Tuesday, December 23, 2014

VEEKAY’S NEWSLETTER -2014

VEEKAY’S NEWSLETTER -2014
Dear Friends,

As we approach the end of the year 2014, it is time to connect with friends, colleagues and loved ones. It is also time to take stock of all that has happened during the year. A New Year is around the corner, but I am not sure how many of us are looking forward to it. Unlike school children, who always yearn for holidays and want to grow up quickly, for most people of our vintage it only means another year. Another year when hairlines will recede, manes become whiter, the bones more creaky and the backache more painful. But life is God’s gift, to be treasured and enjoyed. The company of good friends and loved ones, especially one’s grandchildren, makes live worth living even when one is approaching the sunset of his life.

The spirit of Christmas has been marred by the ghastly massacre of school children in Pakistan. I don’t recall having been affected by any event as much as I was by this one. The attacks on 9/11 in New York and 26/11 in Bombay may have been worse in terms of numbers of people killed, but they were mostly adults, who had at least lived for some time. But snuffing out the lives of little children, innocent and defenceless, must surely rank among the worst of crimes. One literally shudders to think of what the little ones have gone through, including the ones who escaped alive. Their faith and trust in humanity has been broken, perhaps for ever. 

As has been happening for the last seven years, I still spend a lot of time in court rooms and lawyers’ chambers. For the record, I had 11 hearings in the High Court, 30 in the lower courts (Chief Metropolitan Magistrate and CBI Special Judge), 9 in the consumer courts and 2 before the CIC. That makes a total of 53, which is more or less the same as in previous years. Of course, there are lean periods interspersed by busy ones. February, July and September were lean months, with just one hearing in the month. Many of these cases were filed by me against various agencies for corruption and against authors and publishers who have published material that is more explicit than what is given in my own book. To refresh memories, my book India’s External Intelligence – Secrets of the Research & Analysis Wing (RAW) was published in June 2007 for which I am facing prosecution under the Official Secrets Act. The case is yet to start and will probably never end. Since there is no evidence, the CBI is not really interested in pursuing it. The lawyers get paid for every hearing and naturally wish to prolong it as much as possible.

In July this year another book on RAW was released. Titled Mission R&AW, it has been written by RK Yadav, who has served in the organisation for several years. In fact, he has created a records of sorts, by forming a union and organising a strike in RAW in 1980, after which several employees were dismissed from service, but later taken back. This book gives details of several operations of RAW, along with illegal activities, instances of misuse of the agency by the political leadership and corruption. If anything, it is ten times more explicit than any other book that has been written about the agency, including mine. I hope to make use of it in my defence. Incidentally, as I had mentioned in my last newsletter, the Office Memorandum of 12/09/1968 signed by the Cabinet Secretary for the creation of the agency uses the abbreviation RAW, while everyone serving in that agency insists that the correct abbreviation is R&AW.

The book by RK Yadav makes several tall claims, some of which cast aspersions on the Army and Air Force. It also contains many bloopers. Here is a sample:-
·         RAW was conceived by its founder RN Kao, who was its first chief. (In fact, it was Brig, later Lt Gen, MN Batra, Signals, the then DMI, who wrote the concept paper for RAW, under the directions of the COAS, Gen JN Choudhury).
·         The merger of Sikkim with India was engineered almost entirely by RAW, after approval by Prime Mistier Indira Gandhi. The MEA and Home Ministry were not even aware of this. 
·         The entire blame for the 1962 debacle rests on the Army, whose generals were timid and had no heart to fight.
·         Thimayya was timid. It was only after his retirement in 1961 when Thapar became Chief that things improved.
·         When the Chinese reached the plains of Assam the Army evacuated from (sic) Tezpur, leaving the civil population to their fate. Indira Gandhi stayed on in Tezpur, to boost the morale of the locals.
·         When the Chinese attacked our posts in Tsenge Zong, the military commanders did not reinforce them as they had made no preparations for this. 
·         The decision to throw out the Chinese in 1962 was a purely military decision. There was no political interference. 
·         The training and arming of Mukti Bahini in 1971 was done entirely by RAW.
·         The wireless message regarding the meeting convened on 14 December 1971 at Government House in Dacca leading to the bombing by the IAF and the resignation of the Governor, Dr. AM Malik, was intercepted by RAW. (In fact, the message was intercepted by the wireless experimental unit at Lucknow, then commanded by Major DS Paode).
·         To facilitate the arms drop at Purulia in 1995, RAW had ensured that the Air Force’s radar was switched off so that the aircraft was not picked up when it flew in to drop the arms.

There is finally some good news about the History of the Corps of Signals, Volume III, covering the period 1947-72, which I wrote between 2007 and 2010. Though it was formally released during the centenary celebrations of the Corps at Jabalpur in February 2011, it could not be printed due to want of MI clearance. After more than three years of shuttling between various directorates, clearance was finally accorded early this year and the book is now in the final stage of printing. If all goes well, it should be released – for the second time – on 15th February 2015, if not earlier. Of course, the entire chapter on the 1962 war has been deleted, along with some portions of the 1971 war and the skirmish at Nathula in 1967. These maybe added once the records of the operations after 1961 are de-classified by the MOD. For those who are interested,   I will be soon putting them on my blog: veekay-militaryhistory.blogspot.com.

The third activity that took up a lot of my time this year was visits to the hospital. Finally, the cataract in my left eye was removed, though I still have to wear spectacles for reading. Kumud also got cataracts removed from both eyes, with a gap of about a month and a half between the two operations. Unfortunately, she is still facing problems such as occasional redness and watering of the eyes. All the procedures were done at Shroff Eye Centre in Gurgaon. Now that my left eye is functional, I have resumed attention to my right eye, which has a swelling in the retina (BRVO). I have already had 12 injections during the last three years – Avastin, Lucentis and Macugen – and there is some improvement. I hope to get an OCT done next month after which it will be decided whether to get another injection or leave it alone for some time.

Another time consuming project that was initiated in the beginning of the year was the construction of some additional rooms in the backyard of our house and extension of the lobby and drawing room. After living in this house for ten years we realised the drawing room was rarely used. Unless the gathering is large, we usually sit in the lobby that extends into the dining room. So we decided to convert the drawing room into a bedroom, which can be used when our daughter and her children come over for the weekend. This necessitated the construction of an adjoining dresser and toilet. The lobby is also being extended, so that it can accommodate the sofas presently kept in the drawing room. Though the work is being done by a builder, he is abominably slow and even after one year, the project is nowhere near completion. Since Kumud is very particular about the choice of tiles, bathroom fixtures, electrical  fittings, locks, door and window fittings and the granite to be used on the counter, this entails frequent trips to the markets in Gurgaon where hardware and sanitary ware shops are located. I keep telling her that all this is only shortening our lifespans but she just shrugs it off.

A calamity that struck this year was the crashing of the hard disk of my computer. (My own PC, seized by the CBI in 2007, has still not been returned and I was using one given to me on loan from the Corps history cell. My application for return of my PC was turned down by the court because the seizure report mentions it as CPU, while my application called it a PC, as mentioned in the charge sheet)! It happened at about 10 pm on 4th June, when the mains failed. When power was restored, the voltage was extremely low and I suddenly found my monitor blank. Next morning I took it to the Signals Enclave where a mechanic from the IT cell of 1 Army HQ Sig Regt tried to revive it. Since it also had a virus, he copied all the files that he could on CDs and then reformatted the hard disc. However, when he loaded the copied files back on the hard disk, it was found that many files pertaining to the period 2010-14 were missing. After several attempts to solve the problem in house failed, I decided to take outside help. I gave the hard disk to a highly recommended technician in Nehru Place who kept it for about a week and then raised his hands. I then gave it to Truth Laboratories, who are reputed to have considerable expertise in the field. They sent the hard disk to their laboratory in Bangalore. I got it back after two months but the missing files had not been retrieved. I am now trying to build up some of the files from emails that I have sent or received, CDs and various other sources.

A similar problem occurred when I had gone to Jaipur for a few days. I had carried my new laptop and borrowed a data card from my brother-in-law to see my e mails. It had a recycler virus that destroyed all the folders. My son-in-law gave it to a technician in Galleria market who removed the Windows 8.1 and loaded Windows 7, which created its own problems, since it was not the original version. Fortunately, I was able to locate the Dell service centre in Gurgaon, who not only formatted the laptop but loaded the original Windows 8.1 software again. Having learned the lesson, I now save everything on an external hard disk as well as on Google Drive. And I have vowed never to use a pen drive to transfer files from one device to another.

Thanks to my cataract operation being postponed twice, I missed out on a fabulous road trip that we had planned in September. Lasting almost 20 days, we intended to cover almost the whole of Kashmir and Ladakh and some parts of Himachal. The party was to comprise my son-in-law Vaibhav, one of his friends and myself. At the last moment, the doctor advised me not to go, since my cataract had been removed just a few fays earlier. Vaibhav’s friend also dropped out, so he decided to do it alone. A day before he was to leave, we heard about the floods in Srinagar. So he had to delay his departure by a day and go via Manali instead of Srinagar. He left Gurgaon on 9th September and got back on the 26th, after logging about 4500 Km in 18 days. The places he visited were Chandigarh, Manali, Karu, Leh, Kargil, Batalik, Partapur, Nurba, Tangtse, Pangong Tso lake, Chushul, Karzok, Sarchu, Tandi, Keylong, Kaza, Tabo, Sumdo, Karcham and Simla. It was a fantastic trip that I would have loved to do. Except for three days when my nephew Akshay who is posted at Karu accompanied him and when he had Akshay’s brother-in-law as a companion for the portion from Chandigarh to Karu, Vaibhav did the trip alone. And he is a sailor who spends most of his time on the water!

This year we could not go for our annual summer holiday to the hills. But we made do with a trip to the national park at Ranthambhore.  Kumud and I were accompanied by Vaibhav, Mauravi and their two children, Mriggya and Eshaana. We went for three jungle safaris in a gypsy. On the second trip, in the morning on 23rd October we had a magnificent view of a tiger from a distance of barely 10 metres. For almost an hour, we watched him sleeping close to the track. Finally he got up and came on the track. There were several gypsies and canters on both sides and he could not find a route to get out. There was a near panic as the drivers reversed their vehicles, until a small track leading to one side opened up. The tiger strode off into the jungle, leaving everyone wonderstruck. That evening, we celebrated Diwali at the hotel where we were staying, leaving next day for Jaipur,  where we stayed for another two days before returning to Gurgaon after a short but memorable trip and an encounter with the king of the jungle. See the photos at the end.

During the winter months, we still continue the practice of a trip on Saturday or Sunday to visit a park, museum or monument. This year, we have visited the Doll Museum, National Gallery of Modern Art, Book Fair, Indira Gandhi Memorial, Lodi Garden, Nehru Memorial and the Palate food festival at Nehru Park. Usually, we are accompanied by the children and grandchildren along with Kumud’s nephew Ajay and his family who live nearby. We intend rounding off the year with a visit to the street food festival in the Nehru Stadium that is due next week, from Christmas onwards.

In November we celebrated the 20th anniversary of completion of our NDC course (NDC 34). Incidentally, our course is the only one that has been having a monthly get together without a break for the last 20 years. It is usually held during lunch on the 1st Sunday of the month, hosted by members in rotation at their homes or in a mess or club. Over the years, the Air Force golf course, Sabre mess and Kotah House have become hot favourites. For the 20th anniversary, we had a lunch on 23rd November, hosted by Surinder Singh (Arty) at his home. The next day, there was a contributory dinner at the NDC. Since Peter Cosgrove, now Governor General of Australia, could not make it on those dates, we had another dinner on the 30th, hosted by Gulshan Kalra in his house (he was with Indian Oil when he did the course, later moving on to Coca Cola). Finally, Air Marshal Bindra hosted a lunch on 2nd December at his home.

 One would imagine that four days of wining and dining was more than enough for a couple of weeks. But this was not to be. On 5th and 6th December I had to be in Hisar for the biennial reunion of the unit that I had raised in 1982. This was the ninth reunion and no less than nine ex-COs attended, apart from several other officers, JCOs and OR. I have always felt that having a reunion at unit level, as is the practice in the Infantry and Cavalry, is a better option than the one we have for the entire Corps once in five years at Jabalpur. I have attended three of them and except for a few officers, I did not know any of the JCOs or OR. In fact, we were literally rushing from one event to the other, without a break. It is a good idea for signal units to have an annual or biennial reunion, in addition to the one held every five years at Jabalpur.   To reduce the load on the unit, it can be kept simple, with just a barakhana or a cup of tea for all ranks, followed by dinner in the Officers Mess. To ensure that the officers are not taxed, one can follow the custom that I had started in my own unit – each ex-CO carries a bottle of Scotch to the party!

We are still staying in Palam Vihar in Gurgaon. My son Abhimanyu lives on the first floor with his wife Jasmine and their two children Bhuvanyu (11) and Khushi (9). My daughter Mauravi and her husband Vaibhav live in Hextex Commune near the DLF golf course, which is close to the school of their two daughters Mriggya (11) and Eshaana (9). Vaibhav is a captain in the Merchant Navy and is presently sailing across the Pacific. He expects to be home sometime in April next year.

Our routine remains the same as in yester years. I go to the gym in the DSOI at 0700 and return at 0745. Instead of walking on the treadmill, I now do a bit of cycling. The orthopaedic surgeon in the JRC at the RR Hospital told me to do this when I went to see him for pain in the knees. According to him, cycling and swimming are better than walking, since they take the weight off your knees. Kumud goes to the gym at around 0830 and returns only at about 1000. She also does a bit of walking in the evening when she gets the chance. I have to do some extension exercises for my back once I come back from the gym. Whenever I stop these exercises for a few days, the pain in my leg returns. This also happens if I sit on a low sofa or settee, or take a ride in a car with low seats. Once I had diagnosed the problem, I switched over to the Innova about six years back and that is the only car I prefer to sit in now.

  Sometime back, I went to a free spine camp at the Columbia Asia Hospital next door. After seeing my MRIs, they advised me go in for spine surgery straightaway. I went to my good friend KK Singh who had diagnosed my ailment – lumbar canal stenosis – way back in 1992. He was now Comdt of the RR hospital and advised me to not to go in for surgery. I went to the Spinal Injuries Centre and they told me the same thing. Since three vertebrae   - 3rd, 4th and 5th - were involved, the surgery was a bit complicated and they advised me to carry on as long as I could.   

That about sums it up for the year 2014. This is my ninth newsletter (the first one was sent in 2006).  Those who wish to read the previous ones can do so by logging on to my blog veekaysnewsletter.blogspot.com.

Let me close by wishing all of you a Merry Christmas and Very Happy and Prosperous New Year.

Vinay and Kumud Singh
G-31, Palam Vihar, Gurgaon – 122017
Tele: 0124-4074077, 9873494521, 9899110913
23rd December 2014

At Ranthambhore on 23rd October 2014, shortly before we met the Tiger.

At Ranthambhore on 23rd October 2014, face to face with the Tiger.



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