The Beginning...

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first working day of week 1... until now it was week 0...which was more of demos and preparation for the real thing...

PT started with fall in at 5:35am... march off to PT ground... reporting... PT started at 6am... lot of running (5X400m) till my lungs were on fire... followed by "stretching" with an explicit aim to tear every tendon and ligament... push-ups, sit-ups, something where you throw up one of your leg so high up on a bar, it's definitely not coming down by itself and then proceed to touch the toe... i think they set up 5-year-commissions for this kind of thing... just to figure out the worst things they can do to us....

6:55am - 5 min break... to change into drill gear... beret( a flat cap tight enough to burst a vein in your head)... belt(tightened enough to cause you to faint in the sun during the half breaths you manage, if you can) and boot ankle( don't be a wise guy and think 'ankle boot'... and these are prepared from the hardest, most inflexible leather so that everything in contact - your shin, ankle, toes, heels and other muscles of feet i don't know names of ache painfully)...

the drill is an arduous affair which i do not absolutely understand the point of... it involves doing 'saavdhan', 'vishram', 'daine mood', 'bayen mood', 'peeche mood' for hundreds of times each... till we're turned into automatons reacting on 'muscle memory'... another of the Instructor's favorite terms...

headed off after a quick breakfast of 1/4th parantha, two slices of bread with generous helpings of jam, one full boiled egg, milk and tea (i know you're amazed at my capacity to have both the liquids one after another... actually, i intersperse the drinking of milk with tea... my stomach's a garbage bin!!!)...

off to the DJC(Diamond Jubilee Complex) for Indoor classes - three classes in alll - Police in Modern india was boring, but survived...

Leaders of Police - next class, i succumbed finally after a brave fight with my thick leather cushioned chair and rolled around in sleep as much as decency and the instructor's patience permitted...

the third class was VK sir's and i enrolled myself in the 'Volunteers needed' section ( i was stretching after a small nap and he thought i raised my hand in participation) and have now 'generously offered' to teach the computer illits some basics... i'm going to finally attempt to learn some basics myself... VK's a dynamic leader with a penchant for tricking you to do what he wants you to do and making it seem like you did it coz you wanted to do it... chandu says i have a quarter crush on him... i denied it... 50% is nearer the number... ;-)

lunch - normal rice n roti...

"fall in" for more drilling at 3pm... the instructor proclaimed my cap too big, belt too loose and said my shoes didn't look like they were hurting enough... while barking the following encouragements at my squad...

'keep your heels together'

'turn faster'

'lift your thighs till they're parallel to the ground'

'hit the ground flat and hard'

'toe pointed down'

'shouting zor se!!'

if it makes no sense, don't despair... civvies (civilians) don't need to... ;-)

picked up a few books from library... michael crichton has lost his touch after 'lost world'... am reading his 'prey'.... sucks!

picked up the sequel to 'gone with the wind'... it's called 'Scarlett'... i just realized it's written by some other lady and not Margaret Mitchell...

picked up "Nehru" with high hopes... too high... doubt if i'll finish the prologue...



long entry... gotta go now... and read 'introduction to computers'... after all i just need to stay one class ahead of the comp-illits... (Computer Illiterates)...;-)

NPA - Blog 1

life's too busy here to think about what on earth i'm doing... and to conclude if i like/enjoy/hate/love the stay here.... it's been three days... wait, four...i think... rising before the sun and sleeping at 10pm like a prissy school kid is disorienting my normal biological time-clock... which was used to the normal hours of waking up at noon and sleeping nearer sunrise than normally advised by medicos...

training takes on a new meaning in NPA... we follow more orders in a day than i've done in years... many new words have quietly made way into the vocabulary... 'fall in' means assembling in front of the mess... the 'mess' is the residence cum dining hall... POP is 'Passing Out Parade' and is akin to the Judgement Day as in everyone's preparing for it since day 0... count here starts from 0, not 1.... day 0, week 0...

and uniformity is taken to a hyper degree... it's hard enough to differentiate between the Nepalese and Bhutanese (don't even dream of differentiating between one Nepali and another).... but all guys look alike too... all of 'em wear white shirts with dark ties, but the worst part is the hair... they were accosted in the first five minutes of arrival (i swear on every god i don't believe in!!!) and shorn of all hair except a little tuft at the top... shorn as in 'shaved' not 'cut'....there go the curls... and all are also required to shave... so there go the goatees... the girls have been exempted from this embarrassment... after all, we did win the first lottery of life... and we take extra pleasure in sporting our long, dark hair...;-)

but we have our issues too... in the squads(not teams/groups) there are mostly guys and a meagre 2-3 girls... and the 'Ustad' (our ADI - Asst Drill Instructor) takes gender equality too seriously for my liking... we run, stretch, jump, march all like the guys... 'warm up' and 'stretches' are deceptively simple words for the torture that we undergo as preparation for further torture... like playing volleyball!! my wrist, after serving the ball a dozen times (successfully :-) ) is the size of my bicep... :-( i've never more wished for a slice of healthy gender discrimination....



chalo, enough for now...i sleep by 10pm... i know it's not a logical end but what the heck!! allow me to break a few rules or i'll lose my touch!! ;-)

more later!!

exams...!!

it's the exam week... added to the misery of the truth dawning upon us that the fun filled FC is going to be over in about 10 days, are the exams...

on the first day of the FC, in the Inauguration Session, we were given an expensive leather bag (sarkari to the last buckle) full of textbooks... on law, management, public administration and such... i put it in the lowest drawer in my desk and had forgotten all about it...until now...

since the exams were scheduled for monday, i ransacked my room and found the bag by sunday morning... i opened the book on public administration, put out my chair in the balcony and sat down to study... two pages later, the sun came out full blast and i realized, looking at the empty clothesline that it was a good day to wash some clothes... so i went and washed a few clothes... then i thought some of the washed clothes could do with some more washing... i also considered washing my roomie's clothes but i wasn't really sure how she'd take this generous act... anyway, by the time i was done, i was so tired, i needed a warm bath... so i had one... by then, it was lunch time and along with my 'family', i headed for the mess...

soon after, we had a few batchbook details to fill... it basically involves formally picking on one OT till he/she flies off the handle so that all such relevant information can be immortalized in our batch book... i had so many people fly off the handle that each one waited with evil glints in their eyes for my turn... they had their share of sadistic pleasure at pointing out my orange slippers, my incessant ability to say 'No!!', "this is Sooooo bad"... to give out free lessons on psychology and philosophy... "stop writing any blogs..." and more that i obviously am not sharing!!

with so much criticism i could barely study, so i curled off into a deep slumber and tried to forget the treacherous beasts i called friends...

come evening, i woke just in time for the last tea cup... came back and finally located the management book... i marked a few lines in pink(my current favorite pen) before realizing i couldn't possibly write my exam in pink!! so i convinced my good friend to go shopping for a few pens... we went all the way to the farthest market in Bhopal for pens that we could have as well bought well within 100m at the local shop... satisfied with this hectic preparation, i had a heavy meal and fell into another sound sleep...

today was the exam... the questions were tough... the answers, tougher... for eg: one question went like this...
Q) who is considered the real founder of the Mughal Empire??
Options) Shivaji, Alexander, Akbar, Megasthenes

Shreyas marked the answer "Shivaji"... why???
"If Shivaji hadn't lost the battle with Humayun on purpose(i didn't know match-fixing was an ancient practice), how would Akbar have succeeded the throne???" he explained...

i'm not sure what the correct answer is... but i'm praying to my Roomie's Gods (i don't really have one) so i scrape through with the minimum 50% required to pass on to my Parent Academy....

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it was easily the biggest day in FC, and one of those memorables ones that we'll discuss for a while... the day started with the UPSC Chairman D P Agarwal sharing his views for two full breakless hours... there were few nodding heads on account of the ardent disagreements and arguments that made up most of the lecture... transparency in marks... making graduation subject compulsory in mains... shortening the length of exams... the usual stuff...

the next hour was taken up by D S Mathur... we were quite skeptical of him since his previous lecture on 'BioTerrorism' had induced more than a dozen heads to roll...down in sleep... one of them being mine... i remember more than one nightmare... i thought the topic could be used unchanged in the Al-Qaeda Institute of Terrorism and Violent Activities... Dhruva looked at me like I'd finally lost it, when i suggested the idea to him... even nivedita, the escort duty officer to Mr. Mathur, was praying with a vengeance that her Guest would do better this time... the prayers were answered... the lecture was on Code of Conduct for Civil Cervantes... and it was pretty interesting.. he topped it off with his account of the Telecom Scandal which had us all up and awake... about how the Govt of India had lost 1.75 lakh crore rupees and all... i especially love the stories that get unrolled in the class... real events, real people... not through newspapers but in flesh n blood... there's something enchanting about the whole thing... maybe one day it'll wear off, but right now, i enjoy the awe these 'big shots' inspire...

in what was considered by most to be the Jackpot Escort of the whole FC, i got to be on Escort Duty for one of the biggest men in the country - A P J Abdul Kalam.... though all i did was shake hands with him and spend less than five minutes telling him about my fellow OTs, what we wanted him to talk about and other similar small talk... the added perks included a real cute IPS officer who was in charge of the whole VIP affair and another interesting MBA guy who shared my frustration in the Corporate sector.... it had been so long since i'd met anyone from outside the 'Sarkari Island' i'm now a part of...

there was a lot of photographing to do... all of us resplendent in our bandgalas (guys, i mean) and the fairer sex in beautiful sarees(that would be me)... it was a rare opportunity... only the second time in our FC(the first one being the Inauguration Function)... there'll be a lot of uploading going on today n tomorrow...

chalo, i gotta go now... friends had decided on a night drive, but the main one backed off, complaining of a stomach ache... too much pressure in the FC na... PT, lectures, Q&A sessions... all the butterflies apparently upset his delicate stomach...

nite nite!!

Diwali Greetings...

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it's been a while since i blogged and i'm reminded of my laggedness by VinC... it must mean something that even he's missing my 'buzz'es coz he's someone who'd rather not read anything that's not entirely avoidable... sometimes, not even the bus route names... seriously... or maybe it's just his way of avoiding the hours of conversations where i update him about every little thing- like the sour rasam, the missing of PTs, the little fights with the friends, mood swings, the new Coffee 'n' U we've discovered...

anyway, life's been on... and though i hate the thought of it, i cannot but help notice i've just one more month left of this blissful oblivion...  we had a recent village visit... mine was with a bunch of four other friends (not OTs) to Jhal Peepli... we were in our favorite place... anything but the lecture halls....;-)

the village was a 'Forest Village' with 100% tribal population... interesting sights of purdah'ed women, little brown kids with the frank stares, the old men(69years) who claimed to be older (96 years)... the wonderful lunch that came out of the dark kitchen where women under wraps, with lowered eyes turned out one poori after another... the sheer curiosity, attention and adulation we generated was intoxicating... i couldn't help but blame the fate for not letting us stay the nights in these wonderful surroundings... though there were times i was glad we had our occasional returns into our bland lives... especially during the nature calls... ;-)


what else? most of the OTs are back home celebrating Diwali... only a few are left behind - mostly coz our homes are too far... i'm not too unhappy... most of my bunch is stuck here and i'm planning a quiet getaway tomorrow with a friend who's been complaining i'm ignoring her for the past week or so... so maybe i'll have a few more adventures to regale you with when i'm back...