Interesting Interviews

I recently had the opportunity to sit on the panels conducting the group discussion and personal interviews for admission to management courses. The first one was for a leading institute in Bhopal and the second was for a college in Mumbai.Both the assignments were quite diverse in terms of experience.

The students I met for the college in Bhopal need to work on their communication skills. Both in English and Hindi. In fact it appeared that many of them had come for the interview just for the fun of it. Personal hygiene was shabby, grooming left a lot to be desired and basic etiquettes missing. Ofcourse there were a few who came across as bright and well mannered.

A trend i noticed was that a number of students from the same village/tehsil had come for the interview. They had no clarity regarding why they wanted to do an MBA course or how it would benefit or not benefit them. All they could answer was, "Sir, it is imperative for getting a job."  When asked about their interest in farming, most of them replied that the land holdings were so small and families large, that it was unviable for all family members to engage in farming.

That brings me to the question that when would we realise as policy makers and shapers of India's future, that ther is an urgent need for appropriate skill development programs. Drawing an analogy with farming, every land is not suitable for all types of crops. A soil study is important to arrive at the the decision to grow the crop most suitable for that soil. Similarly our schools need to conduct aptitude test for students and advise them on the most suitable career for them.

Next comes the soil-preparation stage. The way a farmer tills the land and adds fertilizers etc before planting the seeds, we need to prepare the young ones for their chosen career. Force feed leads to frustration and in many cases the youngsters committing suicide. Note the number of suicide amongst IIT students and others because they could not cope with the studies. They had been forced to take up engineering because of parental or peer pressure.A doctor I know literally forced his son into joining MBBS while one can see that the son had no aptitude or interest for the profession. Throughout his four years of the degree course his mother, herself a doctor, had to stay with him and make sure that he goes through the course. The boy is depressed and has withdrawn. I wonder what would be his level of motivation for treating patients? So why force feed?

There are some crops which need special care while there are others which are hardy and grow in abundance. So it is with the young. Each has a different mental constitution. As parents and teachers we need to train ourselves to understand this and guide our wards accordingly.

The world is changing rapidly. We need to revamp our education system to be prepared for the future. At the moment I think if we can ensure that we keep up with the times, it would be huge achievement.

The Commanding Officers' Shoes

  The promotion of an officer in the Army to the rank of a Colonel and being given command of a Unit is an important landmark in his career. Only a few get there. It is a matter of pride for the parent regiment of the officer when this happens. Further, it is an honour to command the regiment into which one has been commissioned.

As it happened, recently an officer (lets call him Col M) got promoted to the rank of Colonel and he was to take over a Regiment. The officer has been highly focused, diligent in his professional duties and worked hard on the courses. Inspite of all this, he was at the receiving end of a luke warm report. But as they say, you cannot suppress sheer hard work and talent. He continued to work hard and stay focused. And in due course has been able to overcome competition.

Once the posting order was issued for him to take over a regiment in field (Regiment II), congratulatory messages followed. 

In the trail of congratulatory emails an ex commanding officer (call him Col F) of his parent regiment congratulated him, recounted the names of his friends who had commanded this regiment II. Col F went on to express his wish 

that Col M should have taken over his parent regiment. So far so good. What really set me wondering were the 

words “though I would have loved for you to step into my shoes after the (present incumbent) abdicates”.

I needed to go into the origin of the phrase “stepping into one’s shoes” and what did ‘abdicate’ mean. I quickly put on my worn out thinking cap, took out the much - thumbed Merriam Webster’s dictionary and started tapping on the not so worn out keypad of my laptop. No fancy         i-pads for me!

As I understand, ‘stepping into someone’s shoes’ means getting into the role of that person. As the Oxford 

dictionary says step into someone's shoes ‘Take control of a task or job from another person’:

So I questioned myself, is the command of a Unit a pair of ‘institutional shoes’ into which individuals step in, 

perform their role and step out. The next person steps into them. But I guess this explanation is too simplistic. Is it 

that Col F probably mean that he had worn his personal pair of shoes during his command (which he used to kick 

nonconformists like yours truly) and would like to hand them over to the young colonel?

Examining both the explanations further. If we take the first case, the command being institutional, how can the 

young colonel step into Col F’s shoes? Because Col F himself had stepped into the shoes which were already there,     worn by Col E his predecessor.

And the present incumbent, to give him a pseudonym, Col L, Cols G,H,I J and K having come in after Col F. So, if at all Col M has to step into anyone’s shoes it would bethose currently worn by Col L. Or maybe I am missing the spirit in which Col F claims them to be his shoes! Old spirits die hard. Huge hangover from long years of being inebriated on power?

In the second case, maybe the old man is wanting to take out his old ‘commanding officer’s shoes’ from the attic 

and give it to the young colonel because he believed what Gabriel Heather said “The only time people work like a 

horse is when the boss rides them”. 

Next moving on to the issue of the present incumbent’s ‘abdication’, I wondered why the hell would he do that? The Queen of England has not done that for her son, the poor Prince of Wales. Why would this young commanding 

officer who has taken over a few months back, ‘abdicate’? Anyway I googled abdicate and I got 

ˈabdɪkeɪt/

Verb

1.

(of a monarch) renounce one's throne.

"in 1918 Kaiser Wilhelm abdicated as German emperor"

synonyms:

resign, retire, quit, stand down, step down, bow out, renounce the throne; More

2. fail to fulfil or undertake (a responsibility or duty).

"the government was accused of abdicating its responsibility"

synonyms:

disown, turn down, spurn, reject, renounce, give up, avoid, refuse,abnegate, relinquish, abjure, repudiate, waive, yield, forgo, abandon,surrender, deliver up, disgorge, cast aside, drop, turn one's back on,wash one's       hands of;  informal shirk;  archaic forsake "the state virtually abdicated all responsibility for their welfare"

  

The search results have left me still more confused. In keeping with the times when the Prime Minister says that he is a ‘sewak’ of the masses, the least we can do is 

change our mindset about the commanding officer being the ‘king’. The present leaders of men would do well to 

remember that in the past a leader was a boss. Today’s leaders must be partners with their people...they no longer can lead solely based on positional authority.

And why am I confused? Is it that the successive officers step into the Commanding Officer’s shoes or do officers 

get their own shoes to the game?

What I have tried to do is to listen to my voice, because my voice is my boss. 

Disclaimer: This is a fictional narration to discuss an idea, words and phrases. Any similarity with emails, language, incidents, persons is purely coincidental and not intended to be offensive.

Beas Tragedy-Who is to Blame?

On 8th June 2014, two buses carrying students and few faculty members of VNR Vignana Jyothi Intitute of Engineering & Technology, Hyderabad on an excursion to Manali, Himachal Pradesh halted at a place near Thalot on NH-21. They were on their way back to Mandi. NH-21 runs almost parallel to River Beas right from Manali to Mandi. The distance between the river and the road varies from a few metres when one gets a exotic view of the river to a few hundred metres when the river is not visible from the road.

So it was that fateful evening when the visitors decided to take a few pictures as close to the river. A few calls exchanged between the travellers of the two buses and the buses stopped near Larji Hydro Power Project (LHPP). Apparently the water seemed to be the closest from this point. However as per media reports the students still had to descend nearly 15 metres to reach water.
Further 15 kms downstream is Pandoh Dam.

About a km upstream at the LHPP the power generation unit received a phone call from the control room in Simla to cut down production from 126MW to 68MW. One generation unit was shut down but then the water level started rising in the reservoir. Further upstream at Aut, it touched the NH-21. Therefore the dam authorities decided to release some water into the river to avoid damage to the Project. The gates were opened at about 6.20pm. The dammed waters gushed out.

The students were totally engrossed in clicking photographs and other fun activities typical to such a young group. Suddenly they found themselves in rising waters. It was all over in 2-3 minutes. 24 young lives washed away. 24 families lose the cynosure of their eyes. How many of these lives had the hopes of their family pinned on them for a better life?

The politicians were quick to get into the act of taking credit for relief work. It was quite disgusting to see the one upmanship being played out between the TRS chief and Telengana CM K Chandrashekhar Rao and the Andhra CM N Chandrababu Naidu. The HP CM spitting out his two bits asking reporters to check the political leanings of those criticising the lack of warning before the water was released only adds to the disgust. A full scale blame game is on.

Whatever be the outcome of the blame game,what are we doing to prevent such an occurrence taking place again? There are some urgent steps that need to be taken at various levels namely the government,society, educational institutions and most important at the family level.

The government and its departments must be having their standard operating procedures (SOP) to guide the operations. The authorities have to ensure that the staff follows these SOP.

Having said this,there is also a need to identify and mark prospective dangerous areas. Or at least identify the nature of risk/danger and take steps to mitigate the impact. e,g. the Forest Dept has put up numerous boards announcing the presence of tigers in the forests surrounding Kerwa Dam in Bhopal. The visitors are warned and hence they are cautious. Go to any safety conscious project site and you will see warning boards. Cordoning off such areas are also part of safety measures, as in the Metro sites.

While it may not be feasible to cordon the access from the road to the river in this case,warning boards along the road on NH-21 near the river informing the public of the danger in going to the river could have imposed caution on these young free spirited souls and they would have still been with us.

At the educational institutes, inputs on the likely risks to be faced during an excursion should form part of any detailed briefing before the excursion. As someone commented somewhere on the social media that having lived the first 20 years of his life in Himachal, he would never have gone close to the river and more so at 6.30 in the evening when the light is failing. The author goes on to say that he is aware of the flash floods in rivers in the mountains. Creating such awareness in the visiting students could have saved their lives.

We need to inculcate, instill ,imbue into the national consciousness a healthy regard for safety norms. Inculcating safety consciousness in school children from a very early age. But that is possible only if the parents themselves are aware and 'intelligent' enough to impart such education to their children.It distresses me to see even grandfathers with their little grandchild standing in front on the scooter and driving on the wrong side of the road only to avoid driving a few hundred metres extra. The number of parents who drive in this manner is huge.One doesn't need to submit proof to substantiate this point. Minors barely 40 inches tall can be seen driving two wheelers with impunity and the dash of a professional racer in every town/city.

Observe any group of picnickers at a water body. Most of them want to get into the water without understanding the dangers inherent to that place. Every now and then we read reports of minors drowning in water filled quarries.

Why can't we teach our children to be careful? I hope the teachers accompanying the students tried to dissuade the students from going too close to the river. Only subsequent enquiries and time will bring this out. But even if they did, would the students have listened? I have my doubts. Because we have failed to teach them to be safety conscious.

While we can leave the institutions to do their part, we as citizens can start with ourselves becoming safety conscious and imbuing it in our children or those in our charge as the first step.