Military caught in the web of Bureaucracy- Defence meetings at South Block

Discussions items on the agenda
The meeting should have begun at 10 O’ Clock, and it did. At the stroke of the hour, the chairman came in, and even before we had settled down in our chairs, the Staff Officer had read out the first item on the agenda. The ‘old man’ expounded the nuances of that very contentious issue and he enlightened us on the pros and cons of the various alternatives available to us. He regaled the audience with some real life stories on how a bad decision had created such complex problems for the posterity. Having done that, he threw the subject open for discussion. I was not concerned with that particular subject and could therefore objectively watch the proceedings. I saw that some officers wanted to say something merely to be noticed. And when they were snubbed by the ‘chair’ I saw the glee on the faces of the detractors. The discussion went on for a long time, and after that the chairman said, “Well we have heard all the views. Now please send us your comments within two weeks and we will discuss this issue in the next meeting.”

The second item on the agenda was taken up at ten minutes to eleven. And by the time was served at half past eleven, we had finished three out of the 29 items on the agenda. I got a little worried. I had fixed a game of bridge in the afternoon, and the way things were going, it was unlikely that we would be able to finish discussion on all our ‘points’ even at dinner time. I asked a neighbor whether the conference was scheduled to spill over to the next day. He replied in the negative. He told me that the chairman was scheduled to go on a temporary duty that evening.
I need not have worried. After tea, the pace of the conference improved after tea, and during the next one hour we had completed fifteen items. And then, it seems the chairman decided to rush through. The last fourteen items were given a summary treatment, and before one O’clock, we wound up.

Suddenly, it occurred to me that a similar phenomenon occurs during ‘mating’. The first item, i.e. foreplay takes a longish time. But after that, things speed up and towards the end the mating partners are in a frantic hurry. This, I soon discovered, is not the only similarity between the two activities. In meetings, as also mating, nothing really happens after the activity. After meetings, the tables have to be cleared of crockery and after mating there is a bit of cleaning to do. In both cases, nothing really results as a result of all that effort. In rare cases, when something does fructify, it takes several months to manifest by way of a result, despite all the hurry in the end.

My dirty mind went further. I discovered that soon after marriage or the change of boss, mating and meetings are more frequent and more intense. Finally, in winter these activities flourish more than summer. It became increasingly evident to me that the similarity in the spelling of the two words, ‘mating’ and ‘meeting’ is not just a coincidence. It is the result of systematic research carried out by those who created the lexicon.

At his point, I was reminded of the unorthodox ‘meetings’ which are convened by military commanders. These have no formal agenda, and the boss is the only one who speaks. These seamless monologs are a method by which the ‘commander’ asserts his position as the master; the views of the subordinates are neither sought nor entertained. No prize for guessing the equivalent of this phenomenon in the mating game. The only difference is that the authoritative form of such mating is a deadly offence, but in the military meetings of this nature is a routine occurrence and are the birth right of all commanding officers.

From this emerges, what is now known as ‘the Surjit’s principle for military conferences’. It says, “If a meeting is inevitable, just switch off; sit back and ‘conceive’ a short story.”

A Footnote
Between 1973 and ’97 I spent thirteen long years in and around the South Block in New Delhi. The most onerous part of the service in the defense headquarters was the seemingly unending conferences and meetings. In the beginning, I used to listen to every single speaker and try to follow everything which he said. I also took copious notes of all the proceedings. Then, one day in 1987, I was seated just behind the Additional Secretary (Defense) and the meeting was in the office of Sh Arun Singh, Raksha Rajya Mantri. Our friend seemed to be taking notes, since his eyes were glued on to his note-pad. However, a peep on his work revealed some urdu couplets and pencil sketches of birds and flowers. If a question was directly addressed to him, he said, “I beg your pardon, Sir” and then gave an evasive answer like, “Let them send us a note. We will examine the issue on file.”

I had learnt a lesson. From there on I turned these meetings into occasions to reflect on life and do some serious thinking. A great deal of my writing is actually a result of what was ‘conceived’ during those interminable sessions!
Maj Gen Surjit Singh (Retd)
CHANDIGARH, 24 October 2009

Corruption kills creativity in developing nations

Friday, July 10, 2009
Here is what America's immigrant billionaires are made of
Devon Pendleton, Forbes

When New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg welcomed visitors to the newly accessible crown of the Statue of Liberty recently, he paid special tribute to the millions of immigrants who passed by the icon en route to America."The great business formations taking place today are done by people who value the opportunities that America gives them," the city's billionaire chief executive said.

Bloomberg was born in Boston, but dozens of his comrades on the Forbes list of the 400 Richest Americans immigrated to the U.S. armed only with creativity, energy and fierce ambition. Decades later they've built empires in technology, media, real estate and health care, created thousands of jobs and contributed billions of dollars to the U.S. economy.

Grocer and property baron John Catsimatidis, whose parents immigrated from Greece when he was six months old, credits his hardworking father for setting an example of what it takes to be successful."Growing up, my dad worked seven days a week as a busboy," he says. "There was no room for failure, that was instilled in me from the beginning."

Catsimatidis took a job as a grocery store clerk while studying at NYU, and dropped out in his senior year after a friend offered him a chance to buy a piece of his family's store. Catsimatidis owned 10 markets by age 24 and was making $25 million a year in revenue. He plowed $5 million into Manhattan real estate in 1977, and today owns hundreds of millions of dollars of property around the country.

"There is no question that there's a connection between one's drive and search for opportunities and having a foreign beginning," says California real estate magnate Igor Olenicoff. This is particularly true if your early years were spent in a poor country with a strong class system, he says. Olenicoff's Russian family fled to Iran after the 1917 Revolution.

Within Iranian society, "we would never be able to excel or achieve wealth," Olenicoff recalls. It was a sharp contrast to the U.S., where Olenicoff found opportunity--and credit--in abundance when he arrived in 1956.

Both Catsimatidis and Olenicoff say it's tough to instill the ambition and scrappiness bestowed on them by their foreign roots in their children, who have been raised with all the benefits--and trappings--of wealth. "To this day I go around the apartment shutting off lights at night," Catsimatidis says. "Until recently I cleaned my own plate. My kids wouldn't do that."

Tech-savvy immigrants have had a particularly profound impact on today's hyper-connected world. Had Google ( GOOG - news - people ) co-founder Sergey Brin not moved with his family from Moscow to Maryland in 1979, his fortuitous partnership with Larry Page and their subsequent founding of the world's most influential Internet company might never have happened.

Also crucial to Google's success is Iranian immigrant Omid Kordestani, often called the company's "business founder" for his success transforming Google's brand into a mainstream verb.

Yahoo was also the brainchild of foreign-born talent: co-founder Jerry Yang moved to California from Taiwan with his mother and brother in 1978. Ten years old at the time, Yang claims to have known only one word of English. Today he's worth more than $1 billion.
Here is what America's immigrant billionaires are made of

The ocean writes its message on the shore with the waves...

Dear Friend,
Stand on a sea shore, and see. The waves as they come are similar, but never the same. Each wave is as different as the leaves of a tree, alike and yet just a bit characteristic. Gurudev Tagore, from whom I have learnt as much as I have from Mirza Asadullah Khan 'Ghalib' believed that the ocean has something to tell us, and he does so by writing a message on the sand.

Now, as every writer knows it is extremely difficult to express one's inner feelings. Even the best angst us, the likes of Khushwant Singh, write their drafts several times. Tagore, himself spent the last few years of his life trying to improve upon the words of "Gitanjali". And so, standing on a beach, Rabindranath Babu observed the waters of the Bay of his beloved Bengal and said,
"The ocean writes its message on the shores with its waves,
And, in despair, washes it again and again!"

So, if we mortals can not get our words right on the first attempt, let us not despair. The Lord Himself has been trying for aeon's to improve His message, and is at it 24X7, trying to do better than what He has been able to do so far. Rakesh Awasthy has sent a delightful set of pictures of waves (click link below). These are exquisite, and are a treat to the eyes. But make no mistake. The best is yet to come. The nature itself is improving, and so are the cameras and photographers.
"Kal aur aayenge,
mujhse behtar kehne wale
Tumse behtar sun-ne wale
Phir kyon mujhko koyi yaad kare
Kyon waqt apna barbaad kare?
Main pal do pal ka shayar hoon
Pal do pal meri jawani hai
Pal do pal mera nagma hai
Pal do pal meri kahani hai"

No prize on guessing the name of the poet.
Regards and love,
Maj Gen Surjit Singh (Retd)

Enjoy the Ocean Waves
Slide show click me: Most exquisite ocean waves...ever

Lt Gen Mote Dar’s works are sheer poetry

Photo: K.V. Srinivasan
FULL OF LIFE Lt Gen Mote Dar and his paintings
He speaks of the wars of 1965 and 1971 in the same breath as the poetry of T.S. Eliot and Kalidasa. He links strategic military command and the creation of art. Meet Lt Gen (Retd) Mote Dar — former Vice Chief of Army Staff and the man who paints — and speaks — like a poet.

Dar was in Chennai recently for the first showing of his exhibition “Inner Vision Outer Truth” at Prakrit Art Gallery.

He’s been painting for a long time — he had his first exhibition as a young captain in the Indian army back in 1965 — but this set of works is almost entirely new, created in the last few months.

“I continued to paint even as a junior and senior officer, but in the last part of my career, when I became General Officer Commander-in-Chief Southern Command, and then basically the number two man in the army, it was very difficult to find the time,” he says.

Now, of course, he has all the time in the world, so he’s chosen to experiment with oils — he did mostly only water colours before, because they were quicker — and with numerous themes, from a depiction of the seasons of the year to surrealist abstracts.

“In Indian poetry, the seasons of the year have been written about from time immemorial — from Kalidasa to Guru Nanak — linking the different months with festivals, with emotions of separation and union,” he says. “So, I thought I’d do a contemporary re-imagining of them.”

The result is a series of radiantly-coloured paintings filled with lively, abstract imagery of flowers blooming in spring and children playing in the monsoon — a joyful celebration of the seasons. On the other hand, his surrealistic ‘On the thorns of memory’ series is more enigmatic, using more light and shade and Freudian symbolism in the midst of swirls of thick, strong colour.

“I see painting more in terms of an inner awakening, as a form of meditation that drives away your stress, and helps in self-actualisation,” says Dar, who was part of the 1965 and 1971 wars, wounded in the latter.

Creative thinking
He adds: “I also believe it aids in the creative, out-of-the-box thinking that’s so essential in strategic military command — when big armies are on the move, you need to be able to envision their movements in time and space.”

Not surprisingly, one of the most powerful series of paintings in the exhibition has to do with war — a pair of abstracts bearing a single inscription across a solid wall of colour. Starkly gorgeous is the one in the vibrant green of the valleys of Kashmir with a quote from Jahangir in Persian above, and a single trail of blood below. “When Jahangir went to Kashmir, he’s supposed to have said, ‘If there is a paradise on earth, it is here, it is here, it is here’,” says Dar, who is Kashmiri but has had to leave his troubled home state to live in Pune. “But now, it is all tears and blood and coffins.”

However, the collection of 29 paintings pulses with life, much like the man himself. The exhibition is on until February 27.
DIVYA KUMAR
Art and Awakening: Mote Dar’s works are sheer poetry