More on this book
Kindle Notes & Highlights
In Gorur, distinctions of caste and profession were once considered crucial to sustain the social hierarchy. As a Brahmin boy, I was aware of an unwritten code of conduct, which compelled artisans and Dalits to live at a distance from us in separate colonies. The Brahmins were not particularly well-off, but assumed they were different and maintained the social distinction.
Each morning my father woke me up at dawn and took me for a dip in the river Hemavathy. This became an unchanging ritual. Even in pouring rain we went to the river. After the swim we returned home for breakfast. He then took me to the coconut and areca-nut plantations that stood like islands in an ocean of paddy-fields. Being different, he never performed sandhya vandana, the tribute to the Sun god, but the act of bathing in the river at daybreak was for him a gesture of reverence.
Trekking was another activity close to my heart. I was sent to a cadets’ camp in Bhubaneshwar and to the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute (HMI) in Darjeeling for an adventure course.
The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) conducts these exams and thousands of candidates appear for it every year. In those days there was a good deal of glamour and prestige attached to the army, and it was also considered a great career option, the armed forces a genuine alternative to the IAS and the IPS. The NDA, the principle training ground for the armed forces had—and continues to have a world famous training curriculum and has created within its expansive confines an awe-inspiring world of its own. Other boys in my school too were preparing to compete for the NDA. We were painfully
...more
However, I passed out of the NDA without losing a term and went on to pursue my military training at the IMA in Dehradun.
On graduating from the IMA, I was asked to choose one of the three wings of the army: the infantry, the artillery, or the engineering corps.
As an officer cadet, I went to the Artillery School in Devlali, near Nashik.
The army is hierarchical, with a three-tier hierarchy. Officers occupy the top rung. Junior commissioned officers belong to the second, and jawans occupy the lowest.
At twenty, I had people with twenty to thirty years’ experience reporting to me. I was conscious of occupying a position of formal superiority, yet I knew I was in no way superior to them. I did not know how to resolve this conundrum either. Officers took their meals in a separate officers’ mess. The jawans ate in the langar. I was proud of my training and upbringing, I held aloft the values of honour, service, and welfare, yet I could not help noticing the unfair advantage an officer enjoyed.
I realized that effective management and administration of resources and people are the principle criteria of a good army.
On a personal level, each of us knew that these were defining moments; that we might not see each other again and that some of us might never return from the engagement.
I vividly remember the eve of our move into East Pakistan territory. It was a sultry October night. The local civilian authorities had organized a farewell dinner for the armed forces, attended by the heads of police and the civil services, my CO, people from the intelligence services.
The responsibilities shouldered by a GPO are immense. A regiment has three batteries, each with six guns. In any war, the artillery can wreak great devastation upon the enemy. Artillery gun positions are sometimes isolated and are vulnerable to enemy attacks. During war, there is round-the-clock activity. Even eating and sleeping are activities undertaken in a state of high alert. During prolonged periods of engagement with the enemy and notwithstanding the lack of proper meals or sound sleep, there is an inexplicable kind of adrenaline rush.
It is not that we were not scared. Courage is the counterpoint of fear. Courage appears when in war or business, one is indeed scared.
We then moved out of what is now Bangladesh. My unit was moved to Sikkim. People cheered us all along the road from Dinajpur to Rangpur to Sikkim. They were celebrating on the streets, and raised a victory cry, ‘Indira Gandhi zindabad,’ ‘Indian Army zindabad’, ‘Manekshaw zindabad
After the war, I was posted in Sikkim for a year and a half. This was the beginning of a period of deep spiritual awakening within me. Sikkim was a kingdom and not yet a part of India. It was however an Indian protectorate, with India looking after its economic and foreign affairs, its army, and its infrastructural needs.
Those were amongst the finest days of my life. I rose each morning to the sight of the majestic range of Kanchenjunga bathed in pre-dawn sunlight. We enjoyed clear weather from six to about nine in the morning most of the year. Visibility fell to zero after that. Below my picket and down the slope, there was a lake that froze in winter. It was my first experience of a frozen lake. The frozen surface was sufficiently hard to permit animals to walk across it. It had however no formal name, an unnamed lake on the map lying between the Indian picket and the Chinese border. Every day the Chinese
...more
I faced a dilemma as I no longer wished to remain in the army but was uncertain what I should do instead? I wanted to cut loose all bonds and set myself free to become a monk, but that would be expecting the world to feed me and add to its existing burdens.
I also had romantic notions of going abroad and working as an apprentice at the National Geographical Society for a couple of years to travel the world. I would travel to Egypt, Greece, and Italy. Perhaps I would gradually learn the ropes and be able to apply and qualify for a correspondent’s job at the National Geographic. I was clear in my mind, however, that I did not want to continue in the army and nor wanted a government job.
I however felt the need to go ‘beyond the woods and beyond borders’; longed for adventure. The safest place for a ship is in the harbour, but ships are built for sailing. I, therefore, decided to cut my ropes, abandon the sheltered life, and set sail to discover myself and my true passion. It was indeed a crazy idea; but it had taken hold of me.
The image of a farmer was romantic, he agreed, but for most romantics it was often a passing fancy and the dropout rate was extremely high.
I spent almost every waking moment strolling across the semi-wilderness of the countryside, dreaming of my farm, bathing in the stream skirting the land, and breathing in the heady fragrance of wildflowers.
From the day I set foot on my farm till the day I left it ten years later, the farm and its success were my only obsession.
For me the entrepreneur becomes the idea, dissolves in it; does not exist outside of it. The entrepreneur and the idea becomes one.
A groom is eventually selected on the basis of his educational and professional achievements. Lacking these, a poorly qualified candidate might find inheritance of property and wealth weighing in his favour!
Both modern science and ancient wisdom tell us that topsoil is the most precious element in agriculture.
