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.

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.