SS74 - Jessami Photogallery

Photographs courtesy - Maj Ashutosh Garg

Chand Per Chandani Nahin Hoti - Maj Sanjay Chaturvedi

 

So here comes the maiden effort by Maj Sanjaya Chaturvedi in the field of writing. They say, Pen is mightier than the Sword, but what should we say to this soldier who also has a pen in his hand, who has the determination of a worrier but the heart & imagination of a poet. His book "Chand Per Chandani Nahin Hoti" was released on 01 May 2010 at the grand ceremony organized under the aegis of Shivna Prakashan, Sehore MP & MP Urdu Academy. 

I today received a courier which contained a copy of the book duly Autographed by Sanjay. I feel proud to have a coursemate like him. Putting down a few words penned by him from the book 

इक लिफाफा आज मेरा नाम लेकर आ गया

चिठ्ठियाँ जिंदा हैं ये पैगाम लेकर आ गया

Kudos to you mate! and thanks a lot for sending me a copy. 

After-Event Update - Dil Se Chauhattar @ New Delhi, 2010

Hi Everyone,

Now thats called a start. We finally did manage to cross Half Century. We were expecting a lot more attendance but due to whatever reasons some people just couldn't make it and sent in their regrets. Nevertheless we also had a breed of perpetual defaulters and late comers who startled all of us with their benign presence.

Regrets - Ajay Kumar, Vishal Sharma, NS Chib, Karan Yadav, Amit Bhardwaj, Jidesh Krishnan, Ajinkya Deshpande, Vikrant Sharma, Rajneesh Dhar, Jaswinder Singh, Mandeep Dahiya, Adarsh Rai, Faruq Khan, Dharmveer Singh, Karan Singh Bains, Simi Bashir Umesh Mehta.....................phew....what a long list................but you guys missed it

AWL - Girish Nair, Jatinder Jasrotia, Shalini Singh, GP Singh, Rahul Singh, Rohit Dwivedi, and the rest of SS74 :(.......WTF

The Party Animals - Now thats a very long list. Those who attended already know it and those who didn't know as well. 

Highlights - Rajeev & Shivani were the first ones to reach. Rajeev being at the helm of affairs for the arrangements ensured everything was in place for the evening. The guest started pouring in dot 1930 onwards. Anupam Kher's graahi Dhankher was probably the next alongwith his better half and our MH specialist Nitin Soni. Soni's love for the MH is known to all and to strengthen this claim he was staying at AIIMS Guest rooms.So the guest continued to arrive and the excitement could be seen with jhappi and pappis and MC/BC-ies flying in all directions with absolutely no regard for the accompanying ladies and children. So bloody what! I guess we have a stronger bond with our coursemates than our spouses! otherwise why would people lock their wives sleeping at home and drive all the way to my place at Greater Noida from Dwarka, Gurgaon and Delhi for a 5AM breakfast. 

So lets continue.... people kept coming in and we finally started with Dhankher taking charge as the emcee to the not so structured program. Thereafter we displayed a small video of the academy pics wherein Jessami pics were missing in the video since the Jaguars have been sleeping without contributing anything. We might need to start another movement Save the Jaguars like we have one for the Tigers lest they go into oblivion. The video was appreciated by one and all and there were war cries and claps for various pics. Nandal was pretty embarrassed for the pic in which he was wearing just the underwear and the pouches (His wife had not seen this naughty side of him ;) The pics brought those wonderful memories alive. Ritesh jha could not hold his tears when he saw Bhanu's pic.

Post refreshing the memories we had a one minute silence to remember our martyrs, Bhanu, Lakikant, Prateek Mishra & Selvaraj. These soldiers laid down their lives for the motherland and have made us proud. Our D3 Celebrity - Kshitij Sharma, made a proposal to make a corpus for the War Widows which will be deliberated upon in the days to come and taken to a logical conclusion.

With the drinks going down, people started feeling nostalgic and high. Sonika Sinha sang a lovely song with some bathroom singers contributing to the chorus. Riya sang the famous auld lang syne on which some people managed to do Dheeray Chal. 8 years on and we could still do it. Thereafter we all danced to the tunes of Human Orchestra Chacha Varun Visen with his ganja shetty look! Ritesh Jha who had expressed his desire to sing and was finally able to get his hands on the mic and sang Pal in remembrance of the martyrs and the batch. The next generation made merry at the big inflatable bunjee jumper specially catered from them while the laptops editions were with their mothers, amused at the loud music and rather subdued ambiance!

More drinks down, the floor was open now for dance. Dance drinks and old Memories were indeed a deadly combination. Rest of the evening was spent in chit-chatting and remembering pleasant memories from the academy. We had people from as far as Udhampur, Guwahati, Bangalore & Mumbai. Karan Yadav called from East Timur islands specially to mark his presence in absentia. 

Josh of some people is worth mentioning. NS Rathore, Yash Naudiyal & Rajeev Pandey were in proper Company T-Shirts. Shirts off to you guys! Some people like Thakur, Sadotra & Me donned the company colours atleast if not the actual T-Shirt. NSG gang of Yuvraj, Shinde & Pandey was there at the last moment to join the celebrations. Course Cap with our new logo on it became an instant hit. Sejwal has ensured that the quality of the cap and workmanship was immaculate. So all those who paid but couldn't attend! please wait for your couriers from Sejwal to arrive. 

Guys it has become an essay now and I better stop. Those who attended, enjoyed and those who didn't, keep f@#king guessing and sulking. Photographs will be uploaded on the website very soon so that you can feel sorry on missing the event even more. Jokes apart lets make an endeavor to have such an event every year... irrespective of all our busy lives, schedules etc and even get the NRIs to attend too.

So long from me! Thank You everyone for making this even a grand success. Please convey our special thanks to your spouses and children for bearing with us. And lets get together again next year and then in 2012 we will celebrate 10 years of passing out in a big way.

Photographs are appended below

regards & love

Capt Rohit Saxena
Naushera 8
SS74 - The Shorty Chauhattars
Visit us on the net http://www.ss74.org

Shorty Chauhattars @ UN

SS74 & D3 Commando

Training Officers

Capt Albert Louis
Capt Dharmveer Singh
Capt Kshitij Sharma

Catch them online every Saturday, 1900 Hrs on UTV Bindass

Naudi's Sagaai

Naudi's Sagaai & Wedding

Photographs courtesy Sejwal & Saxena

Gaurav Seth & The Sadotras in Srinagar

OFFICER TRAINING ACADEMY

Youre walking with friends down  Spencer Plaza Road and realize that as much as you try ,,your straight line somehow always becomes a 'squad'.

On an average..one pisses approximately 47 times in the one hour prior to X-Country.

You know where heaven is and its called MH

You can live on a biscuit a day

You can sleep anywhere,anyhow,at any time..and in any position

Nobody falls sick on Saturdays and Sundays but 237 people fall sick the night before Drill-Pt.

Never stand when you can sit,never sit when you can lie down,never stay awake when you can sleep

Eat every meal like its your last

Is it just me or do any others believe that CHANAKYA had some kind of sleeping gas?

The words Bhaand,chiku, tambi,speci,att c,lmc, khajji are not foreign to you

You can eat anything,anywhere,anyhow

Is something wrong with the calendar people or is it just a coincidence that every diwali,independence day,Christmas, Id somehow happens on a Sunday and takes the joy of an extra holiday away from us

Nobody wants to be a map reader

When you win the race back your map readers are anonymous but when you don't theyre the assholes

The only good part about drill is watching the people at zero point and knowing that things could have been worse

Everyone is a Para optee in nda..come choice of arms and they all are suddenly ASC,AOC

Guests on a Sunday are angels from heaven

When life throws opportunities at you, don't let them go. When the OTA throws opportunities at you, 'RUN ! IT'S A TRAP!!'

Never plan for anything and never EVER say to yourself 'okay,,today im goin to sleep the entire day' ..chances are you wont get even a minutes sleep..

Five hours for firing..five rounds to fire..isnt there a mismatch there?

If youre late for class the instructor is on time..if youre early..the instructor never comes

When your liberty card is signed nobody checks it.When you dont have one or forge a signature,its checked by three people

Your bike rides you more than you ride it

Your pals are NEVER there when you need them the most

You would give a million dollars for one day of ATT-C

When you bunk CHANAKYA there wil definitely be a count up

Your cabin cupboard will never be perfect..so why try

When in doubt whether to sleep or do something constructive..SLEEP!! You will not regret not doing something constructive but you will FOREVER regret not sleeping

Regards
Nirmith Thakur

Sent from BlackBerry® on ANPRC-25

http://www.ss74.org

Friends,

The world is growing smaller and smaller with the advent of new technologies and we should not get left behind. Having spent time in the army, we all know it becomes very difficult to keep pace with technology and also to keep track of each one of us. Hence this idea of making a blog came to my mind. I started with this blog on 24 Jul 2008 to bring the whole course together and make it a platform to be able to reach out to each other using technology and the internet. I guess I have been quite successful in doing so..........

We have come a long way since. We have lots of photo-galleries reminding us of the wonderful days spent in the academy. We also have a Social List where you can put in your details with just a click.... we can send messages to all our coursemates using a centralized mailing list... we have organized small get-together here and there and have tried to cover them with pics.....

Moving forward I thought why not have a custom domain too and here we are with our very own domain http://www.ss74.org

So now enjoy visiting the site....just remember the .org
am sure none of us can ever forget ss74!


So keeping the Shorty Chauhattar spirit alive..........presenting to you all.....

www.ss74.org


Capt Rohit Saxena
Naushera 8,
SS74

Get-togethers Here & There

Saraswat's Wedding

Photograph Courtesy - Capt Ashim Prabhakar - SS75


Baarati
SS73
Mrs & Maj AS Brar
SS74
Anant Phougat
Bikrant Rana
Deepak Singh Negi
Gagandeep Singh
Karan Singh & Savneet Bains
Kush Shandil
Naven & Sakshi Mehta
Rajeev Kr Singh
Rohit Saxena
Yash Naudiyal
Yoginder Sejwal
SS75
Ashim & Avni Prabhakar

OTA Song - Nausherian Jingle!

Major Dhundup Keronga on Air

Vijay Diwas 2009 @ India Gate

Attended by - Ajay, Dhankher, Kevin, Negi, Patni, Saxena, Sinha(with family), Sejwal
Photographs courtesy - Maj Ajay Kumar

OGs in the UAE

Some news from the UAE. Kevin John and Karl represented the Shorty Chauhattars @ the "OGs in UAE" get together.

SC Investiture Ceremony Photograph - 19 Mar 09

The Supreme Commander, President, Smt Pratibha Devisingh Patil conferring Shaurya Chakra to IC-65693 Capt Amit Bhardwaj for displaying conspicuous gallantry, indomitable courage and extreme devotion to duty at a solemn ceremony in Rashtrapati Bhawan, New Delhi on 19 Mar 2009. Another of our coursemate IC-65706 Capt Kuldeep Raj also got conferred with a Shaurya Chakra.

Congratulations to both of them.

Blackwater Manpower Solutions - Entrepreneurial Debut

Our Coursemates Bikrant Singh Rana, Deepak Negi & Yoginder Singh Sejwal have started a new venture with the name Blackwater Manpower Solutions Pvt Ltd.

Working on the Core values of Integrity, Teamwork, Innovation, Respect, Accountability, Excellence and Efficiency, the company aims to provide fully Vetted, Trained, Disciplined & Dedicated Guarding & Housekeeping Personnel (Civilian/Ex–Servicemen) with CRISIS MANAGEMENT Solutions as Value Added Service.

Click here to go to the company website

This is a first such venture by any one of us. I congratulate the trio and wish them success. I am sure they will scale new heights in this venture and make it a SS74 success story.

I request all of you to please promote the company and forward as many leads as possible. Lets contribute to the whole idea and make it a successful venture.

Karan Yadav's Wedding - NCR Gang - 16 Feb 09

Pics courtesy Nirmith Singh Thakur

Chetan Dutta's Brothers wedding - NCR Gang 9th Dec 08

Pics courtesy Yash Naudiyal
(Please disregard the date on the pics)

SS74 - Zojila Photogallery

Photographs contributed by Sheetal Chavhan

FAUJI BHAIYON KO GUSSA KYON AATHA HAI?

The writer is a former banker who was with the SBI Group and DSP Merrill
Lynch Ltd.

We need a permanent solution to this tussle over emoluments so that the armed forces need only confront the enemies of the nation, says T.R. Ramaswami
In the continuing debate on pay scales for the armed forces, there has to be a serious and transparent effort to ensure that the country is not faced with an unnecessary civil-military confrontation. That effort will have to come from the netas, who are the real and true bosses of the armed forces and not the civil bureaucracy. A solution may lie in what follows.


This country requires the best armed forces, the best police and the best civil service. In fact that is what the British ensured.. By best one means that a person chooses which service he wants as per his desires/capabilities and not based on the vast differential in prospects in the various services.

How much differential is there?

Take Maharashtra, one of the most parsimonious with police ranks thus still retaining some merit - the 1981 IPS batch have become 3-star generals, the 1987 are 2-star and the 1994 1-star.. In the army the corresponding years are 1972, 1975, 1979. – ie a differential of 10-15 years. While the differential is more with the IAS, the variance with the IPS is all the more glaring because both are uniformed services and the grades are "visible" on the shoulders.
First some general aspects. Only the armed forces are a real profession – ie where you rise to the top only by joining at the bottom. We have had professors of economics become Finance Secretaries or even Governors of RBI. We have any number of MBBSs, engineers, MBAs, in the police force though what their qualifications lend to their jobs is a moot point. You can join at any level in the civil service, except Cabinet Secretary. A civil servant can move from Animal Husbandry to Civil Aviation to Fertilisers to Steel to yes, unfortunately, even to Defence.. But the army never asks for Brigade Commanders or a Commandant of the Army War College or even Director General Military Intelligence, even from RAW or IB. Army officers can and have moved into organizations like IB and RAW but it is never the other way round.

MBBS and Law graduates are only in the Medical or JAG Corps and do nothing beyond their narrow areas. Every Army Chief - in any army - has risen from being a commander of a platoon to company to battalion to brigade to division to corps to army. In fact the professionalism is so intense that no non-armoured corps officer ever commands an armoured formation – first and possibly only exception in world military history – General K. Sunderji. Perhaps it is this outstanding professionalism that irks the civil services.

Next, one must note the rigidity and steep pyramid of the army's rank structure. In the civil services any post is fungible with any grade based on political expediency and the desires of the service. For example I know of one case where one department downgraded one post in another state and up-graded one in Mumbai just to enable someone continue in Mumbai after promotion! You can't fool around like this in the armed forces. A very good Brigadier cannot be made a Major-General and continue as brigade commander. There has to be a clear vacancy for a Major General and even then there may be others better than him. Further the top five ranks in the army comprise only 10% of the officer strength. Contrast this with the civil services where entire batches become Joint Secretaries.

Even the meaning of the word "merit" is vastly different in the army and the civil services. Some years back an officer of the Maharashtra cadre claimed that he should be the Chief Secretary as he was first in the merit list. Which merit list? At the time of entry more than 35 years before! The fact is that this is how merit is decided in the IAS and IPS. Every time a batch gets promoted the inter-se merit is still retained as at the time of entry. In other words if you are first in a batch at the time of entry, then as long as you get promoted, you continue to remain first! This is like someone in the army claiming that he should become chief because he got the Sword of Honour at the IMA. Even a Param Vir Chakra does not count for promotion, assuming that you are still alive. In the armed forces, merit is a continuous process - each time a batch is promoted the merit list is redrawn according to your performance in all the previous assignments with additional weightage given not only to the last one but also to your suitability for the next one. Thus if you are a Brigade Commander and found fit to become a Major General, you may not get a division because others have been found better to head a division. That effectively puts an end to your promotion to Lt. General.

The compensation package must therefore address all the above issues. In each service, anyone must get the same total compensation by the time he reaches the 'mode rank' of his service. "Mode" is a statistical term – the value where the maximum number of variables fall. In the IAS normally everyone reaches Director and in the IPS it is DIG. In the army, given the aforementioned rank and grade rigidities and pyramidical structure, the mode rank cannot exceed Colonel. Thus a Colonel's gross career earnings (not salary scales alone) must be at par with that of a Director. But remember that a Colonel retires at 54, but every babu from peon to Secretary at 60 regardless of performance. Further, it takes 16-18 years to become a Colonel whereas in that time an IAS officer reaches the next higher grade of Joint Secretary, which is considered equal to a Major General. These aspects and others - like postings in non-family stations - must be addressed while fixing the overall pay scales of Colonel and below. Thereafter a Brigadier will be made equal to a Joint Secretary, a Major-General to an Additional Secretary and a Lt. General to a Secretary. The Army Commanders deserve a new rank - Colonel General and should be above a Secretary but below Cabinet Secretary. The equalization takes place at the level of Cabinet Secretary and Army Chief. If this is financially a problem I have another solution. Without increasing the armed forces' scales, reduce the scales of the IAS and IPS till they too have 20% shortage. Done? Even India 's corruption index will go down. If the above is accepted in principle, there is a good case to review the number of posts above Colonel. Senior ranks in the armed forces have become devalued with more and more posts being created. But the same pruning exercise is necessary in the IAS and more so in the IPS, where Directors General in some states are re-writing police manuals – one is doing Volume I and another Volume II! Further the civil services have such facilities as "compulsory wait" – basically a picnic at taxpayers cost. And if you are not promoted or posted where you don't want to go they seem able to take off on leave with much ease. In the army you will be court-martialled. Also find out how many are on study leave. The country cannot afford this.

Let not someone say that the IAS and IPS exams are tougher and hence the quality of the officers better. An exam at the age of 24 has to be tougher than one at the age of 16. The taxpaying citizen is not interested in your essay/note writing capabilities or whether you know Cleopatra's grandfather.

As a citizen I always see the army being called to hold the pants of the civil services and the police and never the other way round. That's enough proof as to who is really more capable. Also recall the insensitive statements made by the IG Meerut in the Aarushi case and the Home Secretary after the blasts. Further, when the IAS and IPS hopefuls are sleeping, eating and studying, their school mates, who have joined the army, stand vigil on the borders to make it possible for them to do so.

Remember that the armed forces can only fight for above the table pay. They can never compete with the civil services and definitely not with the police for the under the table variety.
Finally, there is one supreme national necessity. The political class – not the bureaucracy - which represents the real civil supremacy better become more savvy on matters relating to the armed forces. Till then they are at the mercy of the civil service, who frequently play their own little war games.

At ministerial level there are some very specialized departments – Finance, Railways, Security (Home), Foreign and Defence, where split second decisions are necessary. It is always possible to find netas savvy in finance, foreign relations and railways. Security has been addressed in getting a former IPS officer as NSA at the level of a MoS. Is it time that a professional is also brought into the Defence Ministry as MoS? The sooner the better. In fact this will be better than a CoDS because the armed forces will have someone not constrained by the Army Act or Article 33 of the Constitution. Of course the loudest howls will come from the babus. The netas must realize that a divide and rule policy cannot work where the country's security is concerned. Recall 1962?

Our army, already engaged in activities not core to their functions, including rescuing babies from borewells (!), should not have to engage in civil wars over their pay scales.

The writer is a former banker who was with the SBI Group and DSP Merrill Lynch Ltd.

Life is meant for living

SS74 - Phillora Photogallery

Contributed by Saurabh Sinha

SS74 - Naushera Photogallery

SS74 - Kohima PhotoGallery

Its 07th September

SS74 - Meiktila PhotoGallery

Contributed
by
Capt Nirmith Singh Thakur & Maj Ajay Nathyal

A hero remembered fondly...Binoy Valsan, The Statesman

JAIPUR, July 23: Three year old Rudra Pratap Singh is too young to fathom the fact that he will have to struggle for the rest of his life to recollect the memories of his father Major Bhanu Pratap Singh, who embraced martyrdom in a gun battle with militants in Rajouri district of Jammu and Kashmir. His mother Sarika Singh on the other hand will be battling for the rest of her life to make her peace with the memories of the same man who was her pillar of strength as a husband, friend and soulmate for the past four years.
Sarika was at her maternal home in Gwalior where she is pursuing her studies and dotting on her son when her father told her of her fate.
"Rudra has not yet understood the fact that his father is no more, while Sarika does not want to come to terms with it. Bhanu was a loving father, husband and a son-in-law who respected me like his own father. I was proud that my daughter got married to him,” said Surat Singh Rajawat, Major Bhanu Pratap's father-in-law.
Major Bhanu Pratap Singh from Churu district in Rajasthan breathed his last after taking multiple bullet-hits in a pre-dawn cordon and search operation in Kunda area of Thana Mandi Tehsil last Sunday. He was leading a joint search patrol of army and Special Operations Group of the J&K police to flush out a group of alleged LeT militants which resulted in the fatal gun battle. According to his family members and friends, Major Bhanu Pratap Singh was determined to have a career in the army and had cleared the Combined Defence Services (CDS) thrice before he got himself enlisted in 2001 when he finally managed to convince his mother Mrs Padma Kanwar who was apprehensive about the safety of her son.
According to his uncle, Bhanu Pratap had been transferred out of 43 Rashtriya Rifles and was waiting to hand over the charge when he set out on his last mission. "He had cleared the exam twice but then his mother was against his decision so he even went for IAS coaching for a few months. But then he once again sat for the Army exam and cleared it. He was also able to convince his mother but now it seems her worst fear came true,” said Jai Singh, Major Bhanu Pratap's uncle. The inspiration to serve the society and the country was instilled in Bhanu Pratap from a very young age since his father RS Rathore Singh who is presently serving as the Additional Superintendent Police of Bharatpur in Rajasthan. Even this seasoned policeman has buckled under the weight of his son's death and is silently brooding inside his residence in Shyam Nagar here in Jaipur where relatives, friends and well wishers are trickling in to share the family's grief. "The news was first conveyed to his father and has left him completely shattered. Though I married his sister I haven't spend much time with him because of his duties. The first thing that comes to my mind is that he always had a smile on his face,” said Mr Lokmanshu Mansingh, his brother-in-law who has come down to Jaipur from Delhi.
Major Bhanu Pratap Singh's body is expected to reach Jaipur late evening today and will be given a military cremation tomorrow. In the meantime friends, relatives and neighbours are arriving at their residence to share the grief of the brave soldier who did not hesitate to sacrifice his life even for the sake of his loving wife and three year old son who were waiting for him at home.

A New Begining

Hi Friends,

As I write these first lines, I feel pained and grieved on the sudden demise of Maj Bhanu Pratap Singh. Although we never met after passing out but the bonding continues. The news ran a chill down my spine. I tried to remember his face and then searched the OTA Journal and finally located him.

As I read the various news reports, there are tears in my eyes and I feel so sad. I have lost a friend, a coursemate, taken away at such a young age. His son Rudra Pratap Singh might not get to understand this loss today but notwithstanding he will surely feel proud for the supreme sacrifice his father did. His better half, Sarika has her whole life ahead! "alone".........................

May God give them the courage to bear this tragedy!

May his soul Rest in Peace.

At this moment we all are proud that our coursemate made the supreme sacrifice to safeguard the motherland. We all are with the bereaved family and shall do whatever we can to support them.


And with these starting lines I start a blog dedicated to the Officers of SS74 and coin the term "Shorty Chauhattars".

with warm regards

Capt Rohit Saxena
GC No 21432
Naushera 8
SS74