Foundation Course at Mussoorie. What it is and Why it is and Other Such Ungrammatic Questions.

Why flog a dead horse, you ask?

Why bore people further with undead blog posts, you ask?

This blog was supposed to rest and relax in Cloud Heaven, with its well deserved company of virgin blogs. Why bring it back to the land of the dead?

Altruism is the word.

A new batch of civil servants has been revealed to the world few days ago. There were heart warming stories and symbolic achievements. Most of the 'achievers' would now bide time till the 7th of September whence Foundation Course commences. Rumour has it that the Foundation Course may be offered at one venue for all the services, subject to accommodation constraints. The venue being The Academy, of course. Be as it may, whether at much romantic Mussoorie or much more prosaic Hyderabad, Foundation Course is an exciting phase for a civil servant, budding or budded. The constant gardeners of The Academy shall keep all civil servants properly pruned. 

The hills straighten a lot of attitudes, to begin with. For the plains creatures, a hill journey would start with a symbolic and literal emptying of belly on the way up the sinuous roads from Rajpur to Library Chowk. Enroute, you would pass by the NIVH. Ladies and gentlemen, if you see to your right, you would be looking at NIVH. This is one institute, in fact the first institute, you would call on during the FC. When one had passed by the NIVH for the first time less than a year ago, one had a sense of deja vu. Illustrious seniors had written about their visit to the NIVH and Raphael, in gushing words, and one read their blogs with breathless excitement imagining life at The Academy. A month ago, while climbing down the Mussoorie range after completion of Phase 1 of Professional Training for IAS, one felt a double deja vu. 

Most blogs you come across would only talk of the going up. No one talks about the coming down. Your heart would be heavier than you weighed at the start of the FC, when you leave Mussoorie for the district training. Oh, the weight. Be prepared for a shock weight loss during the Grand Himalayan Trek. Unless you live off Universe Dew and Sweat of Heavenly Beings and or shrubs and roots and wild berries, one is assured of a weight loss during the week long trek. Should one be worried about one's fitness levels? No, if you ask me. Whether you are a well rounded personality or all angular and bony, whether you ran marathons galore or scarce moved out of your couch, or whether you get in to a bout of fitness frenzy before the start of the FC, all, and I repeat ALL, would huff and puff and pant equally when going up the steep incline from the Ganga Hostel to the Mess for the first few days. 

That is how it is. The mountains, I tell you. Over time, and especially if you are in the IAS where you would have more of the said over time, you will come to love the hills. The trek not only breaks fat molecules, it also breaks down icy personalities and bonds people unlike any other experience. The trek builds up a fortitude that will stand you in good stead in the future. Regarding the bonding. It will be of a rather unique character. You would have had made, erm, potty buddies. For, despite the Mission level importance accorded to free the country of Open Defecation, there are certain places and circumstances when if one has to go, one goes out in the open. Before dawn. Under the stars. With each other and few Himalayan bears for company. Relax, it wont be that bad. Just the stench will keep away the bears.

Normally the bear would be running away...from your stench. Image source:https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/53/c5/e1/53c5e1d9bc88435681fff0350ea08b6a.jpg

Not unless you have few extra pounds to spare. Image source: http://cdn.running.competitor.com/files/2013/09/5.jpg

 For the ever keen type 'achievers.' Nothing you pre-read and re-read for the FC will help you. The FC exams will be a googly anyway despite your PhDs and Post Doctorals in Economics, Political Science, Probability and Statistics, Management, Public Administration, Law and in Hindi. So, relax, brush up only your teeth (a fresh breath helps in finding a suitable boy or girl, tooth paste research shows) and sleep tight. Or not. It would be of help if you can culture yourself a bit. A dance form or two. A loosening up of vocal cords. Nothing too fancy, just the basics would do. And please, if there is a real, felt need at The Academy, it is for good comperes and emcees. If you can be witty and keep the audience from yawning, what more son, all the world and the Academy will be yours.

What else can be yours? A bride or a groom as per your cadre, convenience, caste and choice. The choice will be of your parents'. In fact, ignore everything you read above. The hills have had a reputation for being the playgrounds of Cupid. If you do fall, you would only throw away your heart. Skinned hearts are no worse than skinned knees.

Skinned knees and sprained ankles are taken care of at the dispensary near the Sardar Patel Hall (SPH, a class room where Phase 1 OTs are trapped and trained, as opposed to SA, Sampoornanand Auditorium aka ultra luxe sleeping quarters for FC OTs). There are no salves for skinned hearts unfortunately, except a well made drink and a friendly ear to chew out. The drink can be had at the Officer Trainees' Lounge in the Karmshila complex which also houses the awesome library and Officers' Mess and class rooms. The OT Lounge is a nice place to laze around post lunch. Plush carpets, cushy couches, LCD TV, disco-lights, wood floor dancing area etc are but few creature comforts that await a weary OT in the lounge. 

The Officers' Mess is an institution. A venerable institution. It not only provides sustenance but also views of the Himalayas. The views are more fulfilling than the very nutritious food and it is no exaggeration. Appropriate dress code is prescribed for the Mess and it is advisable to follow the code, to respect the institution. Check out the gallery of the Mess. The trophies and mementos will spring a surprise or two.

The library is a treasure house. If the printed word means anything to you, then you will find the Gandhi Smriti Library a fruition of that meaning.

There are many more wonders of The Academy with which a fresh OT  would do well to be acquainted. We leave descriptions of such wonders for another post? Oui.

On A Cat on Cold Tin Roof

I came across a cat in the academy today. In itself it is nothing to write about. However, it is the first time I have noticed a cat. Dogs, monkeys and langurs make up the fauna of the academy. Stray cows too. A stray cat is a strange sight and hence it merited a mention. It jumped in the cold air from the Happy Valley Hostel, sauntered across the 135 degree wide stairs and leaped on to the Unhappy Plateau Hostel roof. 

Cat on a cold tin roof.

The cat then proceeded to the Gandhi Smriti Library and pawed at books yellowed from the Hippie days, the pages brittle as the bones of the rainbow generation. The curious cat browsed through the books kept at the shelves at the end of the book racks, the books that the batch of OTs had gotten issued, read and returned. There were books on law, public administration, warfare, economics, poverty. The cat's curiosity was aroused, however, by the books at the English fiction section. Camus and Wodehouse were being read. Good for the batch, the voyeuristic cat thought, good for the batch for reading more than PowerPoint presentations of subjects, good of them for consuming more than mere slide handouts. But what is this? 'Chicken Soup for the Couple's Soul'?!

The thought of chicken soup made the cat hungry. The cat went to the A.N. Jha Plaza cafe for a cup of coffee with a dash of strawberry syrup and pretty lady OTs for company.

The cat walked in to the Sampoornanand auditorium and listened in on few lectures. Insincere sounding media men and earnest senior civil servants lectured on topics dear to their hearts. The OTs nodded in agreement or in sleep. Few OTs  spoke among themselves. Their thoughts were bubbles rising from vats of boiling tar, the thoughts were tar bubbles, ink black demons and they rose from the mouths of these OTs, floated up a little and then burst, staining the shirts and sticking to hair of fellow OTs, irritating them. The cat decided to shred the demons of distraction to shreds and scratch the presumptuous OTs, scratching away the thick blanket of arrogance with which they cloak themselves. These narcissistic fish think nothing of talking aloud in the class. They love to hear their voice and think everyone does too. 

'Macavity, Macavity, there's no one like Macavity,
For he's a fiend in feline shape, a monster of depravity.' (T.S. Eliot)

Our cat makes short work of these blow fishes, leaps across the valleys, ridge to ridge, peak to peak, in to the distant sun set, in to reluctant night, in to chalked out horizons.

The cat then woke up and found itself in the Happy Valley Ground, it appeared from a winter of discontent. It performed slick moves as an aerobics practitioner, all the while imagining the feline female forms in unitards, actresses escaped from Cats.

Good Cadre, Bad Cadre, ICBMs

The big news of the day was that the cadres have been allocated. The allocations were as per calculations/estimations and were more or less a confirmation of the expected cadre. Are the OTs happy? Are they disappointed?

What is a good cadre or a bad cadre? Do they even exist? One of the Phase 5 seniors with whom we interacted was of the opinion that a 'good' cadre and a not so 'good' service is preferable to a 'good service' and a 'bad' cadre. Another senior officer was of the opinion that AGMUT is a 'good' cadre in that if one falls afoul of the political dispensation at power, one can always move to another state within AGMUT and bide one's time whereas in any other cadre one is stuck with that dispensation.

Then there is the whole aura of the home cadre. One supposedly gains 12 inches in height if one is allotted the home cadre. Or not. The most advantageous thing that I see of being allocated the home cadre is that one could be close to home (duh!), dig one's roots deeper in to the soil.

Good or bad is relative, of course. There are OTs disappointed even though they got 'good' cadres and vice versa.

Truth be told, no one except a privileged few have a clue as to what lay in store for us in any of the cadres. We only hope that we do what we are supposed to do and do it with devotion.

It is time for the ICBMs to be launched. Long range, solid fueled, mobile or submarine launched missiles will be the talk of the day. Inter Cadre Based Marriages (ICBMs), however, do not come in the MIRV (Multiple Independently Targetable Reentry Vehicles). The game would change beyond comprehension if the MIRV were allowed.

Another term to describe the feeding frenzy that will be unleashed is that of CBMs (Cadre Based Marriages or Confidence Building Measures in diplomatese.) One wonders as to what confidences are being shared or built for a change of cadre. There must exist a law to prevent speculation on cadre based marriages.

As for me, I am going back to the state of my youth, a state where my world view evolved, where I fell in and out of love, with it and without it. All good.