WST Diaries - MP Ajab Hai - IAF, HAL, BHEL, Pachmarhi, Kanha, Balaghat

The reception at Bareilly was chilly to begin with – we landed up at 4:15 – dog-eyed after an hour and half of waking and waiting. The train from New Delhi had left at the right time, but the fog seems to have delayed it. The rooms at IVRI were not fitted with too many amenities – but it boasted of being an ‘International Guest House’ – at that hour, we were not much of choosers. So went off to sleep promptly. Early morning, after a breakfast that was nothing to write home about, we got around to the driving off on a bumpy road to the Air Force Station.

Air Force hierarchy is a bit ‘flatter’ than the Army – there is Air HQ, followed by Commands, followed by Wings, and then Squadrons. Even the Wings are not in operational command of the squadrons, who get their directions from the Commands. Wings are simply administrative attachments. So this Air Force Station was the base of the 15 Wing, headed by an Air Commodore. It had two squadrons of Su-30 MKI’s and one of ALH Dhruv. After the 6PC, squadrons are not led by Squadron Leaders, but by Wing Commanders, who have ceded Wings to Group Captains / Air Commodores.

The visit was any engineer’s fantasy come true. We got to get up and close to one of the mightiest birds in the sky – amongst all Air Forces of the world – Sukhoi Su-30 MKI. We saw the whole airframe and the components, and we were given a tour of the cockpits (there are two) and the associated controls. Unfortunately, we did not get to fly in them! But it was attempted tp be made up by giving us flying time in the Su-30 MKI simulator – which did not even come close to the real thing. I remembered my own ‘F-16 Aggressor’ game, which was much similar. We did get to see two of them take off – the noise they made was deafening – felt pity for the guys nearer to the runway.

The next day, we saw the Tactics, Weapons and Command Centre – basically the thing one sees in movies – like a war room. Yes, such places do exist, with wall sized maps of our adversaries and their offensive and defensive capabilities. But, the highlight of the day was climbing atop the wings and the back of a Su-30 MKI with the maintenance engineers – I got the same feeling of rush as I had on my first visit to a Diesel Shed in 2006! We saw the massive jet engines from above, with the panels removed. The skinnier ones got the opportunity to climb up the air intakes of these beasties.  The visit to the ALH squadron was also enlightening – firstly, my idea of Advanced Light Helicopter was some twig and strings thing – this one looked pretty sturdy and impressive. And we got to sit on the copilot’s controls – though on the grounds only. The real surprise came later, when the pilot, a Flight Lieutenant, who was instructing us happened to be a close senior from Oak Grove!

We left Bareilly early in the evening to avoid the morning fog and to get rested before our attachment at Lucknow – how wrong could one be. Murphy had a field day with us – the vehicle in which we were to leave was deemed road-unworthy by the driver at the time when we were about to leave. The first replacement got banged up on the way. The second replacement arrived one and half hours past our scheduled departure time – it had no leg room, but we weren’t choosers here either. As soon as we cleared Bareilly precincts, we encountered a 10 kn long jam – so had to take a detour. By the time we were scheduled to arrive in Lucknow, we were not even at Shahjehanpur (50 minutes by train). We made the mistake of going for supper! By the time we finished, fog had come in a big way, and it kept on worsening. The driver was adamant on continuing, and after much deliberations, we let him go on. The cold wind kept leaking in through blind eyelets in the window glasses, and it got really chilly. Woollens were pulled out hastily out of whatever bags were accessible. Road conditions improved as we hit Sitapur at 4:00 am, and finally, we pulled up, cold and bedraggled, at Civil Services Institute, Lucknow at 6:30 am. The journey that was to be completed in four hours according to Academy manuals was completed in fourteen! It gave us a good insight into what a cold wave really means for someone on the road, all homeless.

Lucknow was a short stop to begin with, and the long sleepless journey led to further curtailment. The official work was an attachment with Hindustan Aeronautical Limited (HAL). Well, it was good – but it was not at the scale which we were expecting. It was an accessories plant – so all the work was of subassembly level – good from engineering point of view, but too technical and trivial for a lay mind. The social do with the Commissioner and the District Magistrate was enjoyable – good experience sharing was done, and I got some idea about the cadre I am supposed to be joining. The visit to the Ambedkar Memorial near Hazratganj was a revelation – whatever the political connotations of it, the thing looks mighty impressive – reminds one of the famous seated Lincoln statue in Hollywood movies. I had always found Lucknow to be a beautiful city, and all these beautification efforts had definitely added to the charm. It was nice to notice batch-mates from other states wondering at the shimmering city lights, the beautiful monuments and the sheer grandeur of the Hazratgunj market.

We boarded the Pratapgarh Bhopal Express from Lucknow in a totally freezing sort of climate. Next day, much delayed, we stepped out sweating in the city of Bhopal. We had our attachment at Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) – and the rest houses of this PSU were really impressive. Again, a social do with the administrative brass of Bhopal, along with many top Police officials. The venue was especially impressive – a hotel of MP tourism, overlooking the beautiful serene Bhopal lake – all lit up, with live music, and really excellent food. No state has done better at marketing its tourism potential as MP, and it was indeed an honour to meet the MD of MP tourism, a 1997 batch IAS officer.   

The next two days were earmarked for our official attachment with BHEL. The liaison officer was a senior executive who took pains to remember everybody’s name – and he was witty. The first day was mainly about electrical equipment – huge switches – filled with toxic gases to be used as an insulator, huge transformers – that generated coronas strong enough to require globe size shielding, factory sheds that rose 40 metres high. It was impressive, but not stimulating. For stimulation, I had to wait for the second day – when we visited the turbines section – and we saw mammoth machines – butterfly valves the size of a mini truck, Kaplan turbines with human sized blades, chucks the size of dance floors, milling machines with 27 metre long beds. However, the main attraction was the steam turbine section, where the HoD took a very detailed class about the theory, and later showed us around the shed – where we saw all sorts of steam turbines with their blading exposed. For an engineer-who-could-be, this was a dreamland.

The real fun, however, was outside. The Museum of Man – sounded tricky at first – was a revelation. They had excellent life size replicas of various tribal dwelling units – informative, as well as good for photo-ops! And a cruise on the Bhopal lake was amazing – a nice good boat, very nice music – and the water looked so beautiful. Bhopal authorities have really got the lake front right – all marine-drived – may be they did not have to deal with those pesky ‘environmentalists’. It appeared really beautiful. MP really lived up to the hype around it – even though Bhopal is scarcely mentioned in those advertisements.

The next morning, we packed up for Pachmarhi – a hill station in the Satpura range. The journey had many stops – the first one was Bhimbetka – the sight of the prehistoric rock paintings. This was one place I was really eager to see, and I was not disappointed. The sun was all ablaze, and hence, we were without woollens – good for photography! The paintings were just there in the open –totally unguarded. It felt as if we were intruding into the homes of those cave-men – it was just so matter-of-fact-ly out in the open. I wondered if nobody had thought about dangers to these paintings from vandals. Then I realized that these paintings had survived through ages that had lesser regards for historical artefacts, and hence, they are good for now. Next stop was a forest guest house at Hoshangabad, where, amidst nice refreshment, we met the Chief Conservator of Forest, the Inspector General of Police (and his Deputy), followed by the District Magistrate. It is to his credit that the District has won a number of accolades in various schemes of the Central Government. In continuation with this, we visited the factory of Prakrit – a silk mill – where we saw the production process of silk. The cocoons were being unloaded and sifted outside. Then they were boiled – to kill the pupae and to soften the yarn, whose strands were then pulled through a spinning jenny to get the thread. Of course, we had to learn to breathe through the overpowering stench of the boiling cocoons before we could see that. From then on, we took the NH 69 and SH19 to reach Pipariya, quite late. We had a good lunch, and the spice in some of the dishes really burnt our guts out – not that it prevented us from devouring it all. Finally, weary and exhausted, we reach Pachmarhi by the evening. Finding our place of stay – the oddly named Old Hotel Guest house, was another hour spent. But the accommodation was huge and old style. We enjoyed a nice bonfire outside – both in a mixed polite company, and later in a men-only no-holds-barred style.

The morning began according to plans – late rising, huge breakfast, and just sitting in the sun – with my battered library copy of ‘Catch-22’. Others had gone looking at churches and waterfalls, but my philosophy is, once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen all. Few more shared these sentiments, but being more active types, they explored the Pachmarhi roads, and came across – Para Sailing! They were generous enough to spread the news back to the Old Hotel, and two of us went – it was basically an expansive grassland, a kilometre from our rest house. We were padded up and loaded in an open gypsy and taken a kilometre further. We were strapped in and instructed to run with the jeep as we took off! Luckily, the ‘running’ was just for a couple of  steps, before we were airborne – this was my first shot at parasailing – and, by God, it was an unforgettably delightful experience. Hardly a couple of minutes, but the feeling of being flown like a kite was awesome. Plus, as you might have guessed it, extremely nice pics and vids were shot – these were used to torment our fellow travellers who returned later from their churches and their falls! Talk about misplaced priorities – the parasailing (and trampolining – as we learnt later) were hardly sold to us – they were busy showing us waterfalls and old buildings!

It was a delightful road trip from Pachmarhi to Kanha National Park – smooth road, snaking through the undulating plains and plateaus, tea halts at twilight – watching the burning headlamps and sipping the tea, friendly banter on the speeding Traveller – nice food at ‘official’ halts. We arrived at Kanha at 2330 – bursting from a delightfully tasty and heavy dinner. It was painful to set the alarm for 0500 – and still more painful to get up at that hour. I had visited Kanha once earlier, in 2006, and had been content with few glimpses of bisons. So, as we rode out on the safari Gypsies at 0645 in the morning, my only thought was to grin and bear the cold and the monotony. I did that for around forty minutes.

And then, suddenly, at a T-junction on the dirt track, appeared a huge tiger. We were speeding along the stem of the T towards the junction, when it came at a brisk pace from the left branch of the T, also towards the junction. I feared we might collide. Indeed, it stopped and stared at us – I had a fearful thought – what if it charged us – it was hardly 15 feet from us. Mercifully, it continued on the right branch of the T, and we started following some 15-20 feet behind. Three more Gypsies joined us – including one of our own. We followed it for close to five minutes. The beast was huge – we were later told it was a 12 year old male named ‘Munna’. It did not bother much about us – though it gave us many disdainful glances now and then. It walked along the road – marking its territory at its convenience. When the crowd and the noise became too much, it slunk away in the dense vegetation, leaving us waiting for a reappearance. That never came, but this long, full head-on encounter really made the day and the trip – few are lucky enough to even get to look at a tiger in the wild. Most who do notice it far away in a shrub. Fewer still have the good fortune of getting to follow the beast for so long. Again, good pictures and videos were shot, to tease the group that missed!

In the afternoon, we packed up and left for another nice road trip, this time along the famous Jabalpur – Balaghat Narrow Gauge railway. Fast SUV, nice music, good road, fine weather – what else do we need for a good ride? We reached Balaghat by late evening, and were shown into smaller accommodation units. This was our Insurgency Affected Area Attachment. Balaghat is a border tri-junction district – it touches Maharashtra, and most importantly, Chattisgarh. The district had seen extensive Left Wing Extremist (LWE) violence in early 2000’s – and, to date remains known for extensive movements by the dalams – given its peculiar location.

It is a cliché that the LWE problem needs to be addressed through a ‘two pronged strategy’ – security measures and developmental measures. The day one was for the latter. We were briefed by the Collector, the Superintendent of Police and the Divisional Forest Officer. We learnt how the State has gone an extra mile, forgoing its (by that logic, the rest of the country’s) economic rights, so that the locals shed their grievances. The forest produce revenues are being ploughed back into the local area, to the extent of 100 %. We also learnt the way IT and high quality human resource are being used to ensure last mile gap-closing on the governance front. Two Prime Minister’s Rural Development Fellows were present in the District, and they had designed an automated system for payment of state subsidies / wages to the beneficiaries directly. After the presentation, and the lunch, we drove off to a few nearby villages, in a 30 km radius from the District HQ. The cash was being disbursed through banking correspondents, who carried battery and GPRS enabled hand held banking devices. The device offered the services as any rudimentary ATM would. Instead of PIN, it used the impression of any of the ten fingers. The cash was handled by the BC, and the machine also read out the whole transaction in Hindi! More than the simplicity and ingenuity of it all, it was the enthusiasm of the lower functionaries that was encouraging. For the first time in my various interactions with the government offices, I saw genuinely motivated staff. Everyone of them had a distinct pride in their work.

Day two, we studied the security aspects – by visiting one of the erroneously named Offensive Forward Post. We drove through 160 kilometres of very smooth and picturesque road – to get to one. Well, to put simply, it was fort. Layers and layers of concertina razor wires fenced the camp. Any vehicle (including ours) was greeted with a high alert, with at least 30 Kalashnikov barrels pointing towards the gate! The main building was designed on the pattern of the famous ‘Greyhounds’ force of the Andhra Pradesh police. It had narrow openings with sloping ledges above -  to avoid ingress of grenades – the walls were blast proof. The design was circular to enable coverage of all directions both visually and by fire. All walls had secure gun positions. And the design of the place inside was like a maze. Even if a wretch managed to get inside, he was sure to get lost and gunned down. The whole thing was awe inspiring. More than the infrastructure, it was the quality of personnel deployed here that was great. They looked like Army-men, and behaved liked Army-men. Even the weaponry was modern. If I were an LWE idiot, I would surely avoid even venturing near this place.

On day three, we visited the Managanese Ore mine of MOIL. Not sure how it fitted in the whole LWE picture – may be because mining companies are frequently painted as villains in the whole LWE debate – even in movies like Chakravyuh. Well, this one was a PSU, and not the lapdog of some heartless tycoon. The high point was that we got to visit the mine – 300 metres below the surface of the earth – that’s my personal record that I’m sure would not be bettered. We did not go far from the inlet, but whatever we saw gave us a good idea on the hardships the miners face – it as steamy only 10 metres far from the vent! As a railway enthusiast, I was very much interested by the mini railway that carried the ore. They had wee little wagons, wee little locomotives, and even an underground Loco Shed! It was all Enid Blyton come alive! Late that evening, we had the worst 3 hours in MP – we watched ‘Matru ki Bijlee ka Mandola’ – I may have come across shittier movies, but I never sat through whole of any worse.

That brought an end to our sojourn in Madhya Pradesh – the heart of India. It would take a bus and two train rides to get us to Vizag – for the next leg of our WST. 

To Conclude

To begin with, MP was just a huge landmass that we were supposed to cross to get from the earlier fun to the later fun. Once we entered the state, however, we were simply floored by the richness of the experience. From the bright lights and sunny lakes of Bhopal, to the chilly tracks of Kanha, we got much more than we had ever expected. We found excitement in the most unexpected of places. And we saw various entrenched beliefs about the state breaking down. The roads, which were once butts of jokes, were now comparable to the best in the country. It may have been a BIMARU state, and may still be underdeveloped, but if what we have seen budding here was in any way representative of the state, it is surely going to see much better days in the future. And then people shall wonder and say – “MP ajab hai; sabsey gazab hai.”