Happy Days On Trishul

I reported on board the frigate Trishul in mid-August 1968. Captain S Rajendra was in command and the ship was undergoing a short refit and not scheduled to sail till the end of the year. This made it possible for all newcomers to settle down, get to know the ship and each other well. All of us specialists were fresh from our long courses and, therefore, ‘hot’. The Navigating Officer was RD ‘Roly’ Lewin, RB ‘Bunny’ Suri was the Gunnery Officer, RG ‘Gulu’ Kumar the Torpedo and Anti-Submarine Officer and I, the Signals Communications Officer.

In November, the command changed hands and Captain JS ‘Jaggi’ Bawa took over. In December, we started sailing for trials and were fully operational by the end of the year.

Early in January 1969, Trishul and Talwar sailed on a goodwill cruise to three Gulf countries. Our first stop was Kuwait. After the usual sightseeing, we were invited in the evening to a cocktail party by some Britishers working in the oil companies. The party was in the house of one of them. On arrival, we were asked what drink we would like, whisky substitute, rum substitute or gin substitute? We were perplexed and inquired what was this substitute business? Their reply,  “You see, there is prohibition in Kuwait, so we cannot buy liquor. However, we are allowed to distil our own liquor inside the home premises. Hence the ‘substitutes.’” After which we were taken on a tour of the back lawn where we were shown the mini distillery plants. The ‘substitutes’ were not bad at all!

In Kuwait, the two ships were at anchorage to start with but on the last day, they were shifted to the oil jetty for fuelling. After the ships had secured alongside, we were free to go ashore and return by 6 pm for sailing to Bahrain, our next port of call. As the oil jetty was quite far from the gate of the port complex, minibuses had been arranged to transport us from the ship to the gate and back.

Ashok Batra, who had wangled to be on board for the cruise after serving as Flag Lt to the CNS, and I went out and returned at about 5.45 pm. We found the driver sleeping in the minibus and asked him to take us to the ship. The latter said in his Arabic English, “Your ship gone.” We thought he was annoyed at our disturbing his nap and requested him to hurry as our ship had to sail shortly. But he was adamant and refused to move saying, no, there is no ship, I saw your ship sail about an hour ago and it is gone.

At that time, it was quite dark and we could not see the ships. The earth slipped from under our feet and Ashok and I were thunderstruck at the thought of being left behind in a foreign country. Just when all seemed lost, a car arrived and out came Jaggi Bawa and Cdr HKL Bhagat, CO Talwar. I cannot describe our relief at seeing them as we thought, “OK, we are safe. If the Captains are also stranded, we are in good company!”

Capt Bawa in his casual nonchalant style said, “Come on boys, let’s go.” We recounted what the driver had told us and the driver confirmed it. For a while, the Captains were stunned too but then Cdr Bhagat said, “The ships can’t sail. We are the two Captains and the ships can’t go without us.” At this, the driver reluctantly told us to get in and drove to the jetty. Sure enough, the ships were very much there well secured alongside!

We then learnt that the driver was not completely wrong. While getting ready to sail, it is normal to check the propellers by turning them slowly. In this case, the Engine Room had erred by providing too much steam with the result that the ship gathered momentum, the ropes securing the ship to the jetty snapped and the ship got underway. Roly Lewin, who was on the bridge, promptly ordered the anchors to be dropped and the ship was brought to a stop. Thereafter, tugs which were standing by, brought the ship back alongside and a major disaster was averted. The driver had seen the part where the ship broke off from the jetty and thought that the ships had sailed!

We sailed later that evening and reached Bahrain the next afternoon after a rough passage owing to ‘Shamal’, a strong north-eastern wind in those parts. Bahrain was more open than Kuwait with a large number of expatriates working in the oil industry. Ashok had the contact of a big businessman, Anwar Ashraf, who looked after us during our stay there. In particular, I remember going to an evening party which could have been straight out of James Bond’s Goldfinger with girls dressed in golden costumes and roulette tables to gamble on.

After four enjoyable days, we sailed to Sharjah which is less than an hour’s drive from Dubai which we could also visit for sightseeing and shopping. The highlight was a lunch hosted by the Ruler of Sharjah at which about 100 officers and sailors from each ship were invited. Add to it a large number of local invitees and you have about 500 people at a sit-down meal! There were three long tables for the guests with a smaller head table at right angles at one end for the Ruler, the two Captains, diplomats and local VIPs. Laid out on the tables at reachable intervals were large dishes of rice with huge pieces of camel meat sitting in the centre of the rice. Our Electrical Officer, Cdr 'L', a pukka brown sahib with impeccable manners, was impressed at the sight of the dish and expressed his appreciation to the local guests sitting next to him while most of us, not used to the idea of camel meat, were wondering what we were going to eat as there was precious else!

After settling in our chairs, we waited for the head of the table to start but were told by the locals to help ourselves because the custom was that the Ruler would only serve himself after all the guests had done so. As soon as we made a move, the locals dug into the camel meat tearing out large chunks with their bare hands. One of them bit into a piece and not quite liking it, put it back in the main dish. Cdr 'L', who was politely awaiting his turn, saw this, exclaimed disapprovingly, “I say!”, and thereafter stayed away from helping himself to the camel meat he was so eagerly looking forward to devouring. Vegetarians like me got to eat nothing anyway.

Sharjah marked the end of our cruise and as the Indian Fleet was already at sea, we were asked to join it off Bombay. On rendezvousing with the Fleet, we were ordered to take station ahead of the flagship Mysore which was leading the ships in a single column formation. This was unusual as in a column, ships are usually positioned in order of seniority of the Commanding Officers. We had barely reached our station when a wheel ('Corpen' in naval signal terms) to a new course was executed. This manoeuvre requires the leading ship to turn to the new course with the rest of the ships turning in its wake maintaining relative bearing and distances. The manoeuvre automatically transfers the role of the guide to the leading ship which identifies itself by hoisting the flag G on the masthead.

We started turning and just then our Chief Yeoman, the seniormost signals sailor on board, whispered to me, “Sir, we should be the guide.” I immediately shouted, "Hoist Golf (flag G)” and the flag was hoisted. Soon we were ordered to take our proper station down the line and the flagship resumed being the guide. Exercises continued and on completion, we happily returned to Bombay.

Subsequently during the debrief of the exercises, the FCO (Fleet Communications Officer) Lt Cdr “Clinker” Karve told me that our stationing at the head of the column and the wheeling were ordered with a view to check our quick reactions. The moment the Corpen signal was made, some eager bodies on the flagship pointed out, “Trishul has not hoisted Golf”. But before a ‘bottle’ (rebuke) could be broadcast, the flag went up silencing would-be critics. Situation saved and a favourable first impression created which shows how small issues can make a big difference.

Thereafter, we took part in a number of fleet exercises and the ship performed well. The four specialists, Roly Lewin, Bunny Suri, Gulu Kumar and I combined smoothly and functioned as a well-oiled team. Occasionally, there were hitches in the gunnery fire control system which actually was the responsibility of the Electrical department. However, as the Captain and Cdr ‘L’ were batchmates, the Captain took out his anger on poor Bunny who took all the ‘bottles’ calmly. Good old Bunny, God rest his soul.

I had an able assistant in Lt Mohan Singh, an ex-telegraphist who had risen to officer ranks. He looked after the communication sets and wireless operators and ensured they operated at high efficiency. He was a Marwari from Jodhpur, from my state of Rajasthan. When he went on leave, I asked him to get me a bottle of Kesar Kasturi, an exclusive and exquisite drink from Jodhpur so potent it appeared to set your body on fire!

At sea, Roly and I spent most of the day on the bridge of the ship. Roly was always hungry and the duty steward had instructions to constantly supply chopped ham sandwiches and sausages on the bridge. I must confess, that though a vegetarian, Roly ‘forced’ me into sharing the eats to the extent of my actually becoming fond of them and treating them as ‘veg’!

During the monsoon months of July and August, the aircraft carrier Vikrant was deployed on the East Coast in order to carry out flight operations unhindered by weather. Trishul was ordered to accompany Vikrant as the rescue ship in case of any aircraft emergency. One emergency did occur when an Alize piloted by Lt Ashok ‘Aku’ Roy had an engine failure and had to ditch. We charged to the spot and started lowering a boat when Vikrant’s helicopter beat us to it by picking up the three-men crew, Aku, Lt ‘Harry’ Sirohi and a sailor. It was a testimony to Aku’s skill as a pilot that he made a perfect landing in choppy sea to enable all three to get out of the aircraft safe and unhurt. Two years later, Aku’s luck was to run out when he and Sirohi fell victims to a Pak fighter shooting them down in the ’71 war.

On the East Coast, Madras was our base where Vikrant and Trishul returned for weekends. Madras was a fun city with friendly people who welcomed us and organized events to keep us busy. One regular feature was a hockey match between the ships and a girls’ team called ‘Shamrocks’. If I remember right, the men had to play one-handed and did not mind losing to the girls!

We had a boisterous wardroom and kept ourselves entertained with loud music much to the discomfort of our Cdr ’L’ who was the Mess President but stayed away from the wardroom except for meals. ‘60s were the famous decade for pop music and songs of those days are unforgettable and popular to this day. Tom Jones, Englebert Humperdinck, Simon and Garfunkel, Aretha Franklin and  Creedence Clearwater Revival were coming up with one hit after another. Beatles were still on top of the pops and Roly and I would keep up the ‘la-la-la-lalala-lala of Hey Jude long after the disc was over. Some singles are worth mentioning too: Lulu’s “To Sir With Love”, Archies’ “Sugar Sugar”, Sam the Sham’s “Wooly Bully’ and Herman’s Hermits’ “I Am Into Something Good”. As Mary Hopkin sang, “Those were the Days”!

We returned to Bombay end-August when Bunny Suri decided to get hitched. He threw a big cocktail party which went long into the night at the end of which Jayanto Roy Chowdhry, JK ‘Lala’ Talwar and I decided to step out and eat at Bade Miya’s stall near Taj Hotel. When we got there, we found he had packed up. Hungry as we were, we decided to go to Sea Lounge at the Taj. We ordered Swedish Open sandwiches and the waiter brought a large tray of assorted ones. One each was not enough and Roy Chow assured us that he had had these before and the price on the menu was for the whole tray. So we gorged ourselves but when the bill came, found that we had been charged for every single piece we had eaten. Roy Chow and I said we had no money and Lala Talwar had to shell out a substantial sum cursing us with a “You and your Swedish Open Sandwiches”!

India’s first discotheque, Blow Up, had started functioning at the Taj and with the latest sound system and psychedelic lights, was a big attraction. One evening, Gulu Kumar invited two girls to the ship and asked me to join. After a few drinks we decided to go to Blow Up. I settled down looking forward to a long evening of enjoyable music and atmosphere while Gulu and the girls engaged in some talk. Abruptly, Gulu drew my attention and said he and the girls had had a big fight. He took out his car keys and asked me to drop them at Malabar Hill as he did not want to be with them. It all happened too fast and in a kind of daze, I found myself driving Gulu’s car with the girls seated at the back. As I drove, I started musing over the strange turn of events which had me driving Gulu’s friends instead of relaxing at Blow Up while he, whose guests they were, had washed his hands off them! By now, I was in a rage which kept rising and I started driving fast. Suddenly near Taraporevala Aquarium, the right wheels of the car went over the foot-high divider. The girls screamed but I kept driving at the same speed with the car tilted on the separator till the crossing when the car thudded back on the road. I kept going and on reaching their house, told them to leave. I headed back to Blow Up where I examined the car and the damage. I found Gulu and recounted what had happened and offered to pay for the repairs. We went back to the ship and next morning, Gulu got in touch with his insurance agent who said he would take care of the damage. Gulu also got a call from the girls who told him that his friend was mad!

The amazing part was that the car did not overturn and kept going and none of us even had a scratch. A testament to my driving skills developed from the age of 13!

In October, I went to Delhi as a member of the Navy Golf team to take part in the Inter-Services tournament. I visited my old boss, Admiral Chatterji, the CNS, and had a pleasant tete-a-tete with him. Later, I was told by his Flag Lt Cdr, Avinash Bhatia, that the Admiral had said to him, “Ravi came and spent an hour with me and did not even ask for anything!”

By the time I returned to Bombay, I learnt that NHQ was setting up a Weapons Acceptance Trials Team (WATT), including a Communicator, that would be sent to UK for a 3-month course. The team would inspect the equipment for the Leander class frigates which were being constructed in Mazagon Docks, Bombay. I thought since the Admiral himself expected me to ask for something, there was no harm in my bidding to be on the WATT team. So I wrote to Avinash asking him to suggest my name to the CNS. Promptly came a letter from NHQ that I was in the team and to standby for further instructions.

Little did I know that I had ruffled some feathers. Viji Malhotra who was Asstt Director Naval Signals (ADNS) told me that Cmde EJ Debu, DNS, and Cdr APS Radhakrishnan, DDNS, were most upset at being told by the CNS who should be on the WATT team. They could not say no to the CNS but Ravi Sharma was in the doghouse!

By that time, Trishul had been nominated to go to Japan for EXPO in early 1970 and all transfers were frozen. DNS visited Trishul and told me that I was being transferred to Signal School Cochin in a month. I pointed out that according to NHQ policy, there were to be no transfers at this stage. He said no, this did not apply to me as I was standby to go to UK and should be available at short notice and that Lt THR Iyer had already been appointed to take over from me!

I joined the Signal School in the last week of December '69 and so ended my happy and rewarding stay on Trishul.

P.S. India had by then placed an order for some ships and missile boats from the Soviet Union much to the annoyance of UK which till then was our major supplier. As a result, the Royal Navy cancelled the WATT course making me miss both Japan and UK and staying put in Co-Co-Co-Cochin for 22 months!

Long 'C' - At Last

After a delay of over a year, my Long ‘C’ (Communication specialization) course started in September 1967. There were 10 of us including a Malaysian, Mohd. Bin-Shariff who was appropriately called ‘Sheriff’. Along with me he was a bachelor, the rest all married. But the wives of Viji Malhotra and GBS (affectionately called Garbar Singh) Kohli stayed back with their parents for the first half of the year-long course as Viji’s wife, Rita, was expecting their first child and Mrs Kohli decided to leave GBS alone so as not to interfere with his studies! So Viji and GBS stayed with Sheriff and me in the Single Officers’ cabins of Venduruthy Mess.

Cdr Subimal Mookerjee was the Oi/c Signal School with Lt Cdr AK Sood as our course officer. Strangely enough, Sood didn’t like being called by his first name Arvind and was proud to be called and indeed introduced himself with a smooth smile as ‘Crook’ Sood. His designation in the School was V1 and he taught us Fleetwork. Lt RK (Rocky) Mehta took care of Wireless Organisation as W1 with Lt JK (Jack) Suri, later a victim of the ’71 War, in charge of Technical aspects as T1. GBS, who was from the Education branch as against the rest of us from the Executive, was already teaching Radio Theory (RT) in School as M1 prior to the Course, now wore two hats. He would sit as a student with us for most part of the Course but would take over the mantle of a teacher for RT classes. He was, of course, exempted from the final exams from the RT paper!

On the practical side, we had to learn semaphore, morse code and typing. Typing was taught with Pitman’s lessons accompanied by music reminiscent of alphabet learning in kindergarten classes. Many did not take typing seriously which would earn the Oi/c’s wrath later.

The four ‘bachelors’ got along famously with each other. After school, our usual routine was to study till about 9 pm and then adjourn to the nearby US Club for a drink and the then famous ‘club plate’ or ‘club sandwich’. Sheriff was a livewire and would often urge all in the bar to have a drink with “When Sheriff drinks, everyone drinks; drinks all around.” After a few, it was “When Sheriff pays, everyone pays” followed by Sheriff’s quick departure and the barman chasing all present for signatures!

In the heat and humidity of Cochin, classes would often get boring. Smoking was allowed and being occasional smokers, Viji and I would sometimes light a fag. On one occasion, we were sitting behind GBS when Viji could not resist the temptation of seeing what would happen if he touched the lighted end of his cigarette with GBS’s hair flowing out of the back of his turban. To our horror, we watched helplessly as the hair started burning. GBS felt the heat and swiped the hair with his hand fully absorbed in the lecture. Fortunately, the small fire subsided immediately and GBS continued to pay attention to the lecturer without realizing what had happened. I absolutely forbade Viji from telling GBS about the incident and the latter never came to know of it. Alas, he is no more and will not get to read this either.

Viji had a brain ticking (maybe still has!) all the time. One day in his cabin I found him taking out a bottle of scotch from the cupboard and examining it. He declared that his bearer had been swigging whisky on the sly and had diluted it with water to maintain the level. He told me that he had been suspecting it for sometime and to catch the culprit he had put a hair on the inside of the bottle top before tightening it. The hair was missing so obviously the bottle had been opened and nobody but the bearer had an access to the cupboard.

During our course, a couple of Malaysian ships visited Cochin. Sheriff took us on board for a drink and I was attracted by a music system I saw in the Wardroom. Sheriff told me that Crook Sood had approached the Malaysians to sell it to him. I requested Sheriff that if they really wanted to offload the system, could he get them to give it to me instead? He succeeded in doing that and I was the happy owner of the wonderful system for many years. I also bought from them a lot of LPs including the James Bond theme composed by John Barry who became my lifelong favourite composer. Crook Sood was hurt that he had been outwitted but to his credit, took it quite sportingly.

Opposite my cabin stayed RG (Gulu) Kumar doing his Long TAS course. He too had a hi-fi music system with latest discs being brought to him by his fiancée, Reena from her trips abroad as an air hostess. So if you were passing by on the road, you could opt to hear Aretha Franklin on her way to becoming ‘Queen of Soul’ from Gulu’s side to John Barry or Tom Jones from my side.

Meanwhile, the course went on smoothly with interesting lectures on Fleetwork and Wireless Organisation. Radio Theory and Technical were rather boring and the study of the innards of communication sets with their complicated circuitry met with a fair amount of resistance from providing any high voltage current of interest in my veins! However, I managed to survive.

GBS also took some Instruction Technique classes for us. One piece of advice I recall during his lectures was that if you are asked a question the answer to which you don’t know, say “I shall come to it later” and then never come to it!

Soon it was time for final exams. Apart from written papers, we had to undergo a typewriting test with a benchmark of 30 words per minute. As the result did not formally count towards successful completion of the Course, not many took it seriously. At the test, only Viji and I topped 30 wpm. Cdr Mookerjee was livid and held back the results with daily classes for the failed candidates. They had to labour for an extra week to reach the qualifying standard thus cutting into our joining time.

Finally, the results were declared and we had qualified as Long ’Cs’ ready for our next appointment which in my case was Signal Communication Officer, INS Trishul, the senior ship of 15th Frigate Squadron.

Two Extraordinary Schools

In September 1949, Pitaji, my Nana, moved from Bharatpur to Udaipur as a Rajasthan High Court Judge and, of course, I went along with him and Mataji, my Nani. Pitaji knew Shri Mohan Singh Mehta, a renowned educationist who had founded a number of educational institutions among which was the Vidya Bhawan School in Udaipur which I joined in Class VII.

This was a unique school which catered to an overall development of a child than just learning Academics. To start with, it was co-educational for both boys and girls, something remarkable in those days particularly in a largely purdah dominated state of Rajasthan. Boys and girls studied and played together right from junior classes to Class X, the highest class in school.

There was whole day packed schedule for students. As a day scholar, I was picked up early in the morning by a tonga along with 4-5 other kids. On arrival at School, we started with Physical Training followed by a light breakfast. Classes commenced at 9 am till 1.30 pm which was lunchtime when we could have our own tiffin or opt to eat with the hostellers. This was followed by a Rest period for which we had our own bedding stowed in lockers. We would take the bedding out and spread it in the verandah and lie down/sleep for one hour.

At 3 pm, it was time to get up and pursue a hobby of our choice such as carpentry, pottery, folk dancing, etc. A quick snack and it was time for games like hockey, football or volleyball. Cricket was not very popular then but we did play it at times. At 6 pm, it was time to go home in our tongas.

A certain number of days were allotted for going outdoors. When the weather was pleasant such as after rain or cool and sunny, the students and teachers could take a decision to go out and visit a nearby village or farm field. I had my first taste of fresh sugarcane juice on such a day.

In less than a year, the Udaipur bench of the Rajasthan High Court was wound up and Pitaji was transferred to Jaipur. My association with Vidya Bhawan would have ended then but Mummy, who was teaching in Bharatpur,  was selected to undergo B.Ed. in the Vidya Bhawan Teachers’ College in Udaipur. So it was decided that I would continue for another year at the School. Special permission was taken to keep me with Mummy at the Women’s hostel and we were given a small single room instead of a dormitory. It was fun having many aunties showering their affection on the lone boy in their midst!

For their practical training, the ladies at the Teachers’ College were assigned to conduct some classes at our School. As they came from different parts of India, their accents and mannerisms provided some comic relief to the mostly Rajasthani students. I particularly remember a Punjabi Maths teacher holding a geometry class at which she stated, “A suker +B suker =C suker”. Nobody could understand her despite her repeating it a number of times. Beginning to lose her cool, she went to the blackboard and wrote, “A square +B square =C square”. The mystery was solved but the class broke into loud laughter resulting in punishment though the teacher could not fathom what was funny!

Our headmaster, Shri KL Bordia, was a well-known educationist. He was soft-spoken but firm and respected and loved by the students. One outstanding teacher was Shri Devi Lal Samar who conducted folk dancing classes. I was fortunate to have known him for the two years I was at School but shortly afterwards, he left to become the Founder/Director of the Bharatiya Lok Mandal which popularized Rajasthan folk dances and puppetry all over India. He earned national recognition  and was awarded the Padma Shri in 1968.

I spent only two academic years in Vidya Bhawan but loved the concept of the School and remember it fondly. In all these years, I have not met too many people familiar with the School. But in 1987, Shri Jagat Singh Mehta, then Foreign Secretary and son of the founder of Vidya Bhawan, visited Singapore and I invited him for dinner at our house. He was thrilled to learn that I had studied in that School and we exchanged lots of notes about the institution. Over the years I have made a number of trips to Udaipur and make it a point to visit the hallowed grounds of the School. I am glad to see that the old building still exists though it has been extended and other blocks have come up but the general topography with vast playing grounds still remains the same.

After Mummy finished her B.Ed. in May 1951, she was appointed as Asstt Headmistress in Maharaja’s Girls School, Jaipur. So we joined Pitaji and Mataji and it was nice for the four of us to be together again after two years.

Now the question was which school I should go to. Pitaji and Mummy were keen on St. Xavier’s but I protested for two reasons. Firstly, it was an English medium school and as I had so far studied only in Hindi medium ones, I felt I would not be able to cope up with the change. Secondly, Xavier’s followed January-December academic year and joining it in mid-year would mean a loss of one year apart from having to complete the new syllabus in six months instead of the full year. So I was keen on Mahavir School close to our house but Pitaji would have none of it and said one year was a small price to pay to go to a fine school!

And a very fine school it turned out to be! The School was the brainchild of Sir Mirza Ismail, Dewan of Jaipur in the 40s and the architect of modern Jaipur, who wanted nothing but the best for the city. A Christian school named St. Mary’s Boys’ had been started in 1941 and Sir Mirza decided to give charge of the School to the Society of Jesuits in ’43. Then in ’45, the School shifted to its 21 acre present location and renamed St. Xavier’s School.

Apart from following the international syllabus of Cambridge University, what really made the School outstanding was the total dedication and devotion of the founding Jesuit Fathers and the personal attention they paid to each student. The Fathers of those days were legendary and each one of us who studied under them remembers them most fondly and reverently. My earlier post “Fathers who art in Heaven” describes them in detail. To briefly recapitulate, there was the strict disciplinarian but ever smiling Principal Fr. Mann followed by the gentle Fr. Wiizbacher, my favourite teacher the cigar smoking Fr. Pinto, folk singer and cricketer Fr. Mackessack, the Saturday evening movie showman Fr. Cosgrove, the genial photographer Fr. Wilmes who continued to look after the alumni affairs till his passing away not too long ago, the baseball expert Fr. Batson who now has the new School Sports Complex named after him, the man who introduced basketball in Rajasthan Fr. Berney, the small built but muscular live wire on the sports field Brother Nehr etc. etc. All larger than life legends and I remember them so vividly it seems like yesterday!

Some devoted Indian teachers need mention too. Shri Hukam Singh taught us Hindi, Shri Misra geography and the ever popular Miss Francis the junior classes. The last named was still her sweet, charming self when I met her just a few years ago.

Getting back to my schooling, I found the going tough for the first six months and was in the lower half of the class in the VII standard finals. By half-yearlies next year, I had worked up to fifth position and topped the class in the finals. That position I maintained over the next two years ending with a first division in Senior Cambridge exams with As in English Language and Literature!

Out of school hours, I joined Fr. Mackessack’s singing class and learnt American, Irish and Scottish folk songs. That led to my developing interest in Western music. I also made it to the School Cricket team as a batsman and occasional trundler.

St. Xavier's counterpart was the Maharani Gayatri Devi School for girls (MGD). Under the martinet principal of MGD, Miss Lutter, no contact between the two schools was permitted. The only time we got to visit MGD was for the final Senior Cambridge exams for which due to small numbers (in our case in 1954, 9 boys and 4 girls), MGD was the single centre in Jaipur. There too, we were admitted just before the exam, with no contact, not even eye, between boys and girls. No wonder that despite being two top schools, MGD girls and Xavier boys never formed life partnerships. Among the girls that I knew, Tara Mathur, Chandralekha Sahai, and the two sisters Kishen and Bishen, all married non-Xavierites though Kishen and Bishen found two naval officers, RN Singh and Vijai Shekhawat with the latter rising to become the Naval Chief. The other naval chief from Jaipur, Madhvendra Singh, a Xavierite, married Kumud from Nepal and my own wife, Akhila, came from Bijnor.

I remember one other visit to MGD to see a play performed by the theatre company Shakespeareana featuring Geoffrey and Laura Kendal with their daughters Jennifer and Felicity and our own Shashi Kapoor. As we know, Shashi Kapoor and Jennifer soon fell in love and got married.

The Senior Cambridge exams brought an end to my schooling. I consider myself fortunate to have studied in two distinguished and unique schools thanks to Pitaji's insistence.

My own insistence led me to join the NDA!

Kahan Woh Bachpan Ka Pyara Sapna - Childhood Memories

Whenever I think of my ‘bachpan’(childhood), some songs start playing in my mind. These include Hemant Kumar’s 1943 number ‘Bhala tha kitna apna bachpan’, Lata Mangeshkar and Shamshad Begum playing back for Nargis and Nimmi urging each other not to forget their childhood in ‘Bachpan ke din bhula na dena’ in the ’51 hit film ‘Deedar’, Lata Mangeshkar’s emotional rendering of ‘Bachpan ki mohabbat ko dil se na bhula dena’ for Meena Kumari in the ’52 hit ‘Baiju Bawra’ and Geeta Dutt and Asha Bhosle singing and humming while recalling ‘Bachpan ke din bhi kya din the’ for Shashikala and Nutan in ‘Sujata’ in 1959 though by that time my childhood was long over!

But the ‘bachpan’ song that is my number one favourite is ‘Kahan woh bachpan ka pyara sapna’ from the movie ‘Adhikar’ released in 1938, the year of my birth! Ever since I can remember, I used to play this 78 rpm disc on my HMV hand-wound gramophone. The song is begun by Pahadi Sanyal followed by some lines from Pankaj Mullick before Pahadi comes back with ‘ab woh din hain na prem ki raatein, yaad magar hain pyar ki baatein….’ Beautiful!

Here is an incident told to me by others and so pre-memory for me! My parents were staying off Chandni Chowk in Delhi when as a 2 year old I walked out of the house unnoticed on to the crowded main road. With trams operating in those days, this was particularly dangerous and I was picked up by a Sikh gentleman. Meanwhile, my absence was discovered at home and a search party of relatives set forth. Fortunately, one of them ran into the Sikh gentleman and brought me back home. Apparently the wanderlust was well ingrained in my genes and resulted in my joining the Navy eventually. Basically I am an outdoor man and am currently deeply disturbed that in the present lockdown, people over 65 are asked to stay home!

I have just one hazy memory of my father who I used to call Daddy- the two of us playing with a wooden toy train. This was when I was about three in our Alwar house. Daddy passed away when I was four and Mummy and I were taken home by her parents, Pitaji and Mataji, to Muttra (now Mathura). My grandparents and Mummy must have taken a very deliberate decision not to talk about the extremely painful incident and kept me occupied otherwise so that I would not think or inquire about Daddy.  In my mind, I must have quietly accepted what happened as I do not recall ever asking my grandparents and Mummy how Daddy passed away. Whatever information I picked up over the years came from other relations particularly Sarvesh Mamaji, Mataji’s brother’s son, who was the same age as Daddy and knew him well. As far as I was concerned, I now had three parents instead of two.

In Muttra, we stayed in a house called Brij Jiwan Nivas named after my Mansi’s grandfather-in-law, in Dampier Nagar. On the other side of the road was the house in which I was born, Ganga Bhawan, named after Mansi’s grandmother-in-law. A few years back, Akhila and I went to Mathura and visited Dampier Nagar. Brij Jiwan Niwas had given way to a multi-storey building but we were delighted to see Ganga Bhawan still standing and Akhila promptly clicked a photo of me standing in the house.

My learning process started in Muttra. I recall lying in bed and listening to a grandfather clock striking the hour and Mataji teaching me how to count. She used to tell me religious stories and my favourites were those of young lord Krishna stealing butter and frolicking with gopis on the banks of the Yamuna. Nearest my age was Vinnie Mama, nine years elder. One incident I remember is Vinnie Mama playing Holi with his friend, Kuldeep Mathur, who went on to become Chairman Railway Board, with the latter forcibly dousing Vinnie Mama with colours. I thought he was being beaten and started crying!

Our stay at Muttra ended in November 1943 with Pitaji’s appointment as a Judge in Bharatpur State High Court. My grandparents were quite nervous about the move as Pitaji was leaving a successful legal practice and taking on a job which was subject to Maharaja Brijendra Singh’s famous mercurial temper. That is when I made my prophetic statement “Abhi kya, abhi to pata nahin kahan kahan jayenge, Jaipur-Vaipur’. That earned me Mataji’s sharp rebuke, “Chup kar, mat kar kulachchni baat!” Seven years later, she would happily recount this story when Pitaji went to Jaipur as a Rajasthan High Court Judge.

In Bharatpur, we first moved into a two storey house called Balbir Bhawan on the outskirts of the city. With Mansi married and Mummy and my two Mamas off to hostels for studies, I was the lone kid with Pitaji and Mataji. Pitaji now became my teacher and used to give me a task every day. At night, while lying down in bed on the rooftop with lights off, he would ask me to tell him what I had learnt. Often, while answering his questions I would hear him snoring and pause thinking he had gone to sleep. But the moment I paused, he would wake up with a snort and ask why I had stopped! I soon learnt to ignore the snores and complete my answers.

Pitaji was very particular about haircuts and had a barber visit every Sunday. On one Sunday he asked me to have a haircut which I resisted. Angrily, he gave me a light slap which stunned me as that was the one and only time that he ever slapped me!

The Maharaja then decided that instead of Sundays, the state holiday would be on Tuesdays. This upset Pitaji enormously as he did not want to have a haircut on a Tuesday, Hanumanji’s day. He had to rise very early on Sundays in order to have a haircut and then go to court.

The Maharaja had many eccentricities. At Holi, he would hold a durbar at which all state officials had to be present. He had each chair wired so that at the press of a switch, the occupant would get a shock and jump out of his seat earning loud guffaws from the Maharaja. Pitaji was fond of Tennis and so was the Maharaja. If Pitaji was his partner, every point lost by Pitaji would earn a strong rebuke, “Khelna aata nahin aur aisi hi chale aate hain.” If Pitaji was his opponent and the Maharaja lost a point he would say, “You don’t realize I am injured.” If he won, he would remark, “Why are you not playing properly, are you making me win by design?” Damned if you do, damned if you don’t!

Net result was Pitaji gave up playing Tennis. He had a chronic wrist ailment because of which he would hold a pen with his thumb and middle finger leaving the forefinger in the air.  This ailment came in handy as an excuse for giving up Tennis.

A very conscientious and honest man, Pitaji warded attempts time and again by Maharaja’s associates to influence legal decisions. However, such efforts caused him a lot of tension and I remember many occasions when he came home in a disturbed frame of mind and told Mataji to be ready to pack up and leave Bharatpur. On top of it all, the grandparents were under a lot of financial strain with three of their children in hostels and a kid at home.

Meanwhile, I was learning new things growing up. In those days, the electrical supply was DC (Direct Current). I had heard that the difference between AC and DC was that if you touched an open source of AC, you would get stuck whereas the DC source would throw you away. To satisfy my curiosity, I touched a fuse in the meterbox which was accessible from about the fifth step of our staircase. I remember being flung by the shock down the five steps but landed safely on my feet and never mentioned the incident to anybody. Nor did I ever experiment with AC!

One day, Pitaji learnt that Mahatma Gandhi would be passing through Bharatpur by the Frontier Mail. He took me to the railway station where through a large crowd we caught a glimpse of Gandhiji standing and waving at the door of his compartment during the train’s short stop.

Pitaji’s father, Chachaji, used to live in his own house in the city in a locality known as Gudri Ka Mohalla. Across the road was the shop of Roshan Halwai (sweet shop). He mainly sold fresh hot milk which was continuously being heated in a large kadhai. I used to watch with fascination the way he would take out a measure of boiling milk in a utensil with a handle from the kadhai, add sugar and pour it in a jug while stretching his hand from close to the jug to as far as the hand would rise, repeat the process with the other hand and do this a number of times till the sugar was completely mixed and the milk was full of froth. Not a drop of milk would be spilled. He would then add a generous helping of malai and offer the milk in a steel glass to the customer. I used to wonder if he was selling milk by length rather than weight!

An interesting feature at Chachaji’s house was a green parrot in its cage. On seeing a person, the parrot would start talking in clear, faultless tone, “Mithoo, mithoo, Chitrakoot ke ghat par, bhai santan ki bhir, Tulsidas chandan ghisen, tilak karen Raghubir.” The parrot used to be freed in the room for a while with doors closed. At times, if a door was left open, it would fly away always to return by itself except one fine day many years later, it flew away never to return.

We used to visit Chachaji on holidays and he used to come to Balbir Bhawan occasionally. He was fond of having a paan after meals. On one visit after lunch, Mataji, who had to eat separately because of purdah, asked me to take a paan to him. Chachaji said he had brought one with him and I could take it back. On the way, I decided to have it myself. Soon my head was in a spin. The paan contained tobacco which I was not aware of.

In the second half of 1944, we shifted to what was known as ‘Control house’ because previously the state excise department used to function from there. It was a large house with a large gate that would open to a parking area flanked on both sides by outhouses. Another small gate led to the main house with an ‘aangan’ surrounded by rooms. It was basically a single storey house with just a small room with a tin shed on the first floor. The tin shed was quite notorious though as many a time it was blown off by a storm and had to be retrieved and replaced.

Fortunately, the house was in quite an isolated spot but that meant I had no friends nearby to play with. So I invented some imaginary friends and can recall a few names like Pip, Peep and Beau. After early education in Agra, I imagined we had taken admission in Wellington University in New Zealand. The Wellington part came true 29 years later when I went to the Staff College in Wellington, India, not NZ. The latter was ticked off end- 2018 when Ruchir decided to take the family on a holiday to that country although this time we skipped Wellington!

I used to eagerly wait for the Allahabad University vacations which would bring Mummy, Shashi and Vinnie Mamas home. Vinnie Mama used to bring records which we could play on our hand-wound gramophone. Also, he would occasionally make a mini-newspaper for me with fictitious news about my friends and cartoons which he was very good at. Once he left his holdall in the train and drew a hilarious cartoon of the holdall looking for its master. Incidentally, the holdall did manage to find its way back to him!

In September  ’44, it was decided that my formal education should begin in Class II in a school which was located quite a distance away in the city area. One of our domestic staff would drop me on a bicycle and come back to pick me up. Some days after joining, a couple of my friends who lived near the school asked me to accompany them to their home. I lost track of time and in the meantime, the person who had come to pick me up raised an alarm and went around informing all and sundry that I was missing. I was soon traced and brought back home. Mummy was also home on vacation and what followed was a sound scolding and thrashing by her and Mataji with me running from room to room but not able to escape their tight slaps. The happy ending though was that it was decided not to send me to school that academic year! By the next year, the school luckily shifted out of the city area near our house. So in July 1945, I began schooling in Class III.

When we first arrived in Bharatpur, Pitaji used to cycle to Court till a fall made him shift to a tonga. Towards end-45, he bought a second-hand Ford with a collapsible canvas rooftop which served us for a number of years despite Vinnie Mama once attempting to climb a lamp post with it!

Sometime in 1946, I developed an interest in Cricket and eagerly followed the Indian team’s tour to England. That winter, I read in the newspapers of Gul Mohammad(319)-Vijay Hazare(288) world record partnership of 577 runs in the Ranji trophy. I became a fan of Vijay Hazare and was thrilled when next year on a tour to Australia, he scored 116 and 145 in the Adelaide test becoming the first Indian to score a century in both innings of a test. On that tour, he also got the great Don Bradman out for 15, a feat that he said meant even more to him than his centuries!

I also devised a method of playing Cricket on my own. In the ‘aangan’ I marked the wickets on one wall and would throw a tennis ball onto the opposite wall and play it on the rebound. Various spots were marked on the walls which when hit by the ball would account for runs scored.

Evenings were spent listening to music on my gramophone. Pankaj Mullick was my top favourite with ‘Piya milan ko jana’, ‘Maine aaj piya hoton ka pyala’ and ‘Yeh raatein yeh mausam’ for lyrics and melody, ‘Pran chahe nain na chahe’ for marching to its beat and ‘Madbhari rut jawani hai’ for brilliant orchestral accompaniment. KL Saigal with songs like ‘Do naina matware’ and Kanan Devi with ‘Toofan mail’ were on my list too. Some songs were recalled on appropriate occasions and I particularly remember coming home after a successful Maths exam and heading straight to play ‘Aaj apni mehnaton ka mujhko samra mil gaya’.

I fell ill with malaria quite often and that made me very weak. Mataji and Pitaji were strict vegetarians but the family doctor advised that I must be given eggs to boost my health. So overcoming all mental and religious resistance, Mataji used to mix eggs in my milk and make me drink it. Perhaps because of my sickness, I had very poor appetite and it was quite a task for my grandparents and Mummy to cajole me to drink milk. One day, Mummy took me with her to visit a friend of hers whose cook promptly brought a big steel glass of milk for me. Mummy was quick to intercept and asked the cook to take it back. Just then I said no, I will drink it, took the glass and swallowed it in a flash. For long after that, I was scolded by Mummy who felt that her friend must have thought that I was perhaps not given milk at home and was longing for it.

In the summer of 1947, I heard talk of India gaining independence. One day I heard a big rumble and went out to see what was happening. I saw a number of strange vehicles and was told they were tanks. Apparently they were sent by Sardar Patel to prevent any thought in the Maharaja’s mind not to accede to the Indian state and also for riot control. Riots did break out as Bharatpur had quite a large number of a Muslim sect called Mevs. We had heard stories of killings and once when I was returning from school, I saw a number of people on the road with spears. I got very scared and hid behind some bushes till they passed. God knows what would have happened if they had seen me hiding.

Having finished with her MA in English from Allahabad University, Mummy was back in Bharatpur and got a job as a teacher in the Girls’ School. Months passed and soon it was 1948. On the evening of 30th January, Mummy had gone to a friend’s house nearby. Pitaji had just come back from Court and he and Mataji were having tea while I was playing my solo Cricket. Suddenly Mummy came all flushed and flustered. She had heard of Gandhiji’s assassination on the radio at her friend’s place and breathlessly told us about it. In turn, we were all shell shocked and speechless. For quite some time, gloom descended everywhere.

Later that year, we shifted to yet another house called Dev Kutir. This was a proper double storey residence with a front lawn and a huge area on the sides and rear where we could grow vegetables and fruit. One product I saw for the first time was white brinjals. My School was just across the road so that was very convenient for me.

Meanwhile, Vinnie Mama had joined the Navy as a Direct Entry officer and left for his training at the naval base Venduruthy, Cochin.

For holidays, we used to visit Alwar often. Mataji’s elder sister was married to Daddy’s chacha, Rameshwar Nathji, who was a Judge in Alwar state. Pitaji and he got on very well with each other and he was very fond of me. He had a big house just outside Tripolia Gate. The entry to the house was through an outer courtyard leading to an inner courtyard and then to the main two-storey building. Alwar had a purdah system much stricter than Bharatpur where it was sufficient for a lady to cover her face making a ghoongat(veil) with her sari. In Alwar, whenever the ladies had to step out, the domestic staff used to line up both sides of the courtyards with huge sheets right up to the tonga or car the insides of which were fully covered by curtains so that no one could catch a glimpse of the ladies!

In Alwar too, just outside the outer gate was a halwai shop which was famous for its delicious 'imartis' rather than 'lengthy' milk!

Chachaji, or Alwarwale Chachaji as I used to refer to him, loved to play practical jokes and I have written elsewhere how he found out that a lady visitor was wearing a borrowed petticoat and sent her son to tell her that the owner, her Bhabhi, who was not at the ladies’ gathering, wanted the petticoat back. I believe a lot of fireworks exploded when the lady furiously returned home.

Once there was an outbreak of mumps in Bharatpur. When the kids of the Chief Justice whose two sons used to play with me got it and we saw them suffering, Mataji decided to go to Alwar and keep me away from the infection. But the next day I was down with mumps. A Hakim was sent for who used to apply some black paste on my cheeks and throat a few times a day. Within three days I was completely cured without suffering any acute pain!

In November ’48, we visited Delhi and stayed with Mataji’s younger sister just off Chandni Chowk. The highlight of that visit was watching the first test between West Indies and India at the Ferozeshah Kotla ground. Batting first, West Indies amassed 631 runs with centuries from Walcott, Gomez, Weekes and Christiani.
Hemu Adhikari led India’s fightback with an unbeaten 114 with support from Ibrahim, Modi and Lala Amarnath. India totaled 454 which was still not enough to avoid follow-on which in those days was at 150 runs. India managed to save the match with another unbeaten knock from Adhikari and useful contribution from others. It was a privilege to meet Colonel Adhikari many years later when I joined the NDA and he was posted as an instructor.

In the spring of ’49, Vinnie Mama came on leave having completed his training in Cochin. He had a lot of stories to tell and showed me his photos in white naval uniform. The seeds were sown for me to join the Navy and I had myself photographed in whites with Vinnie Mama’s Sub Lt stripes and cap. The photo was with me all these years but I seem to have misplaced it lately.

In the summer of ’49, Mummy and I went to Dehradun where Masarji was commanding the 5th Gurkha Rifles.  We also visited Mussoorie and were having a nice time with Mansi and my cousins when we got the sad news of Alwarwale Chachaji’s sudden demise. He and Chachiji were in Bharatpur when he went down with a heatstroke and passed away on 26th June. Mummy and I caught the train to Alwar the next day cutting short our holiday.

I was back to School in July and after a month or so, Pitaji was appointed as a Judge in the newly formed Rajasthan High Court and transferred to Udaipur. We left Bharatpur in September and I guess that marked the end of my ‘bachpan’ only the memories of which now remain.

An Anti-Submarine Rocket Lands on Dockyard Chief's Rooftop

While there must be many more incidents of operations and exercises gone awry and no list can ever be complete, there is a remarkable one which I must add here. I know this to be true and Viji Malhotra reminded me of it as he was an eyewitness.

In the early ‘60s, Viji was on the minesweeper Cuddalore which was undergoing a refit in the Wet Basin of the Naval Dockyard, Bombay. Ahead on the adjoining wall was berthed the frigate Cauvery.

Viji was on duty as Officer of the Day (OOD) on a quiet, lazy Sunday morning and was on the upper deck enjoying fresh breeze when he observed a group of young, smart sea cadet girls approaching his ship. Bachelor that he was, he was excited by the prospect of receiving them on board and showing them around. To his dismay though, he found they bypassed his ship, did a Corpen 9 (naval signal for a 90* wheel to the right) and went up the gangway of Cauvery.

OOD Cauvery received them and started showing them around the ship. They started with the forecastle and its anchors and cables and went on to the big guns, the Bridge, boats, lifeboats etc. till they came to the anti-submarine mortars called ‘Hedgehog’, so named because the empty rows of the launcher spigots resembled spines of the beast. The OOD explained how on detecting an enemy submarine by sonar, the launcher was directed towards the target and fired mortars ahead of the ship by pressing a switch which was located on the launcher itself. Believing the launcher to be inactive and empty, he proceeded to press the switch.

There was shock and awe when with a rumbling noise and an eerie whoosh, they watched a mortar shoot off in the air. Fascinated, they followed its trajectory and watched it come down with a thud on the rooftop of the office of the head of the Dockyard, the Commodore Superintendent (CSD). Viji watched this from Cuddalore and wondered what was going on.

Apparently, unknown to the OOD, the electrical duty staff was carrying out maintenance on the Hedgehog system, switched on the power, and loaded a single dummy mortar inside the launcher. Fortunately, there was no explosive in the mortar and the CSD’s roof only suffered minor damage.

It took some time for all on board Cauvery to recover. The girls marveled at the amazing live demonstration of rocket firing and wondered if a gunfire demonstration was possible as well! The OOD regained outward composure and quickly brought the girls’ visit to an end.

The Commanding Officer of Cauvery, enjoying his holiday at home, was informed and rushed to the ship. Investigations began and higher authorities were informed. With no damage and it being a Sunday, there were few eyewitnesses and not much pandemonium.

The next day, CO Cauvery and the OOD were summoned in No. 2s (formal uniform) by Rear Admiral SG Karmarkar, Flag Officer Bombay (equivalent of FOC-in-C West of present day) and given a thorough dressing down. Viji Malhotra was also required to be present as the major independent eyewitness.

OOD Cauvery, Lieut VK Kapoor's name was immortalised as 'Hedgehog' Kapoor. Commodore Baswan, CSD, had the last word with the following signal to the Fleet Commander (FOCIF), “I will repair your ships free of charge but please tell your ships to stop firing at me!”

Naval Operations and Exercises That Went Awry

In actual operations as well as peacetime exercises, things can go awry due to human errors or material defects despite due diligence. Occasionally, the errors can be serious with heavy damage and loss of life. In August 1959, shortly after we, the 14th Course midshipmen, were transferred from Mysore to smaller ships, the former collided with a Royal Navy destroyer, Hogue, during Commonwealth Joint Exercises (JET) off Trincomalee. This happened at night with ships completely darkened. One sailor from Hogue was killed and both ships were damaged with Hogue eventually having to be written off. I was on board Ranjit also participating in the same exercises and it was a scary sight to see both the damaged ships the next morning.

Then there was the Khukri-Betwa collision during fleet exercises early 1964. I was on Khukri till December ’63 and had served under Captain ‘Pat’ Telles who was still commanding the ship when the collision took place. Capt Telles was a fine officer and a gentleman and took the entire blame on himself exonerating the Navigating Officer who many felt was to blame. Captain Telles’ naval career thus came to an untimely end.

Enough of tragic stories. Let me now dwell on incidents where errors resulted in situations which were embarrassing at that time but can be laughed at now.

A story which I cannot guarantee the veracity of but many oldtimers have sworn by, dates back to the 50s when during an exercise, Gomati fired a shell which went through Godavari’s open starboard door close to the Captain’s cabin, through the alleyway and out the port door without causing any damage! This was during what is called a throw-off firing where the gun direction system seemingly points towards the target but the guns are 30* off. Apparently Gomati’s gunnery crew forgot to apply the throw-off but the target, Godavari, had a miraculous escape.

My friend Viji Malhotra tells me of two incidents which took place during the ’65 Indo-Pak war. Viji was on the flagship Mysore as Flag Lt to the Fleet Commander (FOCIF), Rear Adm ‘Chippy’ Samson. The fleet was at sea when Betwa mistook Mysore for Pak ship Babur and started firing at it. The shells fell close to Mysore and Viji says he first thought the splashes caused by shells falling into the sea were whale spouts. In true Moby Dick fashion, he was about to shout, “Thar she blows” when the Fleet Gunnery officer realized what was happening and desperate signals were made to Betwa to stop firing before the required correction was applied to hit the target!

In the second case, Mysore saw an aircraft and mistook it for a Pak surveillance one. Anti-aircraft guns were brought into action before the Fleet Aviation Officer, Cdr Tahiliani, screamed that it was an Air India plane and firing was ceased. Bad aim once again saved the day but the Air India crew apparently saw the shell bursts as FOCIF got an angry signal from the Naval Chief the next day.

In the 1971 war, the landing ship Magar made a crazy signal that delayed landing of troops at Cox’s Bazar by a couple of days. Preparations were afoot for the landing with a number of naval and merchant ships carrying army personnel proceeding to rendezvous (RV) off the landing site. In the midst of all this, Magar made a signal to the Fleet Commander, “Periscope sighted. Confirm friendly”. We knew that none of our submarines were in that area and if at all it was a Pak submarine, defenceless Magar would be toast! Magar took sometime to find that it had mistaken a fishing stake in tidal waters for a periscope and made a corrective signal but its first message was heard by everyone on the radio network and the merchant ships had immediately turned away and cleared the area at top speed. It took some time and a number of messages to convince them that there was no enemy submarine in the area and to get them to head again for the RV.

In early 1971 some ships of the fleet based in Bombay were to visit Cochin. An exercise was planned in which the fleet ships were to attack the Cochin naval base which was to be defended by a couple of ships based there. Captain RS Malia, Commanding Officer Venduruthy, was in-charge of the Cochin force ably assisted by Rolly Lewin of ND School and self of Signal School. Godavari was already at sea and since there was no time to recall her to Cochin, it was decided that she would be joined at sea by Ganga and Gomati and thereafter proceed to intercept the fleet ships.  Details of an RV position designated RR (phonetically ‘Romeo Romeo’) were transmitted by wireless to Godavari and given by hand to the other two ships before sailing.

The exercise commenced and soon Godavari signalled that she was at RR awaiting the other ships which in turn signalled that they were at RR looking for Godavari. Both units were asked to check and recheck their co-ordinates and both confirmed that they were correctly at RR as directed. While these units were searching for each other, the Bombay ships sneaked in and carried out their attack. All ships were told to return to harbor and it was only there that the two Cochin units finally met.

In the debrief that followed, it was discovered that an error had been made in the radio transmission of the position to Godavari and whereas the latter was in the correct position as received by her, the other two ships were in the right position as given to them on paper. East was east and west was west and never the twain would meet!

Early next morning, Capt Malia, Rolly Lewin and I were witnessing a basketball game when the Captain came out with a gem. He said that at night he was reading “Julius ‘Kaiser’” by Shakespeare  and visualizing Godavari, Ganga and Gomati searching for RR uttering Juliet’s immortal lines, “Romeo Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?” We all had a mighty laugh and Rolly and I would often make fun of the Captain’s mispronouncing of Caesar and attributing Juliet’s quote to the wrong play. It was many years later that I came to know that Captain Malia was an MA in English and the errors were perhaps deliberate to provoke laughter! Incidentally, Capt Malia, a Sikh, spoke perfect English with no trace of Punjabi accent.

In 1973, when I was FCO (Fleet Communication Officer) on the staff of FOCEF (Flag Officer Commanding Eastern Fleet) Rear Admiral Ronnie Pereira, Some ships of the Western Fleet including the cruiser Delhi, the senior ship commanded by Captain Kewal Nayyar, were visiting Vishakhapatnam (Vizag). As usual, an exercise was scheduled wherein the Western force was to attack Vizag defended by Eastern fleet ships headed by Captain AC Malhotra commanding Kamorta. Capt Malhotra came up with a plan in which he would lead his force to intercept the Western ships well away from Vizag rather wait for them to approach the base for the attack. As it happened, he missed the Western ships completely allowing them to carry out their attack successfully. In the debrief that followed, he explained what his intention was and how it could have succeeded. Everyone including the C-in-C Vice Admiral Kulkarni and FOCEF listened intently, impressed by Capt Malhotra’s plan but unfortunate failure. Just then, Capt Nayyar got up and said, and I repeat his exact words, “Gentlemen, as Lord Fisher said, ’farting around the ocean is neither good strategy nor good tactics’”. There was a stunned silence for a while after which the debrief was declared closed. People were seen consulting each other on who Lord Fisher was and whether he could have said what was quoted. For those keen to know, Lord Fisher was the First Sea Lord, head of the Royal Navy, twice, from 1904-10 and again ’14-’15 when he resigned in the midst of the First World War due to differences with the naval minister, Winston Churchill. Extensive research to find the quote attributed to Lord Fisher is still a work in progress!

Ten years down the line, Kewal Nayyar, then Vice Admiral commanding the Western Fleet (FOCWF), was to be at the receiving end. I was his Fleet Operations OfficerFOO). In an exercise, ships were divided into two forces, one headed by Admiral Nayyar embarked on his flagship, Rajput, and the other by Captain ‘Baby’ Anand, CO Vindhyagiri. Rather than operate as a composite force, the Admiral’s plan was to disperse our missile-armed ships so that there was a greater chance of finding the other force and attack with missiles. In the ‘fog of war’ friendly Rana reported detecting an enemy ship and fired its missiles. The exercise was being controlled personally by the CNS, Admiral Stan Dawson, not on best terms with Admiral Nayyar.  The CNS ruled that Rana had actually fired at Rajput which was declared sunk. We were removed from the exercise and ordered to return to harbour which was a big snub to FOCWF.

Six months later, Naval Headquarters scheduled an Anti-submarine Warfare (ASW) exercise with an aim to check the sonar capability of ships in monsoon. With the weather particularly bad during the exercise, over 90% personnel were badly seasick and ships were going all helter skelter. CNS Admiral Dawson was himself on board the flagship and I was still FOO. I remembered a story my father-in-law had told me a number of times which went something like this- at a musical conference, a particularly bad group was on stage. The audience was restive and started hooting when a Pathan climbed up on stage brandishing a sword. The frightened group started getting up and scurrying away from the stage. Pathan calmly said to them, “Where are you people going? You please keep performing, I have nothing against you. I am looking for the person who invited you in the first place.” In the Operations Room, I recounted this to the CNS’s Naval Assistant and said, “Don’t blame the ships, let them do whatever they are doing. Let us look for the person who scheduled the exercise.” The message must have been conveyed to the CNS as for the rest of the time on board, he gave me askance looks whenever he saw me.

To conclude, here is a story which is neither about an operation nor an exercise but is very interesting nevertheless. It was told to me by my good friend Satish Bindra, God bless his soul, who vouched for its veracity and it involves the landing ship Magar again. In the early ‘50s after commissioning in UK, the ship was on its maiden voyage to Bombay with Satish on board. After the ship came through the Suez Canal and entered the Arabian Sea, real rough weather hit them as the south-west monsoon was in full fury. With no satellites and radio aids, navigation was completely dependent on landmarks of which there were none in mid-ocean, and heavenly bodies, the sun, the moon and the stars, which to be of any use, had to be visible. This they were not in those conditions.

So after a couple of days away from land and nothing in sight, the Captain, dependent as the ship was on just a compass, felt distinctly uneasy. Ships at sea drift with wind and current and can actually be quite away from the estimated position as determined by course, speed and any known tidal streams. While the Captain and the Navigating Officer (NO) were pondering over this predicament, a merchant ship was sighted coming from the opposite direction. As per tradition at sea, Magar flashed a signal by light to the merchant ship, “What ship, whither bound?” Came the reply, “Indian ship Sabarmati, bound from London to Bombay. And you?” To which Magar’s signalman replied, “Warship Magar, proceeding to Bombay”.

Now the Captain and the NO quickly conferred and concluded that their compass must have drifted and decided to follow Sabarmati since it was also headed for Bombay. Orders were given to the helmsman to turn around and get into Sabarmati’s wake. Soon however, they were astounded to see Sabarmati also turning around and trying to get in Magar’s wake! Obviously, it was a case of blind leading blind with Sabarmati as unsure of her position as Magar.

It must have been quite a sight to see two ships going round and round in circles for some length of time! Just as desperation was setting in, a fishing trawler was sighted. Magar went close to it and asked the fishermen over a loud hailer in which direction did Bombay lay. Fortunately, the trawler had come from Bombay and gave accurate directions which the good ship Magar followed with Sabarmati following close behind.

Navigating Betwa

From NDC I moved to Betwa in January ’67.  For the first and only time, NHQ personnel branch offered me a choice of ships - Brahmaputra or Betwa. The  attraction of the former was that it was slated to go to Montreal for EXPO ‘67 but since it was the senior ship of the 16th Frigate Squadron, it had specialists heading all departments and I would at best be someone’s deputy. Betwa, equipped with the latest Gun Direction system of that time, the FPS5, had only Gunnery headed by a specialist officer in Lt HKL Sachar. So I opted for Betwa hoping I would be the Signal Communications Officer (SCO) and gain some experience before going for my Long C course. Meanwhile, my friend and NDA coursemate, Suresh ‘Bobby’ Bhandoola, who too had been selected for the Long C course, also got appointed to Betwa. Bobby and I reported on board together wondering which one of us would be given the job of SCO by the Captain of the ship, Cdr RH Tahiliani. We hadn’t reckoned how smart the Captain was- he allotted TAS (Torpedo and Anti-submarine) to Bobby and Navigation to me! SCO went to young Sub Lt Vijay Shivdasani on his first appointment after earning the Watchkeeping certificate. Incidentally, he was also selected for Long C a few years down the line!

I was happy though as navigating the ship under an intelligent and competent Captain was a rich and rewarding experience which stood me in good stead for my own command of ships later. Simple pieces of advice, like when entering the not too well-marked Okha channel with only a lone starboard-hand buoy to guide, Cdr Tahiliani asked me to go close to the buoy rather than the centre of the channel because he said, “Always safer to go close to a known danger”.

Betwa was fully operational and we spent a lot of time sailing independently and as part of the Indian Fleet. We generally performed well and I recall just one incident when we could have been in trouble. We entered Cochin harbor and were trying to secure head and stern to buoys but foul monsoon weather, unfavourable tidal conditions and strong winds prevented us from doing so despite repeated attempts. Finally tugs were called to help secure the ship. We feared we had gone over the buoys and might have damaged our propellers and reported the incident to higher authorities. Thereafter we sent divers to examine the propellers and were relieved to find they were undamaged. As the incident had been reported, a board of inquiry was appointed which too cleared the ship of any damage and the Captain and Navigating Officer of any blame.

A constant source of concern was our gyro compass which often went ‘hunting’ and was unreliable. During a fleet exercise, the Captain told the yeoman on duty to make a signal to the fleet commander (FOCIF), “My gyro erratic”. Something went wrong between transmission and reception of the signal as during the debrief of the exercises, FOCIF, Rear Adm SM Nanda, asked Cdr Tahiliani to give details of the gyro that could go “erotic”. This remained Cdr Tahiliani’s one and only favourite story which I heard him recount dozens of times as he progressed from Commander to Admiral!

Our wardroom was lively and fun. Apart from Bobby Bhandoola, we had another coursemate, Virendra ‘Magoo’ Nehra who was the Supply Officer. Lt Sachar, ‘Guns’ as he was known, had a good sense of humour and kept us in high spirits. In our free time we used to play a game called ‘Liar Dice’ which was a shortened version of poker played with two dice instead of cards. The loser had to pay a penalty and a favourite one after a few drinks was to ask him to jump out of the porthole. Nobody actually could but the efforts were great to earn a riot of laughs!

With Magoo Nehra fond of western pop, music was the other pastime. Apart from the Beatles, the Rolling Stones were hitting the top of pop charts and my favourite number which I used to listen to and sing was “I can get no satisfaction” with Bobby Bhandoola always showing mock sympathy and  asking me why!

The Long C course was finally scheduled for September ’67 and my Betwa spell came to an end after just 8 months.