SSB Interviews; Hindered Views

Almost all of us might have seen the advertisement, “Join Indian army, be the master of your destiny, have an adventurous life” etc. The general perception of people is that if it’s armed forces, it’s a synonym of discipline. There is no denial that the Indian Military has stalwarts to the Indian people’s faiths. But the pastures which we feel are green enough; also have many a dry patch.

But what’s wrong with the forces then? The selection procedure for soldier level entries in class four and class three has nothing wrong in it, or at the least that’s out of the writer’s purview, but the gateway of entry for commissioned officers cadre finds itself in a dilapidated stand, definitely not in a good stead. As I myself had experience of giving the SSB interviews twice, I had met many veterans of the SSB interview also. There are many a flak in the selection process of armed forces which appear to be sinking the ship of armed forces.

It is well said that change is the only constant. But after giving the SSB interview, one will demystify his previous notions. The test papers which are given to the interview candidates date back to the time of independence, or god knows if they are even older than that. One can easily figure that out from the condition of them. The papers have now de- chlorinated and have thus have acquired a pale yellow colour, with withering, frail edges.

But one thing can be said for sure, that the Armed forces people love their assets. How is that? Because just at the beginning of the tests, candidates are instructed not to scribble or make stray marks on the paper (because those paper will still be used by some generations, I conjecture). And there might not be a single SSB coaching left in the country which does not have copies of the psychological test papers, which are actually illegal to possess.

Secondly, there are a series of psychological tests, which require on the spot sentence framing, reflecting the inside of a person’s psychology. But the real interviewees already have the sentences fed into their brains through a proper coaching class.

Does that mean I’ll get into armed forces if I am good enough to acknowledge all the tests previously? Well, you’ll almost be there, unless you don’t find a person at the medical check-up who’s a hard nut to crack, often demanding rewards for letting you into the forces. And that’s not all, some of the the belligerent and arrogant fellows from the Army schools or XYZ defence schools will be sure enough to claim there spot, as if in a legacy which actually turns out to be true.

There's also a feature of Pilot aptitude battery tests, in which the  people with high piloting aptitudes and the people with high approaches both get through, since if they don’t have the aptitude, the invigilator is always there to fly them through their difficult times. Thus they make the pilots who’ll fly the Sukhois or the Rafale Dassault in the near future.

Fourthly, they have group tasks, which end up being acting tasks, after a lot many days of coaching. It is really hard to find the friend you made back in the candidates hostel who actually turns out to be an Oscar winning actor, and sails his way out, without remembering your name too! Only the personal interviews have their essence in the full six day drama. Sometimes you get a senior, experienced person of the post of major general, while at other times you will have to satisfy a wing commander, who can turn out to be an asinine, as was in my case, who made me wait for 7.5 hours for an interview, and left just by asking how my lunch was.

Apart from these, the SSB interviews conducted by the Service Selection Boards can be a good all expenses paid trip by government to some interview location. And for the candidates with no backing from the relatives in defence, keep your fingers crossed, join a coaching class and may be that you become the next certified actor by the Board. 

::The first photo is of Robert Lockhardt, the first Army chief of Independent India. 

The Emotional Side

“There’ll be no sunlight if I lose you baby, There’ll be no clear skies if I lose you baby....Don’t just say goodbye”

Heard that song by Bruno Mars? It has a lot of relevance when we find someone who’s really complement to our soul and thinking. It can be anyone, or anything we find peace at, whom we feel a part of ourselves. I here share a utopian story preconceived in my and minds of many more, which goes as : The events fell in like a lace of festoons, with strange heavenly beads spread all across. Firstly what fascinated me in that ‘Complementary Soul’ (I’ll prefer calling it CS) was her cultural richness that turned out to be magnetic to my thoughts. Indians are actually obsessed with culture you see. Whether it be shown in the festivities they jolly or at religious places, cultural richness makes Indian people more Indian, complete. I too believed in culture then, now which I have underpinned through a richer experience.

 So, I got charmed by the CS when she drew the first rangoli by herself. It is said that politeness is an ornament of women, and now I was seeing what I had heard from my elders. The utopian image of any cultured lass was so fitting into her material body; I could hardly mark out any difference. Then at another instance when I savoured some Indian dishes made by her, the words ‘this person is so me’ echoed, now with a sound greater than a sonic boom. I know that the CS too might have thought the same, but never expressed. 

We spent days with our families together, shared laughs together, and the life in this microcosm became a universe to me. Even after returning from the vacations we had, this small town had its indelible mark on my itinerary. From a dot on the map, suddenly it became one of the dots needed in my life. Until now, I imagined myself to be a strong person emotionally, but these times proved the power emotions had. It’s also a believed notion that when emotional side increases the rational side in the brain cells decreases, hence I made myself possessed by her, and her thoughts only, like a peacock that danced only when her memories poured.

Diamond cuts diamond, gold melts gold. Hence in our case too, it was culture only I guess, that could not tolerate a tryst between us. Being from two families with their own dignity and stature in the society, even the thought of getting along together for the rest of our lives seemed to be excruciating. Hence without even saying it to each other, we sensed it not to be poetic breaking the family traditions and hence to continue with the values we’d been imbibed with from our conceptions in human forms, humane to the culture. When we were forced by morals to sift, it was painful. I felt the skies drawing near, close enough to crush me by their invisible force. What would one feel like if a person lost his body part, or to say the very soul, I could have explained it then. I felt that emotions were stronger but the overpowering of the culture over emotions was inevitable. The macrocosm remained unchanged, but these instances brought about a change in the world of my imagination. I started thinking life more as a liability than as an asset. It was as if we were straightjacketed by the despotic tenets enshrined by our ancestors, unintelligible ideally in the present times.

I woke up to realise that it was all dream and nothing like this ever happened in reality. Well, whatever it was, now if anyone asked me the order of strengths among culture, you and emotions, the culture weighs down the other two. This one dream changed my intuitions about emotionality and actually how human this character is, often slipping in revolt to the traditions, leaving the decisions on the shoulders of pitiable minds.

P.S. I really love traditional Indian food, especially 'Chaklis'.

The “,” Parable

Hi! I am Comma. Please don’t ask me how am I, because I am not good. Well that’s just because I have grown comatose by my so clichéd use. Oh you’re telling me how picayune and intangible I am to literati! I would make you realize my importance then…..

Without me there could not be any pause in the sentences. Ever imagined a world without pauses in which you’d have to speak dribbling until your jaw dropped out? For the politicians, I am their very old friend (mostly in the Independence and republic day speeches), without me you would not be able to make an hour long speech, could you? The diplomatic sentences of ministers to the opposition are simply vacuous without me. I make the statements of ‘great’ men really ‘great’ by adding a tone of seriousness to those simple words of wisdom which are always present, but invisibly. Even you could not inveigle people to earn their votes without putting ‘me’ in between your promises. I’d rather ask now, could you? And for the Industrialists I am, as water for life. I hadn’t seen a single negotiation occurring without the use of comma in my whole life. And my life? Well, it’s centuries more than industry itself! I have also been put in the poems from the Anglo-Saxon times and even earlier. Either adding to the beauty of the words, or as a word of truce, either as a thing to rhyme, or dragged into lyrics of “The Rime”, patronizing their lyric banks, adding to the rhythm of the songs. I am the one who makes ‘yours sincerely’, really sincere in the letters. For doctors, you all too use me very often. Forgot the times when you needed to reply the bereaved members of the family, of your unsuccessful works? Even the adolescents have forgotten my importance for whom I was ‘the’ friend in need. Whenever you committed mistakes, I was the one who became a wall between you and your parents; I was the one who encountered your teachers when you went unprepared. But the only place which makes my heart filled with compunctions is, when I come between the two countries India and Pakistan, when I come between them, due to disagreements amongst them. But these regrets too get phased away when I realize that I also interrupt between all of their disagreements, augmenting comity amongst them. I feel my importance even more highlighted whenever I come across the sayings of Thomas Jefferson-“Respect the strength of the feeblest, without fearing of it.”   

The future of India

Recently I came across a new word ‘Indologist’, which is used for people who study about India. The first intrigue to tingle anyone would be why would people study on India? The country, which apart from having positive aspects, like “Fastest growing economy”, “most stable and prudently stabilised economy” which are mostly of an economist’s concern, has concerns for a sociologist. Highlighting the education sector lacunae, this remains predominantly inevitable in parts of our country, raise serious doubts on the future of India being moulded. 

There have been many proclamations that India will become developed till 2020. But, the future of our country i.e. the children in our society remain highly neglected. There was a famous right, patronized amongst our peers during the 8^th standard exam which was right to free and compulsory education till 14 years of age. In the urban areas, although the education is just at par with the optimum standards, yet I perceive that there are certain problems betrothed along with. Like many a school are lacking the trait of guiding the students to national and international competitions, teachers are unable to mentor the students on their career paths that’d make them most successful and such.

 Apart from the fortunate ones who live in urban areas, the more fortunate ones living in rural areas are still deprived from even a whiff of that right. The concept of mid-day meal germinated earliest by the Andhra Pradesh government also seems to be floundering as the days pass by. Then how can the future of the nation be solicited? The main reasons for dropouts in rural areas are distance of schools from homes, intellectually retarded parents on the notion of education, lack of experienced teachers. They face inexperienced teachers because experience does not come for the cost of nuts. Even if somehow a veteran teacher is brought, dearth of an interesting, interactive pedagogy does the remaining.

To facilitate and implement the right to education in complete sense, the extra wheels that can be put to this cherished chariot are firstly creating more interactive and vocation oriented pedagogy. Easier said than done. By vocation oriented education I mean an education which is meant for gaining a lucre oriented occupation needed to support a family. Also the learning must be an echelon above just theoretical. Adding we all acknowledge that it’s really it’s an arduous task to provide education to the largest pedantic horde. Instead of bringing in many expensive teachers, televised learning must be introduced into villages with the help of internet. So that even the students get guidance from the best teachers, in the cosiness of their villages. Televised learning shall really prove to be a turning stone in the horizons of rural education.

These changes, if realised in the fullest sense, shall ameliorate the slander on India of being 32 percent illiterate. And shall contribute to the age old reputation of India as a knowledge hub, which can be syllogised from the facts that Lord Krishna studied in Vaishali, Gautam Buddha got his realisation in Gaya, Magadh kingdom known for its world revered varsities and loads of such relics. Children do bestow us the future of our nation.      

Vision 2120

We are all verse on the doom gloom of 21^st December, 2012. Even if that doom stops looming over us, will our future be secure enough till 2120? Only some clairvoyant could premonish that.  But considering the diminution of resources on a horrendous scale, it too seems to be elusive.

Now, this is year 2120 and we are at the same place as we were exactly a century and some 2 decades ago.  The natural resources which were in common use in 2011 are nowhere seen now, but to people’s dismay, even the non-conventional resources that were proposed to be ready in these years, either could not be developed or are out of common man’s reach. The prediction of scientists to the lapse of coal and petroleum has come true. Due to lack of petroleum and coal, power plants now only work on nuclear energy which has started causing problems of nuke waste disposal. The energy is also provided only to the crème de la crème of the society, out of the reach of common masses, the world population having reached around 200 billion. The USA is no more so called but now is divided into separate states akin USSR into CIS which was in 1993. It has been because US economy could not afford to oblige the countries which it had captured on the pretext of ‘War on terror’, namely Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and some part of the gulf. In fact there’s no more country left greater than the size of Mexico. All of which have together formed ISF that is an acronym for Independent States Forum. India has also now been divided into sectarian states. Earlier in India there had been caste sub bifurcations which has led to this severing of the map. There was sub division in each religion- Hindus had shaiv and vaishnavas, muslims had shias and sunnis, jains had digamber and shwetambar, Sikh had nihang and non nihangs, Christians had catholics and non-Catholics, parsis had Zoroastrians and non-Zoroastrians and the list was unending. Now Each one has separated on religious grounds as well as sub religious grounds. The country is now just a bunch of bellicose states. Everywhere in the world the situation is similar to the one which was in Egypt, Libya and Lebanon during the jasmine revolution of 2010-11. The poor ones are plundering the affluent ones, “survival of the fittest” is implied true to word now. Due to lack of energy sources, there are no more locomotives seen other than those whose hands really go deep into the pocket. The world has got into an oligarchy. There is also a new practice adopted by the ISF, to decrease the population, which is bombing and extirpating all the confinements and places with high crime rate, leading to much carnage, ubiquitously. The faulty disposal of nuke waste has led to serious epidemics. Hospitals are brimming with patients cum residents cum soldiers. Soldiers, because their everyday struggle demands mettle much more than that of a soldier. Most of the conglomerates have run bankrupt, and there’s humongous unemployment. Even the pollution has risen to such an alarming level that no living being could imagine surviving, touching Arsenic content of 50 ppm. The season’s cycle has completely changed with the escalating temperatures, Global warming, which has even lead to sinking of many an islands including major part of Japan.

-This cataclysm could only be stopped if we use our resources politically and expediently. Else, although grim, it is very much viable of our future to much extent.      

Poverty Alleviation, no, Poverty Elevation

I am really proud to be an Indian. I do not know whether many of us have seen poverty as closely as I had done, but if you are an Indian then you’re sure being shackled, restrained from thinking the dark cloud of poverty that hovers all over the rustic. Almost all of us had had many an encounters with the burgeoning poverty, bludgeoning people to the extreme just to earn a living.

I am describing not much but just one of the protagonists which I happened to encounter, and apart from just neglecting, reached into his sphere to have an interview of him. He did report his name to be Pappu, but names really don’t signify themselves in their diaspora. They do not matter at all. He wore clothes which might have been given by some affluent family’s generous member, having the logo of the best school in the city, whose fees even if given to the boy in dreams, would seem him elusive. So, he ‘wore’ clothes (at least the namesake), he wore a lean look, perfectly emaciated, which was more revealed out of his clothes.

We now discussed his business….business? Actually his all day busy-ness was of picking rags from repudiated goods, thrown in the junk, the same place where there was a colony of pathogenic bacteria, a coterie of street dogs, savaging over the same rancid refuse, refused by everyone, but accepted by him. From the elementary Social Sciences, which I happened to learn in school, reminded me of an ‘evil’ practice of child labour, purportedly banned in India, but prevalent pragmatically, whose proof I had in front of me. He did not ever see a how a school’s wall was from within. Unfortunately like the generous clothes giver, there was none so generous to contribute to his school fee. My next question to him was about his daily wage, about which he was neither proud nor flustered in divulging. Which he claimed to be Rs.30 and bonus if his ‘owner’ pleased. Far below requirement, far below U.N.’s 2 dollar a day hedge. How can a living being survive in such a modest amount? He said that he had 3 siblings, all of whom were under the same profession. At the end of the day, the whole family would accrue their wages to get facilitated by ration shops for food. And a significant part of their wage went to his tippler father’s everyday revelry. Someday, when the accretion was not sufficing, their mother had to sleep half stomached. “Beggars have no choice”, it seemed to be very much true now. This was their diurnal; hackneyed routine, unflinching even by a feather.

After this encounter I was left contemplating that government policies were given, but how far and deep did they penetrate was the matter. For which, they seemed to flounder. Anna Hazare’s hunger strike seemed to be a viable thing which the ‘aam aadmi’ could do, which at first instance seemed to be hypocritical and an unnecessary display of power of NGO coteries. If plight of all the oppressed can be heard, the government policies can be applied diaphanously, it will be the best poverty alleviation programme my country shall see. Then on I would love my India, more, in true sense and spirits. 

A jerk-y bus journey

This is the first page of my blogging story, which has started like the many, by chance :)

A jerky bus journey

It is said that transportation is the backbone of economy. If it is so, the trio of the states MP, UP and Bihar, is sure to come in the spineless invertebrates. Particularly the experiences people have while travelling in public transport. I am lucky enough to survive these bus rides regularly, for which I thought of writing it for the historical records.

My bus journey started on ‘foot’. Yes, you got it right! On foot. After leaving from my coaching class, I reached the bus stop.  Within a few seconds, a bus came rushing to the stop, with a speed just less than the speed of light! Not exaggerating, but lesser than the speed of light of a bike moving besides it. Thus prevaricating Einstein’s theory of relativity and everything what I learnt in coaching class just some minutes ago. The bus generously stopped a few hundred meters away, making us run, thus caring for the cardiac health of the squires too.

           Alas! What a bus it was. It had grandeur equivalent to that of a stray animal-catching vehicle. The symbolic modern art made on the exterior part of the bus’ body completely arrested me, whose courtesy went to betel squirters sitting inside the bus like spitting cobras, wasting their venom in doing an articulate art work.

The tattered seats and the dilapidated bus forced me to contemplate my eligibility to travel by that bus. Whether the bus will reach my destination was a mystery and where did it begin from was a history. While analysing this, I found out that the bus had already left. But a co-traveller sympathised me that the bus was designed to move at such a speed that I could catch it at the next square also. Thus began my bus journey on foot.

Lucky enough to catch the bus at the next juncture, I felt a bit luckier when I was privileged to keep 10 fingers of my feet on the floor and the rest of my feet over another’s. The crowd in the bus was such that even the thought of travelling in a stray animal van felt to be satiating. I was also one of the fortunate ones who could find a space on handle bar to cling to and hang on. A pristine handle bar, tied with a rope at one end to the ceiling of that jerky bus.