KAILASH KOHLI - A PERFECT NAVAL OFFICER AND A TRUE FRIEND

Kailash Kumar Kohli is no more. The prayer meeting for him was aptly named "Adieu Admiral"  and his photo was projected on the screen with the caption "An Officer and a Gentleman". That he was and more, a Perfect Naval Officer and a True Friend.

Belonging to different courses and squadrons in the NDA, we didn't really know each other till golf brought us together. An early memory I have is of our playing in the Navy Golf Tournament late in the 1960s at the Bombay Presidency Golf Club, Chembur. My ball went into a bunker and I failed to get it out in two attempts. Frustrated, I looked up and saw Kailash watching me with an amused look on his face. That upset me more and I said, "Oh, you are keeping my score, are you? OK, start counting." And then I proceeded to strike my club in the sand about 20 times before Kailash pulled me out of the bunker. Often when we met, he would remind me of the incident and we would have a good laugh.

From those days, drawing on his initials, I always greeted him with the remark, "K Cube, 'vah khoob'"!

Our first posting together was in Cochin in early '70s, he in the Naval Academy (NAVAC) and I in Signal School. In October '71, I was suddenly transferred as Fleet Communications Officer to the still to be formed Eastern Fleet. As I had to catch a train late in the afternoon, Kailash and Cdr Ravi Sawhney, OiC NAVAC, invited me for pre-lunch drinks, and according to Kailash, got me thoroughly sozzled on beer and stuffed me in my compartment.

Next, in 1977, I was given command of Katchall and Kailash was the Fleet Operations Officer. Rear Admiral 'Mickey' Roy was the Fleet Commander and as he often flew his flag on my ship, Kailash and I got to spend a lot of time together. My outstanding memory of those days is of an unplanned sailing. Late into one night after Katchall's commissioning anniversary party, Kailash and I were enjoying a drink in my cabin when he received a call from Admiral Roy that there was an urgent requirement for a ship to sail to rescue a tug the engine of which had failed. Due to incorrect berthing, the duty ship could not be sailed and Kailash asked me if I would undertake the task. I said yes and we hurriedly gathered a skeleton crew and sailed in the early hours of the morning with Kailash also on board. Fortunately, we found the tug without much ado and towed it safely back to harbour.

Sometime back, I wrote about this incident and others in a piece, "Commanding Katchall" on my blog and asked Kailash if he had read it. His answer as I just traced on my What'sApp, "I have read it not once but three times over, so that I could relish each one of the moments over and over again! Wonderful reading, wonderful memories."

In March '78, Kailash and I were transferred to Wellington as Directing Staff in the Defence Services Staff College. That is when the wives and children got to know each other and spent most free evenings together. Kailash and I played a lot of golf  and were an unbeatable pair in tournaments. The Commandant, Major General Mohinder Singh, a keen golfer himself, was fond of both of us and appointed Kailash as Editor of the DSSC magazine, "The Owl", and me, Golf Captain of Wellington Gymkhana Club, two appointments that were generally the property of the Army.

Working as Directing Staff together, I got a chance to observe Kailash closely and realised that he was a thorough professional. He would not take anything for granted and would examine everything minutely aiming for perfection.

In March 1980, I was transferred to Delhi. Admiral Pereira was the Chief of the Naval Staff and as I knew him well having been his FCO when he was the Eastern Fleet Commander, I sought time convenient to call on him. Immediately, I got an invite for Akhila and me to have a drink with him and Mrs. Pereira that very evening. When we met, the Admiral said he was looking for a new Naval Assistant (NA) as the present one, Premvir Das, was proceeding to USA to the Naval War College (NWC). The Personnel Branch had forwarded Kailash's name and the Admiral asked me if I knew him. I told the Admiral that I knew him very well and that he would make an excellent NA. As we all know, Kailash did take over as NA and did a fine job.

In the next 2-3 years, Kailash did me two good turns. While I was Director Naval Signals, my staff and I felt that the senior officers in the three commands of the Navy should have a clear understanding of what we were doing to improve communications and electronic warfare in the Navy. So we drafted a Top Secret document with instructions that it should be circulated between the Command Headquarters only by hand of an officer and then returned to us. While the letter was in circulation, I was transferred to Bombay and having briefed my successor in Delhi, forgot all about it. More than a year later, I was summoned to Delhi to face a Board of Inquiry (BOI) looking into the loss of the document. Apparently, the Joint Director under me had connived to apportion the entire blame of the loss on me and the Deputy Chief of the Naval Staff (DCNS), no friend of mine, appointed a BOI headed by Kailash who had just returned from the USA after the NWC Course. Despite pressure from the DCNS, Kailash absolved me completely of any blame. But the DCNS was not done and sent me a letter of severe displeasure, for what, he didn't say!

Then Kailash came to Bombay to command the new ship Ganga. I was still commanding Trishul and had been told that my next appointment was as Defence Adviser, Singapore. One afternoonsee , Kailash came to me and said that while he was waiting in the Staff Officer's office to see the C-in-C (the erstwhile DCNS), he overheard a conversation between the latter and the CNS that I was too senior for the post and someone else should go to Singapore. Thanking Kailash for this vital information, I got in touch with a well-wisher in NHQ and my appointment letter was out soon after.

Out of context here, but I must mention that three years later, under almost the same dispensation, I was relieved by an officer of the same seniority as mine!

Back from Singapore, I left the Navy while Kailash was competently going up the ladder. He became a Vice Admiral and lost out on the top job only because he was way down in the seniority roster. 

Meanwhile, we were out of touch for a while before both settled down in Delhi post retirement. Belonging to different clubs, we played golf together now and then and met at home often for a drink or meal. Kailash was born on 31 December, new year's eve, and we attended many birthday parties at his place in Golf Links. On one of them. he took the mike and sang Frank Sinatra songs, notably "My Way", beautifully. I knew Kailash was fond of Indian classical music as we had attended many concerts together, but this was the first time I learnt that he was fond of English music as well. Following up, I realised that his knowledge was extensive and he often provided relevant inputs for my blogs on music. 

Fittingly, "My Way" was played at the end of "Adieu Admiral."

Sometime back, Kailash developed an interest in Western classical music and often rang me up to suggest what he should listen to. So I took him from light classicals like Capriccios to heavy symphonies like Dvorak's "New World" or concertos like Rachmaninov's Second Piano.

On one of my pieces on my blog, I wrote about "Moon River" from "Breakfast At Tiffany's". Immediately after reading it, Kailash rang up to say he was very fond of the song and when his daughters Rachna and Arati had come of age, he presented them air tickets to the US with the line from the song, "Two drifters, off to see the world, there's such a lot of world to see." In July this year, I mentioned the song again in my piece "My Walk On Songs Through Central Park, New York" and got a sweet message from Kailash thanking me for 'evoking lovely memories'.

In the summer of 2022, we visited Miami after Ruchir acquired an apartment there. I spoke to Kailash and we were delighted to learn that they were going to be in Miami too visiting Arati, son-in-law Ravi (we share the same name!) Batta and their daughters. We got together twice, once for lunch at Ruchir's place and then Arati and Ravi called us to their lovely, luxurious home and took all of us out for lunch at their golf club. This year, while firming up our plans to go to Miami, I tried to persuade Kailash and Kumud to come too but they said no as Kailash was having balancing problems and didn't want to take a chance of a fall. We missed them in Miami.

When Akhila and I returned from the US in August, Kailash had fallen ill and was in and out of hospital. On 13 October, Kumud rang up to say he was home. I sent him a message that we would like to come over and see him. He personally replied saying he was weak and we should wait. I wrote back to say he should pick up strength and tell us when to come.

The very next morning, we were stunned by a call from Manju Nehra that he was no more.

And so, sadly and reluctantly, "Adieu Admiral". Rest in peace, my dear friend.

 

  

GROSS NAVIGATIONAL ERROR - ETERNAL RECOGNITION

Navigation is a vital constituent in the successful profile of a proficient sailor. A bad navigator at sea will be exactly that- 'at sea', meaning lost and confounded!

Navigation has come a long way; from just winds, sun, moon and stars to devices like sextants and cross-staffs to take measurements, and almanacs and trigonometric tables to compute the readings to work out one's position. Then came lighthouses, buoys and charts to guide mariners to reach their destination safely. The biggest boost to navigation came in the 20th century with great technical advances from gyro compass to radar and radio aids like Loran and Decca to satellite navigation.

A serious navigational error can lead to grounding of a ship or a collision resulting in loss of life and property and the guilty person is duly punished.  An error discovered in time before causing harm often becomes a subject of leg pulling and humour in the wardroom. In my days in the Navy, a common error was heading for Bimlipatam (now Bheemunipatnam) instead of Vizag (Vishakhapatnam) as their landscapes looked alike from a distance while approaching harbour. Even specialist navigators were known to have fallen victims to the misidentification including one who as Fleet Navigating Officer almost took the Indian Fleet to the wrong harbour. That did not come in the way of his rising to become the naval chief in due course of time!

One of the funniest stories is the rib-tickling incident of the landing craft Magar crossing the Arabian Sea at the height of the monsoon on its maiden voyage from London to Bombay (Mumbai). With no navigational aid but for an erratic compass, the Captain felt lost in stormy weather and poor visibility. A merchant ship was sighted and messages exchanged which revealed that both ships were headed to Bombay but were on opposite courses. Thinking the other ship was right, both ships started following each other's wake going around in circles for a while till a fishing boat came by and helped point the ships in the correct direction to Bombay!

It is quite understandable that serious faults are punished while small, harmless incidents are laughed at. But can you imagine someone becoming a historical legend and earning eternal recognition and praise for committing a gross navigational error! 

The idea that the earth is round was proposed by Pythagoras in ancient times before 500 B.C. Although many seafarers believed that to be true, navigational challenges prevented them from taking any voyages to prove it. Europeans carried out gold and spice trade with India, China and Japan mostly by land and short sailings using the Silk Route. The onset of the Ottoman Empire closed the Route for the Europeans who then had to find other ways to resume trade.

That is when an Italian explorer and navigator, Christopher Columbus, began touting the idea of sailing west to reach the East Coast of Asia. The idea met with stiff resistance and was rejected by Spanish experts but he kept persuading the Spanish royalty and finally got them to accept it and sponsor a voyage. And so in August 1492, he sailed west in search of Asia and on 12 October, made a landfall at an island locally called Guanahani in the Bahamas. He also visited other islands now known as Cuba and Hispaniola. He returned to Spain by early 1493 and claimed he had reached East Indies in the Far East.

In the next nine years, he made three further voyages to the west landing in Lesser Antilles, Trinidad, north coast of South America and east coast of Central America. On his third voyage he made a landfall in what is now Venezuela and realised that the place was too big to be an island and was perhaps a continent. But he still held firm that it was the Far East and named the indigenous people 'Indios' (Indians). 

Spanish experts doubted that Columbus had succeeded in his mission and there were reports of harsh treatment and enslaving of the local people by him. In 1499, he was removed from the post of Governor of the Indies which Queen Isabella I had appointed him after his discovery in 1492. He spent his last few years in disgrace and under various litigations before his death in 1506.

Meanwhile, another Italian, Amerigo Vespucci, undertook an exploratory voyage west and after making a landfall, claimed that Brazil was part of a fourth continent which he called the "New World". He undertook a second voyage and based on his discoveries and findings, cartographers made maps showing the "New World" as America derived from Vespucci's first name, Amerigo. Also Vasco Da Gama reached India via Cape of Good Hope thus putting to rest claims of Columbus.

So where did Columbus go wrong? He made a number of errors but the biggest one was grossly underestimating the circumference of the Earth due to which he thought he would have to travel 9000 miles at the maximum. Some say that he deliberately misled the Spanish royalty regarding the distance in order to get the sponsorship but most give him benefit of doubt and reckon that the error occurred because of confusion between the larger Arab mile and the shorter Italian one. Additionally, he did not know that sailing west, there would be another continent between Europe and Asia. 

After years of ignominy due to reputation of bad governance, achievements of Columbus started gaining traction particularly after the American War of Independence. He was lauded for establishing mutually beneficial contact between the American and the European continents. His 1492 voyage is regarded as one of the three shaping events of modern age and he is referred to as the "founding figure of New World relations." Some credit him for discovery of America even though Vikings had been visiting the continent 5 centuries earlier. He has a country, Colombia, named after him and two prominent districts, District of Columbia in US and British Columbia in Canada. Countless roads have been named after him and commemorative stamps released all over the world apart from statues and monuments including New York's Columbus Circle where a 76 foot column with a 14 foot marble statue of the legend looks down upon me whenever I get out of Ruchir's apartment next door!

And today, 12 October, is celebrated as Columbus Day in US and is a holiday in some countries marking the anniversary of his first landing in the Americas.

No mean recognition for skewed navigation!

  

DUSTIN HOFFMAN, SIMON AND GARFUNKEL, AND "THE GRADUATE".

It was a routine evening and my thoughts were firmly in the present. The big mundane question in my mind was if I should I go for a walk in the park or stroll in the driveway? Then the cellphone went 'Ping' and I saw a message from Ruchir with a photograph. He had just been to a party celebrating the 73rd birthday of Sting and sent me a photo.

I recalled our time in Singapore in 1986 when Sting, then the lead singer of a group called 'The Police' had come out with a hit song, "Every Breath You Take", which one could hear all over from TV to shopping malls to restaurants. What a beautiful romantic number it was which captivated all of us. Sting went on to produce many more hits like "Roxanne" and collaborated with other famous singers like The Dire Straits for another favourite of mine, "Money For Nothing", and won all possible music awards and recognition like inclusion in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Then in the photograph, my eye fell on a short, unassuming guy, and I recognised Dustin Hoffman. That made me leave the present and fly back to 1968: I had just seen the movie, "The Graduate", loved it immensely and knew that it would be permanently etched in my mind. I was not going to be the only one; the movie was an instant hit and nominated for seven Academy Awards including Best Movie and Best Actor for rookie Hoffman. Today, after adjusting for inflation, it ranks as the 22nd highest-grossing film in the US and Canada and as the 17th greatest American film of all time.

Hoffman, an unknown actor at that time, plays the part of young Benjamin Braddock who has just earned his bachelor's degree and is at a loose end with no aim in life. He is persuaded by the much older Mrs. Robinson, wife of his father's law partner, to accompany her to her bedroom and there is a famous line where says, "You are trying to seduce me, aren't you?" He falls in her trap and they carry on a clandestine affair while Benjamin's father and Mr. Robinson egg him on to date Elaine, daughter of the Robinsons. Mrs. Robinson, though, strictly warns Benjamin to stay away from Elaine. The story has its twists and turns and the film ends with a hilarious final scene in a church where Elaine is getting married to a boy named Carl. Benjamin arrives in the nick of time and attempts to drag Elaine away while Mr. Robinson tries to stop Benjamin. Mrs. Robinson frantically gestures to Elaine to continue with the marriage ceremony while us movie watchers root for Ben and Elaine to make good their escape.

Dustin Hoffman is outstanding and unforgettable as the lost, bewildered and awkward young man not knowing how to get out of the clutches of the married woman. Anne Bancroft as Mrs. Robinson is forceful in the role of an older woman who knows what she wants and would go to any extent to get it. Katharine Ross (Elaine) is shy and attractive and has the audience wanting her to get the better of her wicked mother. Their performance was highly rated though they missed out on the Oscars with Mike Nichols, being the sole winner from the movie with Best Director award.

Dustin Hoffman, however, went on to great fame winning two Oscars for Best Actor in "Kramer vs Kramer" and "Rain Man" and four more nominations including "Midnight Cowboy" and "Tootsie". And in the photo Ruchir sent, he looks just like he did in "The Graduate" except for his gray hair!

Now for a distinguishing feature of "The Graduate" which put it on a special pedestal- its music provided by the folk singers Simon and Garfunkel. The unique factor about the music was that though the movie was not a musical and the three most popular songs already existed with lyrics not specific to the movie, yet they were knitted extremely well with the emotions in the story making it much more powerful.

The first of the songs was "The Sound of Silence". As Garfunkel explained, "This is a song about the inability of people to communicate with each other....especially emotionally." A line from the song explains a lot, 'Hello darkness, my old friend/I've come to talk to you again'. So true for poor Benjamin caught in a trap!

Then there was "Mrs. Robinson". Originally, Simon and Garfunkel had written an insinuating song, "Mrs. Roosevelt", about the former American First Lady. Director Mike Nichols prevailed upon Simon and Garfunkel to change it to "Mrs. Robinson" and used it to great effect particularly in the last 15 minutes of the movie including bringing it to a slow halt when Benjamin’s car runs out of gas. Not only was the song a hit, "Mrs. Robinson" became synonymous with any older woman pursuing someone younger than her. 

Finally, "Scarborough Fair", a beautiful old British folk song dating back to at least 1670, which tells the story of unrequited love and a quarrel between lovers. The boy asks the messenger to convey a set of impossible tasks to the girl which she should complete before coming back to him. The song brilliantly brings out the sad longing and yearning emotional thread that runs through the movie. Its haunting refrain-

"Are you going to Scarborough Fair

Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme

Remember me to one who lives there

She once was a true love of mine."