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 I
joined the National Academy of Administration in 1972. One of my
earliest memories of that year is of the Rock Climbing Course I
attended in Uttarkashi for about a month soon after joining.
There were about 20 of us in the group, four of them
girls, including me. The three other girls were Sunita Dingra (now
Sunita Mukherjee),I A S, presently Resident Commissioner of Himachal
Pradesh in New Delhi; Indu Bala of the Central Services and Kiran
Bedi, India's best known woman police officer. Sunita and Indu were
always busy running errands, looking after the kitchen, organising
interesting menus with the limited supplies we got. Sunita was like
a mother hen, feeding all of us, and Indu, her able assistant. Kiran
was not at all interested in the camp kitchen. I too found there
were already too many people working there. So we two spent our
evenings writing letters to our fiances (both of us were already
engaged) and looking out for the tiny village post offices to post
our letters.
Kiran was the first woman officer to be admitted
into the Indian Police Service. All efforts were made to discourage
her from joining the police force. However we all stood by her and
fought the authorities along with her to enable women to enter the
I.P.S. Ultimately, the women's cause won, mainly due to the presence
of Mrs.Indira Gandhi, who was the then Prime Minister.
Kiran has paid a high price for this achievement by
compromising a great deal in her personal life. The sacrifices and
difficulties, willingly and voluntarily undertaken by her, have
paved the way for more humane treatment for other women officers
entering the police force. Today, the women's police is a force to
reckon with, especially in Tamil Nadu, where the Government has
opened 'All Women Police Stations' in every district, thereby giving
encouragement to women police officers.
Coming back to Kiran, she was also Asian Lawn Tennis
Champion and one of our best horse riders. She was stronger than
most men in the National Academy of Administration. During our
fight, when the authorities told us women could not join the police
department because they were weak, it was really a good laugh. The
fact of Kiran's physical fitness made the women's victory possible.
To join the police, women had to be physically, mentally and
spiritually of the best, and Kiran was and is all that.
We also had many interesting men in the group. The
group leader Raza-Hussain, a Shia Muslim from UP, was an ex-student
of St.Stephens College, Delhi, a keen mountaineer and a great group
leader. He was engaged to a Kashmiri Hindu girl. They subsequently
got married and lived happily. Initially, there was some tension
between him and me. He didn't seem too keen on my joining the
course. Perhaps he did not think I could do it. But as the days went
by, we understood and appreciated each other better and by the end
of the course, we were great friends. He was great with mountains
and kept the group together. Last I heard was that Raza had resigned
from the I.A.S. and perhaps moved to England to teach at Oxford.
Another interesting person was Tinu Barara, a Sikh
gentleman, a keen photographer, who was my friend, philosopher and
guide during this course and taught me photography. We took some
breath-taking pictures at Gangotri and Gomukh. Tinu later taught me
developing and enlarging also, and both of us remained active
members of the photographic club of the National Academy. Tinu has
since left the I.A.S. and presently works for the Metro Water
Authority of Los Angeles in the US. He is one of the best officers I
have ever come across.
Another person I remember is Kesar, also a Sikh,
from the Punjab Cadre. Kesar was a typical outgoing, friendly,
hospitable, prototype of a full-of-life Punjabi male without being
'chauvinistic'. A great organiser and interested in cooking and
cultural activities, he used to organise 'Bhangda' and other
programmes at the Academy. I remember Kesar once forced me to do the
role of Sita with himself playing Ravana in a dance drama performed
when President V.V.Giri visited the Academy.
Kesar was never too academic, but in a group
situation, always made himself useful. I remember when Kesar,
O.V.Giri (a grandson of the President, who unfortunately died
young), Prahalad Mahishi and I were to do a group assignment, Kesar
busied himself preparing wheat halwa at midnight for us. While we
were arranging reference books, stationery and all that, he was
arranging the stove, kerosene, wheat, sugar and what not for the
halwa. It was motivation to eat this halwa that kept us working the
whole night and our group turned out a really good assignment in the
end.
(to be continued next week)
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