I thought of going back in time and ruminate on a few of my experiences. Here's a piece on my previous sea time, soon after Lekha's ailment was brought under control....
I was at the Naval Headquarters as a deputy director - looking after the entire range of foreign training - at the Directorate of Naval Training. I'd reported in Apr '94 from the Training Division of the Southern Naval Command to get a second opinion on my wife's medical condition. She was being attended to by two doctors viz. the late Lt Col Achuthan Kannampilly, the Rheumatologist at the Army Hospital and Dr. Ashok Kumar, the Immunologist at the AIIMS. Both of them went out of their way to put us at ease and Lekha was on a sure road to recovery under their expert medical care!
Sometime in Apr '95, my school mate, Hari Nair who was in the personnel directorate - his words were taken as gospel as he was in the 'happening place' in addition to the fact that he and his family were regular visitors at our place - told me that I was going in command of Sagardhwani towards the end of the year. I was simply happy that I was going in for another command at sea! I was yet to know the magnitude of the ship's myriad problems and rumours were rife that the ship could end up in the scrapyard by the way the DRDO looked at it - a Rs.100 crore ship that had not delivered the goods, one year into her commission! Meanwhile, there were many of my friends who'd advised me against taking up the ship and ask for another, instead!
I was the second Captain of the ship after Cdr NS Choudhary, of the 47th course NDA and my squadron mate, who'd commissioned her in Jul '94 at the Garden Reach Shipyard. Unfortunately, she turned out to be the proverbial problem child, in that, she'd problems on both the shafts. The plummer blocks used to heat up and the gear boxes ended up with metallic shavings after a few hours of running.
* * *
I'd told Choudhary that I'd be driving down all the way from New Delhi to Kochi in my van along with Lekha and Bruno, our one year old Dobermann and accordingly, had worked out seven halts enroute. One of them was at Bhopal where my friend, the late R Gopalakrishnan(RGK), was the state's chief secretary. We're looking forward to the drive and our subsequent stay at Kochi when the first dampener came from the ship asking me to join forthwith as she was scheduled for the sea trials of the forward and aft thrusters - a rudimentary dynamic propulsion system(DPS) - with its Dutch OEMs in attendance.
Accordingly, it turned out to be a two day train journey from New Delhi to Kochi and our travel details were passed on to the ship as is the standard operating procedure. What surprised me was that as the car bringing us in from the railway station crossed the Venduruthy bridge, I saw Sagardhwani putting out to sea. I did convey my feelings to Commodore MS Menon, the then Project Director of the Marine Acoustics Research Ship but if I remember correctly, what saddened me more was that I had to abandon a long drive for no rhyme or reason! Moreover, the DPS would be cleared much later, under my watch!
Tailpiece.
It was from the PD, MARS that I came to know about Chou having raked up the issue of my specialisation. He seems to have convinced the Director, NPOL and the PD, MARS that only Anti-submarine warfare specialists should be earmarked as commanding officers of the ship. The proposal was, however, vetoed by the command in no uncertain terms.
I was at the Naval Headquarters as a deputy director - looking after the entire range of foreign training - at the Directorate of Naval Training. I'd reported in Apr '94 from the Training Division of the Southern Naval Command to get a second opinion on my wife's medical condition. She was being attended to by two doctors viz. the late Lt Col Achuthan Kannampilly, the Rheumatologist at the Army Hospital and Dr. Ashok Kumar, the Immunologist at the AIIMS. Both of them went out of their way to put us at ease and Lekha was on a sure road to recovery under their expert medical care!
Sometime in Apr '95, my school mate, Hari Nair who was in the personnel directorate - his words were taken as gospel as he was in the 'happening place' in addition to the fact that he and his family were regular visitors at our place - told me that I was going in command of Sagardhwani towards the end of the year. I was simply happy that I was going in for another command at sea! I was yet to know the magnitude of the ship's myriad problems and rumours were rife that the ship could end up in the scrapyard by the way the DRDO looked at it - a Rs.100 crore ship that had not delivered the goods, one year into her commission! Meanwhile, there were many of my friends who'd advised me against taking up the ship and ask for another, instead!
I was the second Captain of the ship after Cdr NS Choudhary, of the 47th course NDA and my squadron mate, who'd commissioned her in Jul '94 at the Garden Reach Shipyard. Unfortunately, she turned out to be the proverbial problem child, in that, she'd problems on both the shafts. The plummer blocks used to heat up and the gear boxes ended up with metallic shavings after a few hours of running.
* * *
I'd told Choudhary that I'd be driving down all the way from New Delhi to Kochi in my van along with Lekha and Bruno, our one year old Dobermann and accordingly, had worked out seven halts enroute. One of them was at Bhopal where my friend, the late R Gopalakrishnan(RGK), was the state's chief secretary. We're looking forward to the drive and our subsequent stay at Kochi when the first dampener came from the ship asking me to join forthwith as she was scheduled for the sea trials of the forward and aft thrusters - a rudimentary dynamic propulsion system(DPS) - with its Dutch OEMs in attendance.
Accordingly, it turned out to be a two day train journey from New Delhi to Kochi and our travel details were passed on to the ship as is the standard operating procedure. What surprised me was that as the car bringing us in from the railway station crossed the Venduruthy bridge, I saw Sagardhwani putting out to sea. I did convey my feelings to Commodore MS Menon, the then Project Director of the Marine Acoustics Research Ship but if I remember correctly, what saddened me more was that I had to abandon a long drive for no rhyme or reason! Moreover, the DPS would be cleared much later, under my watch!
Tailpiece.
It was from the PD, MARS that I came to know about Chou having raked up the issue of my specialisation. He seems to have convinced the Director, NPOL and the PD, MARS that only Anti-submarine warfare specialists should be earmarked as commanding officers of the ship. The proposal was, however, vetoed by the command in no uncertain terms.
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