part0026

I did primary schooling in National High School in Calcutta, a predominantly Tamil organization, with practically all students being Madrasis, as anyone south of the Vindhyas was called in Calcutta those days. These were tumultuous days in the mid-1940s, a couple of years prior to independence. Though I did not know these details, it was also the time when Suhrawardhy as the Chief Minister of Bengal deliberately did not allow the police to curb a series of major riots instigated by Muslims. When the massive Hindu backlash started, the armed police came down very heavily. At any rate these were troubled times in Calcutta, when my parents decided that I should go to Tanjore for further schooling and to live with my grandmother in the ashram which she was presiding over. Janaky Matha was a devotee of Ramana Maharishi of Tiruvannamalai and herself had a large following those days, indeed even now, four decades after she is gone. At any rate, I recall one Class IV Hindi examination in the school, where I had no clue what the question paper asked me to do; I merely wrote

the first ten numbers in Hindi; the only Hindi that I knew! The advice to beauty-contestants says, ‘if you do not know the answer to the question, smile and give the answer to any question that you know’—an art perfected by politicians.

In the ashram in Tanjore, we had the benefit of the visit of a ‘tuition master’—Sivarama Iyer. Pronounced quickly in Tamil, it had the potential to sound a little vulgar, making a reference to pubic hair—a method of referring to him that we preferred rather than calling him ‘master’! He became the ‘tuition master’ for our generation of young children and covered at least six or seven of us in the ashram. He was one of the teachers in the Viraraghava High School, where he used his ‘influence’ to get me enrolled in first form—sixth form being school-final—effectively a double jump or even triple jump, without any transfer certificate or academic credentials that I could lay claim to. I do not recall any serious coaching by him or lessons that he taught us. However, he was extremely effective in getting us to pass each term examination and annual examination in the school. His method was elementarily simple; on the morning of each test, he would ask me to answer a limited number of very specific questions/exercises, chide me, abuse me, criticize me, but make sure that I would correctly answer those questions. Surprise, surprise, at the test the same day in the school by some magic, identical questions given to me by Sivarama Iyer would appear; one was well-equipped to perform reasonably well enough to pass! With this simple but effective expedient, I was able to move from first form to fifth form (I was to learn much later that the essence of the technique employed by my tuition master is regularly applied in administration—favourites and cronies manage to get on to the ‘inside-lane’, licenses and other scarce items are distributed with unerring accuracy to favoured individuals, using well-defined techniques). I was puny compared to the others in my class and was nicknamed ‘new boy’—(pudu paiyan) —an appellation I carried through six years of schooling .

They say that once you learn to ride a bicycle, you will never lose the balance. Even after a gap of many years, one can ride a cycle. I am not sure if I can do that now, but I remember the time when I was learning the art. The cycle was a little too big for me and I would tentatively push it forward, move one leg on to the pedal, and try to vault on to the seat. One morning as I was trying the exercise, Master came in on his bicycle, and observed me. His comment: ‘Why are you trying to impregnate the bicycle—can’t you find an animal or another person?!’ Coming to think of it, bicycling is good exercise, non-polluting, inexpensive. In most cities today, you can reach your destination faster on a non-motorized bicycle than in a motor car. Even today, large numbers of people go to work in China, Japan and even in places like Amsterdam, by bicycle. Did we make a strategic blunder in India by encouraging motor cars in place of the bicycle to ape western models, when more efficient, less expensive domestic models were available? Was it the first of many policy blunders—was Mahatma Gandhi right or wrong?

The footpath from our home/ashram to the school took us across the railway line, across a culvert over the Kaveri canal, through a dried up lake from the times of the Maratha kings, on to the main town and then the school itself. Up to third form (corresponding to Grade VIII), the school was located in Mangala Vilas, which used to be the harem of the Maratha kings. The school was located close to the Big Temple, a major landmark in temple architecture, created by the Cholas not far from Saraswati Mahal, which houses one of the best libraries of old literature in India with many authentic ancient manuscripts in Sanskrit and Tamil, now under the loving care of the descendents of Maratha kings.

Every morning, we started the two mile (3 km) walk to the school; the leader of the pack was my uncle, and two older children of ashram inmates, devotees of Janaki Matha. Every third or fourth day, one of these three would make up their minds not to go to school that day—my views didn’t count—so near the waist-high sub-canal we would take off our clothes, have a long dip in the water, have our lunch from the ‘tiffin-box’ lovingly packed at home, have a nap in the shade, and get back home in the late afternoon. Under penalty of serious unspecified punishment, I was directed by my uncle and his cohorts not to mention the manner that studies were undertaken that day. In the culvert on the main canal, which was about 15 yards across, there was the parapet wall, probably six inches thick. On a dare, I would undertake the perilous walk along the parapet wall, about 30 feet above water level, with the swirling canal water below, often with fairly strong winds blowing in that open area, with no knowledge of swimming; in retrospect, a risk which was unbelievably absurd, inexplicably stupid where there was no return, probability of failure not too low and punishment for failure the severest possible. One shudders even now at the near-suicidal risks taken—perhaps it was the age!

Sanskrit was my second language in school, English being the first, the medium of instruction was Tamil though. I did study six years of Sanskrit, essentially following Bhandarkar’s Grammar. My memory is that the teacher tried to do a good job; but at the end of six years, I am not sure I really got to know the language enough to pursue studies of our scriptures and other great literature without help. I was and am unable to do these important things, defeating the basic purpose of learning a language. Clearly the pedagogy in teaching Sanskrit was abysmally poor those days—I wonder if it has improved. A language taught exclusively through grammar will take a long time to reach the mind of the student. Much later, I learnt German and French through newer techniques, the essence of the teaching is to start with simple short stories and to proceed increasing in complexity. In three months, I probably learnt more of these two languages, than in six years of Sanskrit. The only lasting benefit of my second language in school is that Sanskrit words are not unfamiliar to me, I can look at the root (dhatu ) and divine its meaning, explore its derivatives. In picking up Hindi from scratch many years later, my limited Sanskrit was a major key in facilitating the process. The other clear benefit was that I could follow, even though not too accurately, great Sanskrit literature, like the Gita or the Vishnu or Lalitha Sahasranaams (well known prayer verses) where I could get a good picture of what was being stated.

Sometime in 2013, the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) issued a notice making some changes in the curriculum relating to the preliminary and regular examinations for the IAS and allied services; these mainly related to removing an ‘Indian language’ from the requirements as a subject. In other words it would have been possible for a person with no knowledge of any Indian language (except English of course) to appear in the exam and do well enough to make it to the merit list. Astoundingly, this was announced only in February or so of that year, with the prelims to start three months thereafter. UPSC, which is a sound, conservative and responsible agency ought to have given at least two to three years’ notice to the candidates, considering that many prepare for years for appearing in these examinations. Be that as it may, a major controversy arose as to the wisdom of dropping all Indian languages (except English) as a possible compulsory subject, for the series of exams. I appeared extensively on television channels to press one major point—any senior official, who during his life time will work largely in a state government and also in rural areas will need to have a strong working knowledge of at least one Indian language. With the underlying cultural backdrop connecting the various states with disparate languages, customs etc., the knowledge of any Indian language will facilitate very considerably the ability to learn another Indian language. Exclusive knowledge of English language will not adequately prepare anyone to understand the cultural underpinnings of social life in any state—language is an important window to the culture and society in any part of India. With the dispensation proposed by UPSC, it could have enabled one with no knowledge of any purely Indian language to enter the higher civil services. This would diminish his ability to learn the language and culture of the state to which he is assigned. In my own case, my knowledge of Sanskrit enabled me to understand the culture, ethos as well as the language in Uttar Pradesh—Hindi. In retrospect, even if I had no knowledge of Sanskrit, even with my Tamil, it would have been possible for me to have learnt Hindi. Astonishingly, despite major superficial differences, the culture, trains of thought and ethos of society in Uttar Pradesh are not different from that in Tamil Nadu. In the event, UPSC rightly shelved the proposals and reverted to the status quo—sensibly so.

Scholars say that Sanskrit is a ‘perfect’ language. Thoughts and ideas can be expressed very precisely in that language, more probably than in any other. There is such a treasure house of knowledge and experience in our Vedas , Shastras , Puranas , Upanishads and other records of a 5000-year-old flourishing civilization. Indeed, Bharat has witnessed all that is possible to experience over the millennia. This is embodied in our great literature; there is an awareness in the western world of the magnitude and value of these treasures. However, we have lost the key to these treasures by ignoring the study of Sanskrit language. While ‘modernizing’, we have thrown away our golden past.

The ashram had an extremely pious environment. Permanent residents, headed by Janaki Matha, my grandmother, included about ten family members, along with another six or seven families, devotees of Matha. In addition, nearly every day another ten or 12 devotees landed up to be in the ashram, to have darshan of Matha and to participate in the daily routine, which included about five hours each in the morning and in the evening of bhajans and stotras, sung in chorus, by all present in the prayer hall. Matha had time to supervise the management of the ashram and was assisted by old relatives, who were permanent residents. Sometime in the late mornings or early afternoons, or even in the night after dinner, my grandmother would ask me to read for her, in Tamil, Gyaneshwari, the commentary on the Bhagwat Gita by Sant Gyaneshwar. Originally this was rendered by Gyaneshwar in South Maharashtra, centuries back in Marathi, as a series of lectures. Somehow, through the remarkable Indian oral tradition, Gyaneshwari got recorded—at some stage it must have been translated into Tamil. It is great literature, and lays bare the wonders of the Gita in the simplest possible terms for the reader. Much later I tried to get an English version of Gyaneshwari; searching high and low. I failed till I went to the United Nations bookshop in the Fort area in Mumbai, where I found a copy sponsored by UNESCO, as part of their ‘heritage literature’ series. It is astonishing how we are unable to recognize the pearls, treasures, wisdom and heritage which is amidst us, and is available just for the asking and taking. It is left to a foreigner from 5,000 miles away to comprehend the greatness enshrined in our literature, and package it for larger consumption. I wonder if Indian psychologists have analysed this failure; clearly the observant Caucasian is able to identify the greatness in India’s past and adapt it or at least appreciate it. Perhaps we need a foreign psychologist to tell us what is wrong with us!

Many years later, I had to go to Varanasi to give a lecture at the Banaras Hindu University (BHU). My younger brother who had passed out from BHU sometime in the early 1960s earnestly asked me to make sure that I visited Sankat Mochan Hanuman Mandir (temple), located just outside the BHU main gate. He asked me to pray for him there, which I did during that visit to Banaras. When I asked him as to why he insisted on my visiting this particular Hanuman Temple, he replied that the way he studied engineering at BHU, there was just no way he could get his degree. He attributes the degree exclusively to the devout prayers to Hanumanji at Sankat Mochan Mandir—he can think of no other explanation. I do not know who my Hanumanji was in Tanjore—perhaps it was the piousness of the ashram that my prayers were answered, indeed even when the requests not articulated!

For example, in the very first month, in the English ‘tutorial’, Fr. Vernon, of Irish extract, asked the class of 25 or so to write an essay on ‘Soliloquy of a broom’, during the class session. The next week’s tutorial session was devoted to an analysis of the students’ efforts, and suggestions for improvement. Fr. Vernon pointed out the 20 most ‘glaring’ mistakes, without mentioning the culprit’s name—like Abou Ben Adam, my name led all the rest—I ‘bagged’ 16 out of the class’s 20 howlers. The very next week, the subject of the essay was ‘the Child is the Father of the Man’—I did slightly better—only 12 of the glaring errors of the top 20 were attributed to me. While Fr. Vernon sneeringly looked at me in the class, which treatment to be fair to him he gave to everyone even-handedly, or even-eyedly shall we say, he did not openly let me down—merely calling me separately to let me know that I needed to ‘improve’!

The first two semesters went in a blur—I had little knowledge of what was going on around me—I was focusing more on the use of English language in the treatment of physics, chemistry and mathematics. Bailon D’ Sa our maths professor spoke elegant English, and enthralled us with his diction and fluidity. He would let it be known to the class of his latest contribution to some mathematical journal on the subject ‘some new problems of topology’, adding to one’s inferiority complex. Roy Chowdhary the algebra teacher would tell us ‘A Bharies as B, B Bharies as C, so A Bharies as C’; Ghosh, the chemistry professor would refer to ‘mars gash’; Professor Dhar of English fired my imagination with his own rendition of Keats: ‘haard melodies are swit, those unhaard are switter (sic)’. With such massive English language complications to contend with, it was a diffident and unhappy camper indeed who entered the hallowed portals of St. Xavier’s every morning and left it in the afternoon a frustrated young man, who appeared to be doomed without a future .

Naturally, the first quarterly exam results were abysmally poor, but not unexpected; so much so, I did not even share them with my father. Without remembering it now, I guess I persisted, did not give up, was not willing to accept defeat. One day, at the end of two semesters, I suddenly saw my physics marks were 76 per cent—I could not believe it. I was absolutely certain that the physics teacher had been careless while correcting the second quarter papers. I waited for a full two-days for the bombshell to drop, that is, his informing me of the mistake committed and revising my marks to 26 per cent or so which I expected. As it sunk in that my marks were genuinely earned, the college experience dramatically improved, and went on to a new plane.

We had many stalwarts in the faculty of the college. P. Lal, in the English faculty was a nationally famous poet, his work appearing regularly in national newspapers—the college was agog when he was even invited ‘abroad’ to a conference of poets somewhere. Vishwanathan, who was quite portly in his 30s as he was then, was already an author, and an important figure on the Bengali stage, with much recognition. He even acted in lead roles in a number of Bengali films, even though he was in the English faculty in the college. These great teachers were able to fire one’s imagination—Jean Anoulih’s Five Characters in Search of an Author , or the King is Dead—Long Live the King were examples of extra reading, outside the prescribed syllabus, spurred due to an association with these fine teachers. At one stage I even had the temerity to challenge them to a dictation-spelling contest, of a piece I had learnt from a relative; the actual sentence read: ‘a harassed cobbler and an embarrassed pedlar sitting on a cemetery wall eating Britannia biscuits made of desiccated coconuts went into unparalleled ecstasy at the symmetry of a lady’s ankles.’ I tried this out on P. Lal and Vishwanathan; to my eternal delight, they both made at least five spelling mistakes each—this probably was the high point of my college course in St. Xavier’s. If it also punctured a little of the high esteem (admittedly much of it justified) that they held of themselves, all the better! You may like to try it out with someone who is pleased with himself about his command of the English language.

Among the other memories of college days could be mentioned the need to visit the private rooms of Fr. Goreux, who was probably in his 50s at that time. He was our mathematics professor and in his younger days had been in the group headed by Einstein somewhere in Germany or France. He smoked cigars incessantly. Once you opened the door to his room, a fragrant delicious aroma would hit you, giving much pleasure; an incentive for me to visit him often, find excuses to get there to experience the feeling. I suspect I became an inveterate smoker in later years mainly because of a subconscious addiction to tobacco which started at that time and manifested itself a few years later. Goreux would solemnly define mathematics as ‘something that entered the notebook of the student from the notebook of the teacher, without entering the head of either!’ I bet a majority of the students and teachers in colleges would agree. Talking of tobacco, in later years when I became a chain smoker, I wanted to ‘kick the habit’; I took to pipe smoking to reduce tobacco intake. Visiting New York City on some assignment, I recall walking along Fifth Avenue, entering a high quality smoking-pipe store and lovingly examining the specimens on display. There was one ‘full-week set’—7 pieces, one for each day shaped differently, that took my fancy. I drew the attention of the salesman, who looked like a Wall Street banker, and asked him for the price. His reply: ‘Sir, if you ask for the price, you can’t afford it!’

One word on the second language issue. Since I could not touch Hindi or Bengali as second language for the intermediate course (Sanskrit was not offered in St. Xavier’s College), I chose Tamil even though I did not study it as a language in school. Though this was not taught in the college, we were allowed to write the exam. The course itself was not too complicated or difficult, with not much stress on grammar etc. The main syllabus consisted of Kamban’s Ramayana , written about 1,000 years back, in Tamil, in particular Ayodhya Khand . By and large it followed the Valmiki text—while Valmiki treated Rama as ‘an ideal man’

, Kamban looked at Rama as an avatar

(incarnation of god). Kamban’s Ramayana is renowned for its poetic imagination, and is a recognized masterpiece in Tamil literature. During the two summer holidays that I had, I devoted a large part to study this text, where my teacher was a brilliant young man—Matha Das—a devotee of Janaky Matha in the ashram. He was a genuine Tamil scholar, himself a poet of repute and was able to inculcate in me great love, curiosity and interest in Tamil literature. In one of his long verse poems, celebrating his Guru Janaky Matha I still recall the quality of his poetic imagery; referring to her as a Jeevan Mukta (attainment of nirvana while still living in this world and doing the routine chores, otherwise possibly also called Sahaja Yoga), he described her in fluid Tamil as ‘Tamarai elai mel tanneerey, thayir mel vennai thani wazhvey ’—her life was like a drop of water on a lotus leaf, a lump of butter swimming on the buttermilk’—one of spiritual detachment in life.

What I treated as a chore, in terms of learning Kamban, Matha Das converted to a pursuit of great pleasure. I looked forward to the two-hour post-lunch session when he would go through the text stanza-by-stanza with me, and bring out the finer points of the composition. Today, nearly 60 years later, I can recite verbatim a number of stanzas from Kamban’s Ayodhya Khand with as much pleasure as I got the first time I understood it—for example, describing the defeat of the asuras who had come to disrupt the yagyna (sacrificial penance) of the great sage Vishwamitra. Rama frightened them so much that they ran away in great rapidity, ‘one in front of the other ' (not one behind the other, that is, he routed them, creating chaos); I could give 50 instances of Kamban’s genius. Describing Rama’s entry into Mithila, Sita’s town, Kamban talks of the starry-eyed young girls looking at Rama striding the streets—those who saw Rama’s shoulders could not take their eyes off, so enthralling was it—the same for those who saw Rama’s hands, and so on—was there one person in Mithila who could see Rama whole?—so beautiful was he! Among the regrets in my life, one is that I could not find the time or energy to read Kamban’s Ramayana in full or more of Tamil literature, which is replete with great ideas and expressions. In Tamil, Katratu Kaimannalavu, Kalladadu Ulagalavu —What you know is like a fistful of sand, what you don’t know is as big as the universe.

The two years in the University of Calcutta, in the Department of Applied Mathematics went by in a whirl. It is astonishing how our post-graduate courses, even one in an institution as renowned as Calcutta University focused on rote-learning. Even at that high level of the subject, it was treated as mechanical conveyance of some solved problems from the teacher to the student; Goreaux was right—it was a mere matter of notes passing from the teacher to the student, neither having to apply his mind. The professors, unlike the ones that I saw in St. Xavier’s College, were completely demotivated, treated the lectures as chores to be performed. In a monotone continuous lecture, with no animation, energy, or application of mind, they would cover the day’s prescribed quota of ‘dispensing’ knowledge. It was all so mechanical, so routinized, that neither the student nor the teacher was interested. I recall that the statistics professor would deal with abstruse and complicated statistical applications, without laying the ground work—a comprehension of the basics of the various distributions, particularly the Gaussian distribution. The focus was on going into the higher reaches, without bothering to see if there was a foundation. Is this typical Indian mentality? Always building the upper floors without laying a foundation? Our professor on particle dynamics had a great reputation—he had studied at Gottingen University in Germany—much that he talked about was Greek and Latin or rather Deutsch to us. Only the professor who taught us ‘fluid mechanics’ tried to lay a foundation; each class was interesting. This is the practice that I saw being observed at Harvard University, where I spent a year obtaining a Master’s degree—the beginning of each course would intensely focus on the basics and fundamentals for the first two weeks or so; the professor would ensure that everyone was on board, before embarking on the journey for the higher reaches. Incidentally, this failure to carry the class is a basic reason why our primary education system has failed in India. There is no pedagogy to speak of, but more of this elsewhere. In short, I have no serious academic memories of my M.Sc. course in Calcutta. The time was essentially spent on cricket, sports and every movie that came to town. It was not difficult to pass with high grades, only a very poor student could have failed!

Perhaps a couple of words would be in order about the year or so that I spent at the Imperial College in London, during which time I also prepared for the IAS examination. I had studied the ‘Schlichting’s theorem’ in my M.Sc. course so it was a great surprise to see the great man—old, bearded Professor Schlichting himself actually teaching us at the Imperial College of Science in London the next year—a venerable old man, who took the course, and started from the beginning, to hold the class together through the semester. How many students can recall studying a theorem in whichever class they are in, and go on to meet the author of the theorem in an academic atmosphere!—I presume this happens regularly at the research stage, but surely not too often at levels below.

There are so many events and incidents that I am tempted to recount but here are just a few, briefly. I spent a year at the Indian YMCA Hostel in Fitzroy Square, off Tottenham Court Road, presided over by the patriarch Malaiperuman, a character in his own right. He identified me after a few months as the appropriate person to be the leader of the students’ union. It was thus that every month or so I would preside over a meeting, where special guests were invited. I had the honour to sit next to Vijayalakshmi Pandit, then High Commissioner to UK. On another occasion, our guest-in-chief was Harold Macmillan, the then PM of UK. I still have a photograph of the welcome address given by me, wearing the only good shirt and the only suit, charcoal grey, that was my possession—for variety I would interchange between the two neckties that I had.

Incidentally within days of the Macmillan visit, I was going by the ‘Tube’—metro to you—and who entered the compartment but the prime minister himself. He was carrying his own umbrella and briefcase, was accompanied by just one person, presumably a secret agent, who stood at a reasonable distance. All those in the compartment quickly recognized that the prime minister was amidst them—after a quick look up, they went back to their newspapers. The PM stood through the three or four stations till he alighted, with not a second look from anyone. Can one imagine such a scene in India, today or at any time? I once saw the Chief Minister of Uttarakhand travelling in his convoy of more than 100 vehicles near Karanprayag, with all traffic on the other side stopped for more than 45 minutes. No VVIP worth his name can be seen in public without 30 or 40 dancing black-cats. One wonders if the security agents accompany them to the toilets also in their own houses! Admitting that the security situation all over the world has deteriorated sharply in recent decades, the kind of worship that we do of VVIPs in India is surely obscene. The other day a friend resident in a Swiss town related a real life story of going to a coffee shop with his brother visiting from India somewhere in Switzerland. They struck a conversation with a stranger, who seemed friendly and had goodwill for India. Only after the coffee, when he was leaving, did the stranger introduce himself as the President of Switzerland. My friend couldn’t believe it so he went to Google and ascertained that it was true. I spent six years in Geneva in the 1980s and to this day I do not know the name or face of the president or the finance minister of Switzerland at that time. Surely, the more developed a country is, the less ostentatious their leaders—empty drums make the most noise. To those who don’t believe this story, there is the video on YouTube, in August 2013, of the Swiss president of the day visiting China on an official trip, being shown collecting his own suitcase from the baggage belt and pushing the trolley to his car. President Truman of the US was known to have retired with absolutely no property, except a small house inherited by his wife. He drove home in his own car driving himself away from the White House as he retired, not accompanied by anyone. He personally went and purchased his rail or bus tickets for his post-retirement travel. Compare this with the opulent demands of President Pratibha Patil, who acquired vast land through dubious means to construct, at huge official cost, a post-retirement ‘humble’ residence. Clearly, the poorer the country, the more pompous the official.

During that period, I ‘prepared’ for the IAS examination—basically on the insistence of my father. The special feature of the examination is that a candidate has to prepare at least two subjects, one each at the graduate and post-graduate levels in addition to the fields he studied in, in his undergraduate course. This is the built-in feature to ensure that the entrants to the service should have the ability to come up to a reasonable level of grasp in a subject unfamiliar to them in a short time. It was autumn 1960—I was in London, appearing for the IAS exams (London, and possibly New York, were centres those days, since discontinued). My preparedness for the exams was extremely limited, perhaps confined to reading the notes from K.S. Iyer’s Postal Tutorial coaching in the ‘electorals’. The preparations were so tardy that I had not even studied the format for the general knowledge or English essay papers. So much so, that when the seven subjects to choose from for the ‘essay’ were revealed to me in the exam hall, I had a shock. I was totally ignorant of any information or background or experience on any of the topics prescribed. After looking turn by turn at each of the topics for a full half an hour, noting with a side-wise glance that all the others had furiously launched their attack on their chosen subject, I finally decided to take a plunge on the topic ‘The Moon—fact and fancy’ probably dictated by the fact that I knew some facts about the moon from my astronomy paper in the higher mathematics course! Anyway, I composed whatever I could improvise on this esoteric subject over the next hour or so and completed my task a good half an hour before the closing bell—thoroughly frustrated, angry with myself for not having prepared properly, and generally in a state of disgust. As I was leaving the venue, the chatter of the others who wrote the exam that day with me (including Moni Malhoutra, J.P. Singh and Vinod Grover—whom I did not know at that time), filled the stairway with learned references to Voltaire, Bertrand Russell, Bentham (referred to with panache as Benzhham) which added to my distress.

I summoned the will to go to the next day’s exam, probably on English language and grammar. I was having breakfast at what I thought was 8 am at the YMCA Hostel, prior to taking the underground to the venue at India House in Aldwych. I half heard someone at the next breakfast table, about the winter time change, that it was past 9 am—the clock had been taken forward by an hour at mid-night. I left the breakfast half eaten, sprinted to the metro station, and was perspiring in the train when it broke down in the tunnel, in the middle of nowhere due to some failure in the system—the first and only time this happened during the nine months that I was in London that year—perhaps the time change had something to do with. As I raced from the station to India House, I reached there panting, bedraggled and in an awful physical and mental state when I met my guardian angel in the form of K.P.S. Menon, First Secretary in the Indian Mission. He took one look at me, understood my predicament, and told me that he would give me an extra hour beyond the official closing time and asked me to take 10 minutes to compose myself before sitting down for the paper.

At the end of the compulsory round of exams, I judged that I had done terribly, and it was futile to persist with the process of completing the other subject papers. I send a postal aerogram to my father who was based in Calcutta, briefly informing him that I intended to stop the process of completing the papers, and promptly forgot about it. There was a gap of 12 days between the compulsory and my subject papers. About a week later, I got a phone call from Calcutta—it was my father imploring me to go through the papers to the best of my ability for ‘his sake’. I completed the process, more to oblige him than with any real expectations. In the event it is very likely that the English essay examiner may have got disgusted with reading repeatedly about ‘men being born free’, Immanuel Kant and the like, and found an amateurish attack on the moon to be a refreshing change. Clearly he was in a liberal mood, that I got very high marks for that paper, among the highest awarded to an essay!—one cannot account for tastes!

One of those who appeared in the IAS exam with me in London was Ravi Dayal, from a distinguished family, who was in Oxford on a Rhodes scholarship. He was quite brilliant—needless to say he was in the top bracket in the written examinations and was an automatic to be called for the interviews, held in Delhi in January/ February 1961. The previous summer he had spent his holidays in Moradabad, where his elder brother Virendra Dayal was the District Planning Officer. Senior Dayal was deeply immersed in his field work, went to every block in the scorching heat and was trying to push through the current ideas of ‘democratic decentralization’— bringing the involvement of the local village bodies in development administration. During Ravi’s IAS interview, this fact somehow cropped up. A board member asked Ravi about his experiences in the villages and blocks of a district. Ravi Dayal replied roughly in the following manner: ‘It was beastly hot, I went to one place and had enough; the rest of the time I spent in Moradabad town, I was in the air-cooled room, curled up with some good books.’ He received zero marks in the interview quota—the board judged that his ‘attitude’ was not appropriate—a Rhodes scholar was found ‘unfit’ for the service! I believe that the rules have now been changed, there are no minimum marks in an interview. As one comes across officers all over the country today, the key issue is one of attitude and approach—a feeling that one is serving the public. Compassion, I would rate as the number one requirement in an IAS officer; note that they already have high IQ, demonstrated through the examination route.

On joining the IAS after the competitive examinations held in September-October 1960, I was to join the National Academy of Administration at Mussoorie in summer. It was wonderful to be in the academic atmosphere with not much responsibility or work to do, except be present for the various lectures. In retrospect one understands how ineffective the career preparation was at the academy—the real training started only when one joined the district a year later. However, lectures and lecturers were there to be endured. The real point of the academy was to bring people from all over India together, many of whom had not been exposed to the language, culture, food and other personal habits from other parts of India. Thus, probationers from the deepest south of India could meet, understand, and find a common denominator with, say, their counterparts from North East India. Besides probationers were, more often than not, allocated to non-home states, and got a taste of their future workmates by meeting their counterparts from the allotted states at the academy. The overall atmosphere was one of holiday—the impending reality of field work had not yet sunk in. The real benefit of the academy, and I believe that this is the major gain, and an important one, is for young officers destined to hold senior positions in Indian administration to get to know how strong the common elements were among themselves, despite the large variations in their language, origins, social backgrounds etc. One got to know the great diversity, and the underlying unity that is India. The other benefice, a major one is the bondage created at Mussoorie, the networks that facilitated transaction of government business over a 40-year period. Surely the architects of the IAS had understood the potential that the academy had in readying the probationers to start their careers in their respective states.

During the first weeks at the academy, many weekends were spent in Delhi, as groups of probationers would go ‘to town’, for distraction from the serious studies! I recall, in middle August, as we were returning by the overnight train from Delhi, about eight of us were in a first class compartment of the Mussoorie Express, all with valid reservations—I was sleeping in an upper berth. Sometime in the middle of the night, it could have been at Muzaffarnagar, a large number of locals, burly Jats, forced themselves into the compartment—probably they were going to the next town for the village bazaar or on a group visit for something. They woke up the probationers, and three or four sat down in each of the lower berths, nearly occupying the full area. When there was not enough room, I remember one of them shaking me rudely, and asking me to sit up, to make room for two or three more in my upper berth. When I remonstrated, and gesticulated shouting something about reservations, two of them bodily lifted me from the upper berth, took me to the window on the other side (those days there were no steel bars on windows), threw me on the platform and returned to the berth, a job well done. Suddenly the train started moving, I ran to the main door, hanging there for a while till a fellow probationer opened the door for me and brought me back in. I should add that the visitors were not unkind to me, they offered me sitting space in my own upper berth, not mentioning a word. That probably was the moment when I finally understood that I was back in India—London was 6,000 miles away!

The lecturers were of poor quality. For instance, the history professor would talk of ‘the main crops in that area are rice, wheat, sorghum and paddy…’ Professor Ramaswamy, the economics professor, entertained us with many stories, including an injunction to the boys in private conversations, to make sure that they had intimate encounters with eunuchs before their marriage, as a necessary preparatory step—an advice I did not take, I do not know how many others did. It is also not known to me what corresponding advice he gave to the female probationers in the batch. A memorable quote from Ramaswamy: ‘Karl Marx, sitting in his ivory tower, contemplating humanity …’ the rest was irrelevant.

One story relating to Ramaswamy is relevant, as it pointed to an essential administrative feature that I would see repeatedly in my service period. The 1961 batch was divided into four groups, and each group was sent on ‘Bharat darshan’ to one part of India to get a feel for local conditions all over the country. Ramaswamy was our ‘batch leader’ with his wife staying back in Mussoorie. This was winter time which saw heavy snow in Mussoorie going up to 5 feet deposits on the roads. Someone in our batch, I am not sure who but I have a strong suspicion, sent a telegram to the academy in Mussoorie that Ramaswamy had died of a heart attack—as cruel and heartless an act as is possible, which cannot be described as any kind of joke. The reaction in Mussoorie, particularly in Ramaswamy’s household can be imagined; because of the heavy snow, telephonic communication could not be made. The batch received a frantic message for details of Ramaswamy’s death, and asking for further steps. In his inimitable nonchalant style, Ramaswamy himself telegraphically replied ‘All well in batch IV—Ramaswamy’. I am unhappy to say there was no proper inquiry to identify the culprit who played the prank, if it can be called that. Surely he should have been identified, and his services terminated without fuss. Recall that no cause or reason needs to be given for termination of the services of a probationer, Article 311 does not apply.

One other bright period during the Mussoorie academy course was the ‘army’ attachment for two weeks. I opted for the high altitude group based at Tangdar, not far from Muzaffarabad, a few miles from the line of control overlooking the PoK border. This was sometime in November when winter had settled in. Our small group of 10 was attached to 6/5 Gurkhas, commanded by Colonel Bakshi and part of a brigade headquartered there. This was an experience to remember—even the road trip to Tangdar, driving from Srinagar, was exciting. The army vehicles moved on chained tyres; there was one valley to be crossed, where the possibility of an avalanche was ever present. One had to cross that on foot, only in the night, single file, walking not in unison or rhythm, in absolute silence, to minimize the chances of an avalanche being triggered. The daily routine in the camp was designed to ‘teach these civilian bastards a lesson’, so the day would start at 3 am, since the main drive should be done before day-break with so much snow around. On reaching the road-head to approach the picket, the climb would start up the hill—a painful, prolonged, agonizing trudge it would be. In the last 500 yards or so, a sturdy young Gurkha soldier (short as I am, he was a good foot shorter than I was), grabbed me by the shoulder and practically ran up the slope over the fresh snow and with huge relief, the army outpost on the ridge was reached, around 2 or 2.30 pm. The hot chai , heavily laced with sugar and cream, tasted heavenly. After an hour there, espying the Pakistani picket across the valley by binoculars and exchanging stories about the encounters and firing in the past years, the return journey would start. This would last only an hour, as much of it was done sliding down on the snow at a fair clip; the only concern was not to go down so hard so as to crash on to a projecting stone ledge; then on to the waiting truck. Sharp at 7.30 pm, the assembly would take place at the brigade mess and at 7.45 pm Brigadier Varma (probably from the famous Ravi Varma family, belonging to the old Travancore Raja’s army, which merged with the Indian Army after independence), the Brigade Commander would arrive, order the first bottle of Old Smuggler opened—the first drink for everybody would be on the brigadier. A bottle those days cost

8 in the mess; the brigadier who probably did nothing the whole day would stand and drink at the bar—nobody could sit down while the brigadier was on his feet. Around 11.30, when the brigadier had downed his 4 or 5 drinks, dinner would be served and then we would return to our camp beds only to get up at 2 am, have a quick shave with the hot water also meant for our morning tea, and be ready for visiting the next picket that day. This was the exciting daily routine. On the odd days when we had ‘free’ evenings, a ‘teen-patti’—‘flash’ cards session—would be organized by the local officers, along with some forest contractors with heavy betting—at least it seemed very heavy to us at that time—with a daily transaction of about

400 each, which was our monthly salary those days. One could see even then the great ‘generosity’ shown by forest contractors to the local army officers—they showed no compunction to us IAS boys, who were fleeced mercilessly. The ten days went by very fast. We could get a clear picture of the harshness and barrenness of the very difficult life of the soldiers and their officers in these extreme conditions. The programme was designed to give the ‘soft’ civilians a glimpse into the harsh living conditions of our armed forces in our border areas—it was successful in achieving its purpose.