THE DATE TRAP

When we were young we were taught to respect Time. When I joined the Navy, I first hand experienced that Time and Tides do not wait for anyone. As I am moving on with my life , I am convinced that Tides, Times and also Dates do not show any mercy to humans who do not respect these three identities.

              

Times and Dates are intertwined heavily. They both move in tandem and at a great speed. From times immemorial, human beings started keeping a close watch on time. The various activities of mankind started revolving around time as the value of time grew with the rising thinking prowess. An opportune time was all that human beings in various capacities depended upon to strike their desired bargains. The faith around the opportune moment became so overpowering that humans also evolved Astrology. The prediction of dates and times catapulted marauding warriors into Emperors and reduced Emperors into mere fugitives. The vast regions of planet Earth were scourged to meet the predicaments of dates and times.  New states and countries were carved out at the stroke of a particular hour and as the stars crossed the designated paths. Many a destinies were created with the predictions of Dates and Times. At the turn of the last Century, the hype around the Date and Time lead to an Earth wide chaos and many a software and hardware businesses kept ringing the fortune bells of their owners. Such is the brutal power of Date and Time that even a slight disrespect can create havoc into lives.

             

Today, we depend on various mechanism to keep track of the Date and Time. It has been a rather quick journey from the first spring driven watches of the 15th Century Europe to the various technological marvels that adorn humans today. The word "watch" came either from the Old English word woecce which meant "watchman", because it was used by town watchmen to keep track of their shifts at work or from 17th century sailors, who used the new mechanisms to time the length of their shipboard watches (duty shifts). Come what may, no one alive can deny the rush caused by Date and Time in their lives.

             

In-spite of the values associated with the functions of Date and Time, humans end up confused in their race with these identities. The renowned Management Gurus have earned their recognitions around the simplification of the concepts of Date and Time. The essence of each and every facet of Management is the correct analysis of Date and Time. Strike the deal at the correct point and the strategy pays off. The development of the Strategy at the correct point in essence is again a function of Date and Time. The source of correct funding and the correct expenditure/ revenue generation is also a function of Date and Time. The identification of the best manpower also features Date and Time (The Interview!!). The beauty of the victory is celebrated at that Date and Time and a moment later it becomes history. The war continues from thereon again. A botched Date and a wrong Time can lead to dastardly and barbarious acts. The outcome of such horrible acts is again a penalty of lost Dates and Times. The victory is a short feeling of deja vu in terms of Date and Time, however, a wrong act culminates into a great loss of Date and Time.

           

Every human comes at a cross road again and again in his/her lifespan. It is that cross road where the Date and Time take a lead as they are both tireless identities. A good decision and an energetic sprint of life is all that is required to start tracking the Date and Time from the cross road point. Humans need not be Usain Bolts to catch up with Date and Time. It is just a matter of will power and focused approach to meet the situation of cross road head on. Respect thy Clock as Date and Time are the most valuable and most perishable of all our possessions. Check and Mate with Date and Time.

LIFE- THE GAMUT OF OPERATIONS

14 April 1912, at 2100 Hours Captain John Smith set out from the First Class Party Room on-board his massive passenger liner towards the Bridge. He climbed the ladder to the ship's behemoth bridge. The ambient temperatures outside had plummeted to dead zero. Captain Smith had been a seafarer for 40 years and this was his last voyage and a historic one. After all, he was the man chosen to Captain the TITANIC on its maiden sea voyage from England to New York. The Titanic had left Cork,Ireland on the early afternoon of 11 Apr 1912 with 2200 passengers.

 

Titanic was a technological marvel albeit with many operational blunders. She was designed to keep speed and comfort in the fore-front. However, the safety aspects of this machine left much to be desired during her design stage. There was an illusion of safety about the ship and she was declared as "virtually unsinkable" thus testing the theories of operational hazards. She had a Marconi Wireless but it was utilized as a commercial tool to satiate the desires of First Class Passengers, for whom the information of stock markets (even whilst at sea in 1912!!) meant more money and more business.

                 

Titanic received almost 10 warnings from neighboring ships about the presence of icebergs but all of them unfortunately did not land at Captain Smith's table for his remarks and guidance as the Ships's Wireless Set was being constantly utilized for commercial operations and the Operator's focus had shifted. The last warning came at 2140 Hrs and the Captain missed it also. At 2100 Hrs, Captain Smith entered the Bridge and gazed into the clear night ahead. His sea trained eyes clearly saw the ship's fox'le (Forecastle). He gazed deep into the Big Ocean ahead and retired to his Cabin at 2130 Hours. At 2340 hrs, lookout sailor Friedrick Fleet reported a floating iceberg and Sixth Officer James Moody ordered the rudder to hard port (left). The massive ship did turn to port but not before the iceberg had ripped its hull open by a 300 feet long gash on its starboard (right) side. Titanic sinks at 0220 hours on 15 April 1912 just 2.40 hours after hitting wandering iceberg. Finally, the sea belongs to its natural inhabitants, seafarers are merely the tenants of the seas.

                 

 The Titanic clearly relates to the vagaries of life. At the design stage, someone surely must have observed the design lacunae but his observation would have been subdued. The Ship went into its operational role as a brand and within no time touched the bottom of the sea in-spite of a perfectly synchronized machinery. Life also has its operational limits. We end up with many observations but subdue them under various pressures. The timely acts are thus avoided and we eventually meet the collisions of our life on clear nights but with plummeted temperatures. There is no recovery when the big sea of life engulfs the panic stricken soul. The hard decisions that are avoided at the opportune moment come to haunt as the soul sinks into chilling confines of the moment. There is no recovery unless a miracle happens and this miracle has its own operational cost. It is hard to assimilate, but it is better to believe the instincts and do the needful at the right time rather than regret the missed opportunity.

                  

These days, we are in for hard measures in our respective lives. These measures are a must for better future operations. Let not the rhetoric deny them as the struggle of today is better than tears of tomorrow.

                  

The nearest ship to the sinking Titanic was the Californian. She was equipped with a wireless set too but alas, its Captain had ordered the set to be taken off the watch after sunset. Her Bridge Officer reported many a times to the Captain about lights going up and down into the sea. The Captain of Californian dismissed them as shooting stars!! The liner Carpathia rushed to rescue Titanic from 58 sea miles away and picked up 705 passengers from the icy coffin of the Atlantic Sea. Carpathia docked at New York on 18 Apr 1912 with the survivors. Carpathia was sunk by a German U-boat Torpedo off Ireland in 1918, but most of her crew and passengers were rescued. She had exercised her operations well and the life boats sailed away before the hull broke into two and hit the bottom. Rise and shine  and take your decisions at the right time to maximize your lives and its gamut of operations.
              

CHANGE- THE ONLY CONSTANT

Change is the only constant. It is bitter to begin with in most of the cases but its overture soon blends into lives. Change hits everyone at every stage of life and is inevitable. My paternal grandfather got uprooted during partition from Rawalpindi. His job as the Branch In-Charge of erstwhile Lloyd's Bank (then Grindlays Bank and today's Standard Chartard Bank) took him to Rawalpindi, Peshawar and Murree Hills. The bank would shift its branch operations depending upon the "change of weather" between Rawalpindi and Murree Hills. At Partition, he was offered a change to Dacca to manage the branch operations. The fissures of partition and leaving back the hard earned assets took the wind out of his change management capability. He was 48 years of age , but, not ready for a change. The magnitude of shifting over to Dacca (back to new country) took its toll and he resigned his job. The Partition Claim Commission offered him a 500 Sq Yards plot at Vasant Vihar, New Delhi. A broken spirit brought him to Delhi and the mere sight of the then forested Vasant Vihar did not lift his spirit. He changed over from Vasant Vihar to a 450 Sq Yards plot at Rohtak where his brethren lived. The change was happening too fast and not settling down. The job was gone, the lands had been left behind and the future looked forlorn. Back at Rohtak, his savings got wiped off in constructing a decent house for his family. The change was the only constant till he lived as it had unsettled his plans. Probably their generation never expected the divide at the stroke of midnight!!

 

His untimely demise catapulted my father's life into an early job with the Grindlays Bank as the bank honored its trusted branch in-charge's family. Change hit my father hard and he landed into a job running as an under-graduate leaving his passion Music which he shared with his counterpart competitor Jagjit Singh in the erstwhile Punjab University. Shuttling between bank at New Delhi and Rohtak, he completed his graduation through the Evening College. Change kept him moving and soon his life moved on. The family stabilized but to capture the lost pre-Independence stature- there was a long way to go. My father had two wonderful friends. For the sake of simplicity, I would call these two grand Punjabi gentlemen as RS and GL. They were younger to my father by a decade but the bonhomie of daily commutership on Rohtak-Delhi-Rohtak train, passion for music and badminton brought them firmly together.  The times and tides started changing in early 80s. Delhi started expanding and Rohini started to emerge as the largest colony at Delhi. Traveling from Rohtak to Delhi, one day, the Roadways Bus suddenly turned left and we encountered the Ring Road for the first time. The sheer magnitude of the Road was a sight in itself and passengers excitedly spoke about Rohini and Delhi's expansion. Vasant Vihar had by then moved on to be Delhi's hot spot.

         

My father's venerable friends also were excited at the changes engulfing the Country. GL uncle bought a Maruti Omni and we would excitedly wait for Sunday evenings to visit Tilyar Lake- the picnic spot near Rohtak. RS uncle and his father saw the change coming in fast and soon they converted their cloth business at an Old Delhi market into a electrical switchgear factory. The change hit them hard and in the face but they plunged into it. GL uncle also moved on and started an independent garment production unit. Both uncles migrated to Delhi along with families. They impressed hard upon my father to move on to Delhi but my father was contended with his circumstances and change hit him slowly but surely. My father continued his tryst at Rohtak and was contented with his changes which kept him engaged surely enough. I moved on to NDA and my father moved on to the next world. The Change hit all of us hard enough and we were in whirlpools of its quagmire.

        

Now, yet another change is engulfing the Nation. We are moving on finally. The date with destiny is set and the change has to be embraced. Someone has to rise above the change and meet its challenge head on. In each one of us lies a change agent and he/she has to act at the right time to face the change. The future beckons only to those who face the avalanche called-Change. Change needs to be welcomed and embraced with a smile. A change agent needs support from the other members of his/her family. The umbilical chord has to be cut to let the change agent swim ahead and gain a foothold at the new destination. The agent would help others to reach ashore before another change moves in to explore the uncharted territory. Its a relay race and someone must take the baton to embrace the new change and lead from thereon. It is my time  for my share of changes and the baton is firmly in my hand. The bandwagon is moving and the change agents will keep their running shoes on to scale the distances. I have tied my laces up and I am running to meet the challenge of the Change bandwagon. Love thy Change as God Loves Those Who Love Changes............

THE SUMMER-II

In my last post on Summers, I had brought the pleasures of tackling summers with indigenous means. In the years gone by, I was brought up in the Texas of India. The name Texas is synonymous with the state of Haryana and especially in the Indian Defence Circles.  The reasons are manifold but the best reasons are the weather,the standing hair of robust men from Haryana and their glazed model cowboy looks!! Circa 1985, I was roughing out Class IXth and many new factors had started emerging in my life and especially in School. The environment of the society and school was changing rapidly. We were all generating newer outlooks in our respective spheres.

           

I was getting favorable glances from the opposite genders and also the political scenario of the state was changing toward a new regime. Me and and a few friends were also great cricket fans and India after tasting its maiden World Cup triumph of 1983 was playing a major tournament called "World Championship of Cricket" Down Under in 1985. The changing personal life, the pressure of Class IXth and the love of the game were all mounting on our fragile and impressionable mindsets. Vociferously, a new leader was also emerging from behind scenes to take over the reins of the state. His rhetoric was "Power to the Rural Areas". As the power started vanishing from the cities, our lives also started changing.

         

 A teacher of mine was keeping a careful tab on our activities and one fine day after the Term-I exams he rounded a few of us. He wrote on the Board- " Intelligence is Only 1% and 99% is Preparation" and cited Arjuna's Mahabharata example. He advised us to conserve our precious energies to reach our goals. His cold looks scared the crow out of our "juvenile turning adult" minds and we pledged subservience to our aims and studies. The final match of the Cricket Championship was scheduled that afternoon and as usual the electricity had vanished from our town. We cycled straight from School to the Boys Hostel of Medical College , Rohtak which enjoyed the constant trickle of electricity. Whilst watching the finals and a historic win by India was followed by Ravi Shastri winning the famed Audi Car. I and my buddy pledged to ourselves that we would deliver what we had promised to our venerable teacher Mr Ishwar Singh Varma.

          

The hide and seek of electricity amidst the charged battle before the ballot was on. The same evening, my mother got hold of 02 Lanterns, a nylon rope woven chair and a vintage table was rigged up for me in my room. The spartan wooden plank bed had a thin mattress and a bed-sheet and the game was set. The electricity supply to the towns was for 8 hours a day and in patches. The longest hour was from 2000- 2300 hrs and then it was all darkness. The lanterns used to be kept ready at 2230 hours and sharp at 2300 hours, both the lanterns used to be fired up. Sitting on the nylon rope chair which bent at an angle, the studies used to be peaking up at around 2300 hours in the light of the lanterns. The night was set for a long haul and the tryst continued.

           

The   wily crusader for electricity to remote areas of the state won a historic election in 1987 and my classmates roughed out their XIth and XIIth in an environment sans electricity at crucial hours. The summers and winters came and went and we continued in the search of our aims. The distractions of our lives also left us after Class Xth when en-masse they decided to take admission in an All Girls College. We became a closed knit bunch of boys in an otherwise co-ed school. The final results after school were encouraging and most of us embarked on our professional journeys.

           

 The Summers have not changed and neither have the temperatures. Also, the slogans of powering up remotest parts of our vast Nation have not changed. The Met Department has been putting forth the big data and this week the temperatures have broken the 62 year old records. This means that 62 years ago also we had similar temperatures in our Country!! So, what has changed in effect? It is the resistance to survive the heat and cold which is changing and the blame is on the climate and the man who gives the slogan but then struggles to fulfill the same. The solution is simple- either bear or wither. We are consuming and consuming we are at a big pace. We gobble faster than we generate. Probably, the Teacher was right- we need to focus on our core jobs and conserve our energies. Each one of us needs to contribute. Switch off the light and fan that we do not need. Reduce the wattage at homes and do not keep the appliances on a standby. Go green and motivate children to conserve energy for a better tomorrow. Let us help the institution in its efforts- let us consume minimal to stay happy and share the precious energy with more consumers. 

TRAVELOGUE- GOLF AT NALDEHRA

Neem Chand is a part time Caddy at Naldehra Golf Course. Neem Chand happily trudges 3 kms when called to caddy for a mesmerized Golfer from the plains. The Golfer's brain spins the moment he enters the Naldehra Golf Course's Club House. A beautiful meadow awaits as one steps out of the Golf Hut and the pristine challenge of the Course unfolds.

             

Looking for a small getaway from the heat of New Delhi, self and the good lady (my trusted Navigator) stepped on the gas in Swift D'zire towards Naldehra located 22 Kms ahead of Simla. We booked ourselves at a resort called The Chalets, Naldehra which is 300 meters from the Golf Course. A night halt at a room called Siachen (which was boiling hot at 42 degrees!!!) at Chandigarh failed to lift our spirits as the heat was bad. We set pace for Naldehra early morning of 01 Jun 14 and soon the car was zooming up the hills toward our destination.

              

The up-climb of 115 odd kms was completed and we crossed many a scenic spots including Mashobra and soon the Golf Course emerged in front of us. It was tempting but I decided to play the game on 02 & 03 Jun 14 and we moved onto The Chalets. Our wooden cottage was a refreshing experience with bunched up roses all around us and also a few raiding Simians who were still not able to comprehend the human habitation in their natural habitat. The arrangements at the resort were great and value for the money. However, by evening my Navigator started feeling a bit feverish.  A shot of Paracetamol (PCM) and we thought that the fever would disappear as it was attributed to heat and tiredness.

                

The next morning we woke up well and after a light breakfast headed for the Golf Course. We linked up with Justice Mahajan and Air Marshal (Retd) Nayyar who congratulated the Golfing Spirit and wished me luck on the Course. Soon Neem Chand  came in to honor my booking and we went off to the Course. The Naldehra Golf Club constitutes a course perched at an altitude of 2,200 meters. It is a par 68, 18-hole course with 16 greens and 18 tees and has a design reminiscent of Scottish links courses. The golf course was built under the supervision of Lord Curzon, the then Viceroy of India in 1905. Captivated by the beauty of the place, surrounded by a thick mane of Himalayan cedar, which was also his favorite camping site just outside the British summer capital of Simla, he established what today is one of the oldest and most scenic golf courses in the country. It is also to be noted that in memory of his stay there he named his third daughter Alexandra Naldehra.Initially a 9 Hole Course, the Naldehra golf course was expanded to 18 holes, and further expansion has been planned to make the course at par with the best in the country.

                 

With Neem Chand in tow I took the position for the Tee-1. Taking a deep breath, I took position and rolled my hands to see the 2 knuckles of my left hand as I gripped my Driver with a light grip. With a silent Golfer's prayer, I lined up the Green 1, swung the Driver back with a deliberate motion , kept my head down on the ball, swung with the might and as my left knee folded towards the Tee the connect was made with the ball and hooray, the Titleist-3 Ball flew up from the hill where I took the hit and crossed the meadow down below and settled on a climbing hill just below Green-1. The beauty of the first shot holding of the ball on a straight flight. The ball seemed to be hit for a long time as the atmosphere helped the ball to take a straight Course. Neem Chand lifted the set and soon we were pacing up and down on this majestic Golf Course. Each Tee Off, Roll, Chip and Putt were a treat in itself and I hit my first Par on the 6th Hole. Neem Chand was happy with my eventual score of 2 Pars, 4 bogeys and 3 double bogeys in the 9 Hole round.  The Naldehra Club measures 4,285 yards. It is a preferred lie course that comprises ten Par 4’s; Six Par 3’s and Two Par 5’s to complete the Par 68 course. The front and the back nine are equally divided into five Par 4’s; three Par 3’s and one Par 5 each. The longest hole on the course is the Par 5, 431 Yards 6th Hole with the shortest being the Par 3, 117 Yards 14th. Most of the Par 4’s have common fairways and are easily drivable by long hitters.

                 

I finished the 9 Hole game and we were hitting a rough patch. My Navigator reported high fever. We retired to the resort and a check revealed a 104 fever. A quick call to the Doctor in Delhi and the advise was followed. However, the intensity of the fever did not come down albeit in phases and soon we were looking in to the end of the Day. The night was very rough as the fever did not subside in-spite of SoS Medicines. The non- availability of a good doctor near the place of stay was proving to be a handicap. We kept the fight on for another day but then I took a call to head back to New Delhi to avoid any further damage. We cruised from Naldehra at 0900 Hrs on 03 Jun 14 and Navigator was by now in great discomfort. However, the fighter in her kept her going and we reached the Armed Forces Clinic after a drive of 7.5 hours and with SoS medicines trying to ward off the fever attacks. The Navigator braved the chills, sweat and pains and was soon inside the confines of Base Hospital.

                

 Things are under control as of now and its been the longest 5 days of my life. The Golf Ball seemed to hold up in the air at Naldehra and these 5 days also seemed to have held on for long. The ball landed after a straight flight and we also landed back at New Delhi after a a straight drive. The Greens were uneven but speedy and the fever maintained its line and mercury kept showing 104 always. The sweat hardly broke on the Course but hydrotherapy was utilized extensively to keep the fever from hitting a dangerous blow. The game ended well and now the life has also started moving again. In true punishment terms, this visit to picturesque Naldehra is a big NC (Not Counted). As I stepped on the gas from Naldehra and Golf Course fell back- I promised- We shall be back to play 18 and for 03 days. The link below would show you a few glimpses of our Travel:-

 https://plus.google.com/photos/101238588481972006061/albums/6021866454386878785?authkey=CJbojrCQhqBa