Archive for January, 2013
Soldiers True …
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Marriage Vows – Dussehra Day, Oct 24, 2012 …
“Please join hands and face each other.
We are gathered here today to witness the marriage of R and R and to celebrate the new chapter in their lives.
Marriage is a promise that is made m in the hearts of two persons who truly love and respect each other. It is a pledge be loving friends partners, to appreciate and cherish one another’s uniqueness and to help one another through life’s ups and downs.
Marriage is commended to us to be honorable among all persons and it should not be entered into lightly but rather with reverence for its responsibilities. Happiness in marriage is not something that just happens. A good marriage must be nurtured.
In marriage, the little things are the big things. It is never being too old to hold hands. It is remembering to say I love you. It is never taking each other for granted. It is speaking words of appreciation and showing gratitude in thought ful ways. It is never going to bed angry but having the ability to forgive and forget.
It is not marrying the right partner but rather being the right partner.
R do you take R to be your lawful wedded marriage partner? Do you promise to love R and comfort, honor and keep R, in sickness and health richer or poorer, in good times and bad, for all the days of your lives?
R and R, today you have made the commitment to each other which has been symbolized by the joining of hands and the exchanging of vows. May you continue to love each other for ever as husband and wife and remmembering to be each others best friend.
BY VIRTUE OF THE AUTHORITY VESTED IN ME AS DEPUTY COMMISIONER OF CIVIL MARRIAGES, and in the presence of these witnesses, I pronunce you as husband and wife.
You may now kiss your bride”!
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )1962 War: Sam Manekshaw on the Nehru – Krishna Menon Combine …
This was during the Question Answer session at the end of Sam’s lecture at the Staff College given on Armistice Day, a quarter century after he laid down office –
Question: In the 1962 war, what was your appointment, were you in a position to do something about the situation?
FM: In the 1962 war, I was in disgrace.
I was Commandant of this Institution. Mr. Krishna Menon, the Defense Minister, disliked me intensely. General Kaul, who was Chief of General Staff at the time, and the budding man for the next higher appointment, disliked me intensely. So, I was in disgrace at the Staff College. There were charges against me – I will enumerate some of them – all engineered by Mr. Krishna Menon.
I do not know if you remember that in 1961 or 1960, General Thimaya was the Army Chief. He had fallen out with Mr. Krishna Menon and had sent his resignation. The Prime Minister, Mr. Nehru, persuaded General Thimaya to withdraw his resignation. The members of Parliament disliked Mr. Krishna Menon and they went hammer and tongs for the Prime Minister in Parliament.
The Prime Minister made the statement, “I cannot understand why General Thimayya is saying that the Defence Ministry interferes with the working of the Army. Take the case of General Manekshaw. The Selection Board has approved his promotion to Lieutenant General, over the heads of 23 other officers. The Government has accepted that.”
I was the Commandant of the Staff College. I had been approved for promotion to Lieutenant General. Instead of making me a Lieutenant General, Mr. Krishna Menon levied charges against me.
There were ten charges, I will enumerate only one or two of them – that I am more loyal to the Queen of England than to the President of India, that I am more British than Indian. That I have been alleged to have said that I will have no instructor in the Staff College whose wife looks like an ayah. These were the sort of charges against me.
For eighteen months my promotion was held back. An enquiry was made. Three Lieutenant Generals, including an Army Commander, sat at the inquiry. I was exonerated on every charge. The file went up to the Prime Minister who sent it up to the Cabinet Secretary, who wrote on the file, ‘if anything happens to General Manekshaw, this case will go will down as the Dreyfus case.’
So the file came back to the Prime Minister. He wrote on it, “Orders may now issue”, meaning I will now become a Lieutenant General. Instead of that, Ladies and Gentleman, I received a letter from the Adjutant General saying that the Defense Minister, Mr. Krishna Menon, has sent his severe displeasure to General Manekshaw, to be recorded.
I had it in the office where the Commandant now sits. I sent that letter back to the Adjutant General saying what Mr. Krishna Menon could do with his displeasure – very vulgarly stated. It is still in my dossier.
Then the Chinese came to my help. Krishna Menon was sacked, Kaul was sacked and Nehru sent for me. He said, “General, I have a vigorous enemy. I find out that you are a vigorous General. Will you go and take over?” I said, “I have been waiting eighteen months for this opportunity,” and I went and took over.
So, your question was 1962, and what part did I play, none whatsoever, none whatsoever. I was here for eighteen months, persecuted, inquisitions against me but we survive….
I rather like the Chinese.
Post Script. A long while later, Karan Thapar, whose father had been made Chief after Gen Thimayya, had Sam over for a Q and A Session on his TV Show. Towards the end, he asks Sam whether he ever met Krishna Menon after wards. Sam’s response went something like this –
“Oh Yes – \we did meet. It was towards the end of an invite at Rashtrapati Bhavan, and as I and my wife were walking out, who do we see along side but Mr Menon. I immediately said, “Good Evening Sir” and he responded with the same greeting. Where upon, I turned to my wife and said, “Dolly, don’t you remember Mr Krishna Menon?” And the prompt response was, “Most Certainly, I DO NOT!!”
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A TOAST to this GRANNY …
Granny Ava Estelle, 81, was so ticked-off when two thugs raped her 18-year-old granddaughter that she tracked the unsuspecting ex-cons down … and ‘Shot off their testicles’.
The old lady spent a week hunting those men down and when she found them,she took revenge on them in her own special way,” Said Melbourne police investigator Evan Delp.
Then she took a taxi to the nearest police station, laid the gun on the sergeant’s desk and told him as calm as could be: “Those bastards will never rape anybody again, by God.”
Cops say convicted rapist and robber Davis Furth, 33, lost both his penis and his testicles when outraged Ava opened fire with a 9-mm pistol in the hotel room where he and former prison cell mate Stanley Thomas, 29, were holed up.
The wrinkled avenger also blew Thomas’ testicles to kingdom come, but doctors managed to save his mangled penis, police said.
“The one guy, Thomas, didn’t lose his manhood, but the doctor I talked to said he won’t be using it the way he used to,” Detective Delp told reporters.“Both men are still in pretty bad shape, but I think they’re just happy to be alive after what they’ve been through.”
The Rambo Granny swung into action August 21 after her granddaughter Debbie was carjacked and raped in broad daylight by two knife-wielding creeps in a section of town bordering on skid row.
“When I saw the look on my Debbie’s face that night in the hospital, I decided I was going to go out and get those bastards myself ’cause I figured the Law would go easy on them,” recalled the retired library worker.
“And I wasn’t scared of them, either – because I’ve got me a gun and I’ve been shootin’ all my life. And I wasn’t dumb enough to turn it in when the law changed about owning one.”
So, using a police artist’s sketch of the suspects and Debbie’s description of the sickos, tough-as-nails Ava spent seven days. prowling the wino-infested neighborhood where the crime took place till she spotted the ill-fated rapists entering their flophouse hotel.
“I knew it was them the minute I saw ’em, but I shot a picture of ’em anyway and took it back to Debbie and she said sure as hell, it was them,” the oldster recalled.
“So I went back to that hotel and found their room and knocked on the door, and the minute the big one opened the door, I shot ’em right square between the legs, right where it would really hurt ’em most, you know. Then I went in and shot the other one as he backed up pleading to me to spare him. Then I went down to the police station and turned myself in.”
Now, baffled lawmen are trying to figure out exactly how to deal with the vigilante granny…
“What she did was wrong, and she broke the law, but it is difficult to throw an 81-year-old woman in prison,” Det. Delp said, “Especially when 3 million people in the city want to nominate her for Mayor.“
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Sam Manekshaw on Officers Then and Now …
This is from the Lecture given by Field Marshal Manekshaw at the Staff College some 25 years after he retired –
Question: The Army has changed and progressed. Do you find any difference in the mental makeup of the young officers compared to your time?
FM: Over the years, things have changed…… there is a lot of difference, dear.
In my time, my father used to support me until I became a Lieutenant Colonel. I used to get an allowance to be able to live. Today, the young officer has not only to keep himself but has to send money home.
In my time, we did not have all these courses. The only course I ever did, (of course, we had the four rounds of courses that every officer had to do), but we had mules there so I had to do a course in training mountain mules.
Today the young officer hardly stays in his regiment. He is sent from one place to another to do this course and that course, and he does not get a chance of knowing his men.
We knew our men.
Also there wasn’t so much work in those days. We got up in the mornings, did Physical Training for half an hour , came back ,dressed, had breakfast , then went to our company lines and spent all our time avoiding the Commanding Officer.
Those Commanding Officers were nasty chaps. They did not give a damn for anybody. I will give an example of the Commanding OfficeI was made quartermaster of my battalion. The Commanding Officer sent for the Adjutant and myself. He said, I want to take the battalion out tomorrow morning for an exercise. We did not have motor cars, we had to indent for mules, so, I as quartermaster indented for a company of mules. He said we were going to leave for the exercise at 6:30, so I ordered the company of mules to arrive at six.
At eleven o’clock at night, the commanding officer changed his mind. He said, “I will not go at 6:30, we will go at nine o’clock”. There was nothing I could do. I got on my bicycle, went off to the lines, where the mules had arrived. I told them to unsaddle, and go into the shade, when who should arrive on a horse but the Cavalry Officer with his daughter!
I touched my hat. He said, “What are those animals doing here, young man?” I said that we were going out on an exercise. “When are you going?” “Nine o’clock.” He tore strips off me – “going at nine o’clock and you have the animals waiting here at six o’clock”. He was riding with his daughter on a horse. What could I say to a General officer, I had two pips on my shoulder.
Suddenly, who should be coming on a bicycle, but the Commanding Officer! He touched his hat, said, “Morning, General.” Turning to me, he said, “What is the matter, Sam?” I said, “Sir, the General is angry with me because we are going out at nine o’clock and the mules are here at six.”
He turned round to face the General, and said, “I will thank you General to know who commands this regiment. Me, and not this young man. I will not have you ticketing him off in front of your daughter.”
He turned back to me and said, “Have you had your breakfast, Sam?” “No.” “Go along. Have your breakfast.”
I was delighted to go off. But when we came back from the exercise, at about eight o’clock in the evening, in my letter rack, was a letter from the General’s wife, inviting me to tea the next day. Now, I did not want to have tea with the General’s wife! But that’s the sort of thing that happens”.
When I became the field Marshal, I was the guest of her majesty in England. I had given a reception at India House, where the same Commanding Officer with his wife were also invited. He came in, shook hands with my wife, shook hands with me, and walked off. After about half an hour, when everybody had arrived, I walked up to him with a glass of whisky in my hand.
He turned to me, “May I call you Sam?” “Please do, Sir. You used to call me ‘bloody fool’ before and I thought that that was my Christian name!”
The difference between the officer now and then. My first confidential report was written by him. Before you went in to sign your confidential report, you had to go in front of the Adjutant, beautifully turned out. We did not have any medals in those days but w needed to have a sword to go into the CO’s office.
I walked in, saluted the Adjutant, he looked me up and down and said, “You are going to see the Colonel now? Look at you! Your bloody strap is filthy really dirty! Look at your belt, disgusting. Go and get dressed properly.” I walked out, waited for five minutes and came back.
He looked me up and down, “Much better.” Then he said, “You are going in there. Do you have a fountain pen?” I said, “Yes.” “The CO will read your report. You will initial on the left hand corner. Is that understood?” “Yes.”
I walked in there, saluted the Colonel, “Mr. Manekshaw reporting, Sir.” He looked me up and down, thrust the report on me – just one line – “This officer, I beg his pardon, this man, may someday become an officer.” I initialed it and walked out.
Khalid Sheikh, another officer from my regiment, who became the Foreign Minister of Pakistan and a Governor later, came out. “Khaled, what report have you got?” I asked. He said “One line – this officer tends to be irresponsible”. I said, “That’s a bad report, Khalid.” He said, Uh! Last year the bugger said I was irresponsible.” But we did not mind.
Today, if the commanding Officer writes and says this officer is irresponsible, the officer wants to appeal to the President of India saying he is more responsible than the Commanding Officer.
That was the difference, dear. We simply did not give a cuss. Anything else?
Thank you Gentlemen, thank you for your kindness. Thank you for your patience.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )India needs to adopt the Parsi Values …
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