Life and times at the Mussoorie Academy

It’s quite a challenging task to pen down in just a few lines, what seems to be a million memories to cherish. The period of probation, especially the stay at the Academy, is often referred to as a ‘honeymoon’ phase. Leaving aside the corroboration of the above statement to ‘experienced’ persons, I would nonetheless vouch for the fact that it is an experience to savour for times to come.

I still vividly remember the early morning mist and chill when I stepped off the train at the Dehradun station with a feeling of having ‘arrived’ in more ways than one. I was looking forward to training at the famed LBSNAA. Though the drive up the Queen of Hills was scenic, the entry wasn’t too romantic. Chaotic traffic at the Mall road meant that it took forty minutes to just cover about half a km to reach the Academy. The gate was the first letdown. It was as big as any other gate that one had seen, with an even smaller board. Having trained at the Police Academy at Hyderabad earlier I expected a king-size gate to welcome me here. Months later when I asked the Director of the academy if the gate could be made to look bigger or even better, his answer was that the size of the gate could never determine the quality of officer trainees or the training imparted. He went on to add that the Academy being named after Lal Bahadur Shastri, embodies his simplicity. Looking back now I don’t reflect on how big the gate or the campus was. But I do know that the stay at the academy has shaped each one of us who had trained here in more ways than one. I would say the intangibles that one has gained during training at the academy will far outweigh the tangible benefits.

The process of ‘baptisation’ into the civil service begins from the minute one sets foot in the academy. The initial few days takes a lot of getting used to. Whether it is sharing a room with a stranger, whether it is huffing and puffing all the way up to the Officer’s Mess from Ganga hostel, rising up at ungodly hours for P.T in the biting chill or the sudden downpour just when one was enjoying the day’s warmth, one has to mentally prepare oneself for life at the Academy.

The foundation course though is an experience of a lifetime. Four hundred odd persons from different regions, cultures and educational backgrounds, who found their names on the rank-list had all been thrown together to train for three months. It’s a period when prejudices break, unknown fears melt away and we notice ourselves losing some of our inhibitions. Whether it is the ten day long trek in the Himalayas, village visits to the remotest villages in India, innumerable cultural shows at Sampoornanand auditorium, dancing away into the night at the Officer’s Lounge, sports events at the famed Polo Grounds or the much awaited India Day, the primary objective of Espirit De Corps amongst probationers is met satisfactorily. And in a few cases it also helped probationers pick their life-mates. At the cultural shows one got to see ‘southies’ doing the Bhangra and ‘northies’ indulging themselves in Kolaata or Naga dance. The North-South divide which is famously talked about in every FC batch was probably conspicuous by its absence in our batch.

However the end of FC also brings with it a pall of gloom. All the other services’ probationers leave for their respective academies and we are left with only our service mates. Most of my friends being across services, I now found myself saying Hi to people I had hardly noticed or interacted with during FC. But just as the famous saying goes that one ending is the start of a new beginning, the journey in the IAS had just begun for me. Two months of Bharat Darshan with ten other new faces and suddenly I had seen more of India than I had ever seen before or would probably ever see again. Add to that the bonding and sharing that one experienced during our innumerable sojourns. Though I must confess as the group leader I had one helluva task in managing the ‘motley crew’ and tried my best to cover up for the absence of a couple of probationers here and there during call on(s).

Back at the academy, we were welcomed back and told the long story of who we were and what we stood for (blah...blah...). Honestly it didn’t make much sense to me but I did realise that each one of us stepping out of the academy after our training would have onerous responsibilities on our shoulders. Our batch as such was truly an empowered woman batch. Quite a handful of lady officers were within the top twenty ranks, with the top two ranks going to them too. Of course most of us watched gleefully at the undeclared wars between many to climb up the civil list ladder with a few competing male KTPs also thrown in here and there. For the non-interested types (called ITPs or Invisible Type Probationers) though, the academy was more like a side posting which they were more than glad to wait out before they actually went out for the kill in their respective cadres. I truly hope and wish they are enjoying themselves in the field now and hope the academy invites them to hear their perspective on training.

Being a day scholar all my life, I was looking forward to what hostel life could offer. The academy had taken a decision to put us in shared accommodation. Months later during our Phase-II, amidst sniggers, the course director had to defend the decision of shared rooms and argue that it was not the reason for CBMs not materialising within the batch. That aside, sharing rooms as I had noticed in FC came with its own share of problems but I must give credit to my roommate for having put up with me for more than three months. My room-mate being an early-sleeper, many a night when it got late, I had to tip-toe back into my room hoping not to wake him. My efforts though always went in vain. The room itself was strategically placed and offered a scenic view to the play-ground below and the horizon ahead. Many an evening, despite ferocious monkeys threatening to tear me apart, I have enjoyed the evening chai, lazing on the grass outside watching the Sun set. My neighbour was not so lucky though with monkey attacks and in this one particular hilarious incident which has become folklore in our batch he had to give up the chase behind a monkey which was running away with his undergarments!

The food at the Mess during our times was nothing much to talk about and most of our waistlines were getting smaller. Of course Mr. Rana, the ubiquitous P.T instructor took all the credit. The early morning whistle broke many a sweet dream and it used to take some effort to throw off the blanket and come down in the biting cold for the morning exercises. One of the probationers who had had enough, through a self confessed letter to the Course Director on his absence at P.T, accepted that he had lost the battle between ‘waking up’ and ‘sleeping more’ in favour of the latter!

Coming to the topic of sleeping during lectures, it is something that some of us have mastered over the months without ever getting caught. The auditorium had been aptly named ‘Sampoornanand’. Some probationers have even earned the sobriquet of ‘serial sleepers’ and one has to stop and wonder how they still wake up at the end of the lecture and ask pertinent questions. 'Yours truly’ is also guilty of dozing off on a couple of occasions for which I squarely hold the speaker of the session responsible. My neighbour had caught this unceremonious act on his mobile cam and it became quite a rage when it was passed around the classroom.

It’s not been long since I have moved out of the Academy but I do miss the protective environment which the academy provided. One often reminisces the wonderful times spent with batch mates, faculty, staff of LBSNAA and the people of Mussoorie. ‘Life and times at LBSNAA’ would probably take a lifetime to recount. But sufficing to say that here is an institution that has given me a sense of common identity, shared values and a feeling of belongingness to the Service as a whole and am sure that it would be shaping many more minds and giving the country many more able hands to run the wheels of governance smoothly in the years to come and help us stand by our motto – Yoga Karmasu Kaushalam.