existence. Instead of a bias for action, the bureaucrats and technocrats of these organizations have a bias for status quo.

 As a part of the Science Day celebrations, a declamation contest was held on whether science can be an equilibrium between development and sustainable existence.

The 3rd Cultural Programme was a qualified success. I must clarify, the qualification is of the highest order. Why do I put everything in bureaucratese? The highlight of the show, in my juvenile opinion, is that of the image of an affable gentleman officer trainee holding the dhoti up by both hands, protecting his modesty with admirable ease. We need more near wardrobe malfunctions to spice up the staid proceedings of the FC once in a while. There were glitches in the programme but considering that the OTs were quite hard pressed for time, even the effort of putting up the show was admirable. I always believe that trying one's best despite adverse conditions shows one's character. 

The evening does not end here though. The highlight of the evening was the lecture by Dr. Raghuram Rajan, Governor of the Reserve Bank of India. He has had a distinguished career as an economist and academician. It was interesting to listen to his experiences in navigating the political and bureaucratic maze in India. The lecture was followed by a formal dinner with the chief guest. It was an awkward sight, the chief guest and others at the high table and couple of hundred OTs gawking at the admittedly handsome alum of IIT D and IIM A. One needs to get used to more such awkward sights I suppose.

On monkeys and on mid terms

A distinguished, decorated and senior ex-police officer visited the academy to deliver a lecture on leadership. The part of the message that resonated with me the most was when the visiting dignitary exhorted the OTs to be anti establishment to an extent possible. Here is a civil servant who even after 37 years working inside the 'system' did not become jaded or turn a cynic. Contrast with the outlooks of civil servants of some vintage (say 10 years) as expressed during the literary festival.

An exam chill has descended on the batch. Conversations among the OTs begin and end with the customary query of how far down the preapration lane one has gone. There are hushed whispers of answers of the extent of one's preparation. There are remedial classes by few kindred souls specializing in hard to understand subjects. The KTPs may be sharpening their knives (pens, same thing) to go in for the kill. Then there are the clueless and the give-up (gibbups) types who for some reason feel they have transcended the levels of exams and other methods fo testing one's intellect/memory power. These gibbups may have the added disadvantage of an unfavourable age on their side. A civil servant, the calculative, manipulative, oily character that he is, would have figured out what needs to be done to survive in this OT eat OT world. Or he may genuinely be clueless.

The OTs take a tumble from time to time when not studying like it is the end of the world. They may drop off a horse while riding or be attacked by a troop of monkeys while minding one's business. These are occupational hazards for civil servants. Especially the monkeys. The langurs when they dash across cobble stone paved open spaces make a thundering noise as if they are arboreal equines, sans the horse shoes. They are powerful creatures that need to be given a wide berth. The monkeys, on the other hand, while only a little lesser disagreeable than the langurs, are nevertheless dangerous if the troop has infant monkeys. All said and done, our simian relatives and neighbours tend to be uncivil towards the civil servants. One finds the incline and the steps up to the academic area from the hostels often strewn with monkey faeces, a singularly unpleasant sight when one is proceeding for breakfast.

If a monkey hits random keys on a laptop keyboard for an infinite amount of time, then it will most surely type up all the rules governing the conduct of civil servants or, better still, a blog chronicling the lives and times of civil servants of the 89th Foundation Course batch. Alas! I do not have an infinite amount of time. A second rehearsal 10k run is scheduled in place of tomorrow's PT. A monkey off one's back with this PT substitution.

Hear it from the horse's mouth

Hear it straight from the horse's mouth, then: Dear readers of KS's blog. I am Tin Tin. I am a chestnut brown horse, 5 years old. I have beautiful black mane and my groomer is quite good at his job. Therefore the chestnut skin glows like molten Dairy Milk, especially when my thigh muscles ripple whenever I gallop. And gallop I like to do. Often. Alas! I am not free to gallop to my liking, though. I was born and brought up in the Indian Army. At Equine Breeding Stud, Babugarh to be precise. The first letter of the place of my birth and the last digit of the year of my birth are branded on to my left thigh. So, I have B9 with an arrow mark pointed upwards indicating my ownership by the army. I was born in 2009.

While the OT group of about 28 (us horses are good at numbers, among other things) gathered in a circle about the Riding Instructor (RI), the riding assistant (helper etc) helped demonstrate to the OTs how to unshoe me, clip my nails, brush my mane and how to saddle me up. The Riding Instructor is a 6.5 ft tall gentleman from the President's Bodyguard. The OTs were also instructed on how to mount and dismount a horse. Grab the rein in the left hand, grab the pommel with the left hand, stirrup leather to face you, left foot in the stirrup, haul yourself up on your left leg, haul your right leg over the cantle on to the right side, sit, take better grip of the rein, snag the right foot in the stirrup. The RI explained to the OTs the dietary requirements of us horses and I could see one fat, round OT shift uneasily on his feet at how many kilos of different kinds of sprouts, jaggery, salt, mustard/fish oil we are fed. Was he hungry or did all those kilos mentioned remind him of how less he was eating?

We were a bunch of 17 horses, of different ages and colours. The riding assistants had worn us out previously so that we would be tired and less frisky when the OTs would decide to ride us. Soon enough, as Fate would have it, that fat, round OT was assigned to me. He had some difficulty  mounting but once he was settled in the seat of the saddle, he seemed content just to be where he was. Probably he had never seen the world from these commanding heights. We were led by the riding assistants on a round of the riding grounds. The OT assigned to me pulled the rein too hard initially, which is a sort of a brake for me, so I stopped, bringing the group of horses at my back to a halt. The riding assistant asked him to loosen the rein and things were all right from then on. Press the heel of the corresponding leg to go in that direction, pull back the rein to brake, press both the heels to move forward. Basic movements. The Riding Instructor asked the OTs to slap our necks in appreciation. In the good old military fashion, it was an 'ek do ek' of appreciation shown. The OTs dismounted and thanked the riding assistants and walked to our front. The RI instructed the OTs not to move to our back without intimating us. A well placed kicking of an IAS officer is therefore missing from my account.

Riding ground where Tin Tin and KS met

A fat, round OT's account: You could hear the 'clop, clop, clop' of their horse shoes on the steep, cemented road running from the Silverwood hostel near the academy gate all the way down to the Polo grounds. Over and from between the tree tops one could catch glimpses of the riders in riding helmets, riding breeches and riding boots, every bit equestrian and smart. When my turn came for riding a horse, a chestnut brown one, I was a bit apprehensive. However, my heart rate stabilized soon and though I looked ridiculous riding a horse while clothed in formal wear, I might have also looked like a fat, brown saheb on his brown horse. We were asked to slap the neck and the back of the horse to show our appreciation. It came naturally to me, the appreciation in 'ek do ek' time period.

One juggles, one struggles.

One juggles, one struggles.

The academic sessions have started. A common complaint of the OTs seems to be a struggle to remain awake during the classes. In all fairness, this is not a reflection on the faculty or the course content. Instead, it is a race to adjust to the changed circumstances of structured physical exercise in the morning and classes all day. Hopefully we should be able to win this race.

I see no point in updating details of the classes. I might just as well upload the course PPTs and the time table. If I persist on insisting on writing about the going-ons of this place, this will turn irrelevant. However, I shall try my best to capture the interstitial spaces and times. I shall try to write about the reading in between the lines.

There is a great deal to do at the LBSNAA for the OTs. There are extra course modules specifically designed to let an OT hone her skills or pick up new ones. The OTs are also expected to learn a new language. The idea is to push the OTs out of their comfort zone.

Yours truly has opted for, and has been allotted to, horse riding. Yes, I too am thinking Sea Biscuit. Or Black Beauty. That is how far my knowledge of horses and riding extends. This promises to be a novel experience. We can hear it straight from the horse's mouth in the future. :)

Ice breaking, crushing, slushie making

The thing about being in the hills is that sometimes one sees the sun rise much later than one’s brethren in the plains. So we watched the sun rise from the Polo grounds during a 2-minute break we got in the middle of the PT. Since it was the first day of the PT, the instructor was easy on the OTs. Just some basic stretching and few rounds around the ground.

The climb up to the hostels after a vigorous session of PT may just be one of the many challenges that the OTs may face in the coming days. 

The batch was split in to groups for activities to familiarize with each other. However, after few hectic ice-breaking sessions, I suspect I forgot more than I remembered. May be the ice did not  break enough, it only thawed and refroze. Then it refroze all wrong. We are at a worser place than from where we started. Faces that look vaguely familiar are somehow not associated with the names and names that one has on the tip of one's tongue are somehow blurted out to address the wrong people. Perhaps it is the initial awkwardness, perhaps it is the cold climate and the decreased supply of Oxygen, if it is true, whatever be the reason, this name-face matching is taking too long.

A session today spoke of mess etiquette and another on the sartorial expectations from a civil servant. The aim of both these sessions was to instil officer-like behaviour in the OTs. Few of the suggestions made for the sartorial options available to the lady OTs may have tread on quite a few toes of the OTs, both male and female. Or I am reading too much in to the sentivities of the batch.

The overarching theme that emerges, in clothing, is the requirement for an internally motivated conservatism in the civil servants. Though this holds true in any other sphere of activity, it is of particular importance in clothing. One wonders if there were any civil servants during the Neanderthal era and if they did, what conservatism went in to their dressing before they jumped off a branch from the tree of evolution.