MSDuniya!

I came across two interesting explanations of what success means to different people today.

The first was in a Knowledge@Wharton interview with the authors of a new book coming out in September called ‘Success Built to Last’. The book is co-authored by Jerry Porras (‘Built to Last’) and focuses on individual success stories as opposed to successful companies. Here’s what they had to say –

The question you asked earlier was about how these people think about success. The answer is that they don’t. People don’t start out to be successful—they start out to be very good at what matters to them. And when timing and circumstances come together, then they end up with success.

One of the issues we are very clear about is that success needs to be redefined. This is because if you read the definition of success in the dictionary, it sounds like it was written for sociopaths. If you go to Oxford or Webster—whether you take a dictionary from either side of the Atlantic—they define success in the same way, as the accumulation of influence, power, wealth and accolades. We see a lot of people chasing that kind of success. What’s remarkable is that a few people whom we talked to have achieved that kind of success, but it was never their goal.

I’d say what appears to be constant is that the principles don’t change over time. What defines these people’s lives is their commitment to doing something that is meaningful to them. If they’re pursuing a cause of public service, certainly they are living a life of service, but they are also clear that this life serves them. So it’s not an either/or situation. They never talk about it as a sacrifice, and so that principle of having an anchor to what is meaningful to them never changes.

And another thing we noticed in our research is that when you talk to these people, after a while you feel something is missing from the conversation. Mark and I have explored this, and we realized that what is missing is that they never blame anybody for their circumstances or their mishaps.

They never hold themselves to be victims of anything.

Hmmmmm….......

Just as I was pondering over their words, I got my weekly Art of Living email with the following pearls of wisdom –

The criteria for success: you are free, you live in the present moment, you are useful to the people around you, and you feel love for all humanity.

Pretty simplistic, eh?

Dear readers, it being a new year and all, your friendly neighbourhood site admin is trying out Blogger. We’re starting afresh and anew at MSDuniya (pronounced em-ess-doo-nee-yeah). So please update your RSS readers to point to the new feed.

You can still find the old blog and blog archives here.

It is 2005. Exactly a 100 years ago, 3 papers which would lay the foundations of modern Physics as we know it, were published in the journal Annalen der Physik . Einstein’s Annus Mirabilis as the year 1905 came to be known is being commemorated all over the world. If you haven’t already tried to grapple with understanding relativity, there couldn’t be a better time than now!

AN APPEAL FOR THE RELEASE OF ALL PRISONERS OF WAR HELD BY PAKISTAN AND INDIA

By

ADMIRAL L. RAMDAS, FORMER CHIEF OF THE NAVAL STAFF AND CHAIRMAN EMERITUS OF THE INDIAN CHAPTER OF THE PAKISTAN INDIA PEOPLES FORUM FOR PEACE AND DEMOCRACY

This is an open letter requesting both General Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, to kindly set aside all past references and claims made by both sides, and take an urgent and deliberate decision to release all prisoners of war held in India and Pakistan. This calls for an approach of respecting truth and to blend it with reconciliation. Such an initiative will have a profound effect on the progress of our current people to people contacts as well as the peace process.

No doubt many of the unfortunate comrades at arms from both sides may well be in their fifties or early sixties and possibly also mistaken for civilian prisoners due to the passage of time. We need to agree to send joint teams with relatives to make the task of location, identification and repatriation easier.

There is no better time to do this than October 2, the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi.

( L. Ramdas )

Evidence about Existence of POWs

DIRECT EVIDENCE

1. On 5.12.1971 Mrs. Damayanti Tambay, wife of Flt. Lt. V. V. Tambay heard Radio Pakistan announce that her husband was one of the five Indian pilots captured.
2. Mrs. Tambay has a clipping of Pakistan Observer dated 5th December 1971 reiterating the radio broadcast.
3. Air Commodore B. K. Stidston heard Radio Pakistan announce in their broadcast at 8.30 a.m. the capture of Flt. Lt. H. V. Singh.
4. Flt. Lt. T. S. Dandass’s plane was shot down near a railway station in West Pakistan. Wireless message intercepted by the BSF read, “IAF plane shot down, pilot baled out, arrest pilot immediately.”
5. On 18th December 1973 Mrs. Reena Ghosh, wife of Maj. A. K. Ghosh wrote to the Ministry of Defence enclosing his photograph taken in a prison in Pakistan and published in the Time magazine of 27.12. 1971.
6. 9th December 1974. Dr. Suri received a note scribbled by his son Maj. A. K. Suri enclosed with a letter written by a Muslim gentleman.
7. Later he received a letter written by Maj. Suri posted from Karachi.
8. On 10th December 1979 Dr. Suri received a phone call from an unidentified caller stating that his son had been moved four times from jail to jail in NWFP.

INDIRECT EVIDENCE

1. On 14th December 1971 Capt. Ranbir Kaura went missing from Chhamb Sector. On 22nd December 1971 his father received intimation that his son has been awarded Vir Chakra posthumously. On 12th April 1979 Government of India released a list of 40 missing Defence personnel in which Capt. Kaura’s name figured. That day, Union Minister of State for External Affairs Mr. Samarendra Kundu replying to question no: 6803 in the parliament admitted that there were 228 Indians, including 40 defence personnel, detained in Pakistan.
2. BBC correspondent Victoria Schofield, in her book ‘Bhutto’s Trial and Execution’ narrates Z. A. Bhutto’s experience at Kot Lakhpat jail. He heard horrific screams and shrieks from an adjacent barracks. His lawyer investigated and found that these were of Indian POWs.
3. Rooplal Sahariya arrested in Pakistan in 1974 as a spy and released in 2000 through concerted efforts of by human rights groups in Pakistan spearheaded by Ms. Asma Jehangir, says that there are 40 Indian POWs at Attock Fort Prison and 18 at Dhulai Prison in POK.

Efforts made for their Release

1. On reading the above contents of Ms. Schofield’s book, Mr. R. S. Tyagi, father of Flt. Lt. Sudhir Tyagi contacted Shri. A. R. Saran MP who raised a questions in the Lok Sabha, which was not admitted.
2. The then Minister for External Affairs, Shri. P. V. Narasimha Rao took up the issue of the POWs with his counterpart in Pakistan, Mr. Aga Shahi who was sympathetic about the issue. However, Mr. Shahi was soon replaced by Lt. Gen. Yakub Khan.
3. On 4 July 1981, Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi wrote to Dr. Suri to assure him that her government will do its best to get the missing defence personnel back.
4. Late Shri. B. M. Dhavale, the father of Flt. Lt. Ashok Dhavale approached Shri. Khushwant Singh who, on 28th August 80, wrote to the Mr. Abdul Sattar, the High Commissioner of Pakistan to India. Mr. Sattar wrote on 1st September 80 that Pakistan had informed the Government of India that Pakistan was not holding any missing defence personnel of India. (Letter no: POL/16/76 (131)-II dated 1st Sept 80.)
5. Approached the League of Red Cross Societies.
6. Mrs. Anuradha Dhavale wife of Flt. Lt. Ashok B. Dhavale wrote to Ms. Benazir Bhutto
7. Mrs. Apte, sister of Flt. Lt. Ashok B. Dhavale wrote to Mrs. Benazir Bhutto and the Late Prime Minister Shri. Rajiv Gandhi. (Indian Express 29.12.1988)

THE LIST OF INDIAN POWS OF 1971 WAR
IN THE CUSTODY OF PAKISTAN

Indian Air Force

1.Wg. Cdr. H.S. Gill 2.Sqn. Ldr. Devaprashad Chatterjee 3.Sqn Ldr. Mohinder Kumar Jain 4.Sqn. Ldr. Jal Maniksha Mistry 5.Sqn. Ldr. Jatinder Das Kumar 6.Flt. Lt. Tanmaya Singh Dandass 7.Flt. Lt. Ramesh Gulabrao Kadam 8.Flt. Lt. Babul Guha 9.Flt. Lt. Gurdev Singh Rai
10.Flt. Lt. Ashok Balwant Dhavale
11.Flt. Lt. Srikant Chandrakant Mahajan
12.Flt. Lt. Sudhir Kumar Goswami
13.Flt. Lt. Harvinder Singh
14.Flt. Lt. Vijay Vasant Tambay
15.Flt. Lt. Ilyoo Moses Sasoon
16.Flt. Lt. Ram Metharam Advani
17.Flt. Lt. Nagaswami Shankar
18.Flt. Lt. Suresh Chandra Sandal
19.Flt. Lt. Kushalpal Singh Nanda
20.Flt. Lt. Manohar Purohit
21.Fg. Off. Sudhir Tyagi
22.Fg. Off. Kishan Lakhimal Malkani
23.Fg. Off. Kottiezath Puthiyavettil Murlidharan
24.Fg. Off. Tejinder Singh Sethi

Indian Army

1.Maj S.P.S. Waraich 2.Maj Kanwaljit Sandhu 3.Maj Jaskiran Singh Malik 4.Maj S.C. Guleri 5.Maj A.K. Ghosh 6.Maj Ashok Suri 7.Capt Ravinder Kaura 8.Capt Kalyan Singh Rathod 9.Capt Giri Raj Singh
10.Capt O.P. Dalal
11.Capt Kamal Bakshi
12.Capt Vashisht Nath
13.2/Lt Sudhir Mohan Sabharwal
14.2/Lt Paras Ram Shama
15.2/Lt Vijay Kumar Azad
16.Corpal Pal Singh
17.Sub Kali Das
18.Sub Assa Singh
19.L/Hav Krishan Lal Sharma
20.L/NK Hazoora Singh
21.L/NK Balbir Singh
22.Sepoy S. Chauhan
23.Sepoy Dilar Singh
24.Sepoy Jagir Singh
25.Sepoy Jagdish Lal
26.Gnr. Madan Mohan
27.Gnr. Sujan Singh
28.Gnr. Gyan Chand
29.Gnr. Shyam Singh

Indian Navy

1.Lt. Cdr. Ashok Roy

Other possible POWs

1.Flt. Lt. Sudhesh Kumar Chibber 2.Capt Dalgir Singh Jamwal

It was more than a year ago when I had met a relative of an air force officer whom I had known while we were at the Academy. As I casually inquired about his present whereabouts, the relative gave me a queer look. My friend, who had been with me, saved both of us from further embarrassment by whispering to me that the air force officer had been shot down during the Indo-Pak war of 1971 and was believed to be languishing in Pakistani jail, their official denial notwithstanding. I did apologize to the relative but my conscience was in flames as I returned home that night.

Last week, a colleague informed me that the relatives of yet another air force officer, who had met with a similar fate, had decided to rekindle the issue and that he had decided to help them. He helped them by drafting a press release which was handed over to some members of the local press and which I am uploading on MS Duniya in parts. I appeal to all MS Duniya readers to help in this worthy cause by mobilizing an email campaign, initially among own friends and other like-minded people for gathering mass and momentum, before directing the same to both governments. Office of the Prime Minister of India may be reached online here.

1971 INDO-PAKISTAN WAR
34th YEAR OF INDIAN POWS IN PAKISTAN’S JAILS

We, the families of Indian prisoners of war in Pakistan, make this fervent appeal to the people of India and Pakistan.

16th December 2005 will be the 34th anniversary of the end of the war. Yet, the POWs in the custody of the respective governments still languish in jails. At least 54 such personnel of Indian armed forces await to emerge from the shadows of high walls of prisons in Pakistan. Similarly, it is claimed by Pakistan, that there are several hundred or a thousand Pakistani POWs languishing in Indian prisons. Neither government recognizes the other’s claim. Indian government admitted the existence of its own missing personnel on 12th April 1979, more than seven years after the end of the war (Reply to question no: 6803 in the Lok Sabha).

We, the families of the incarcerated soldiers, have several strong clues from a number of reliable sources, such as the broadcasts of BBC and Radio Pakistan, newspapers and magazines in Pakistan and the USA, reports of released prisoners and conscientious individuals in Pakistan who brought out letters from these unfortunate pawns in the politico-diplomatic chess game of the two governments.

The efforts by individuals, families of the POWs, human rights groups and others through the government channels to secure their release have so far been fruitless. But we see a glimmer of light now. Gradual thawing of relations between the two governments and sincere pursuit of confidence building measures by the two sides have rekindled our hope that our boys who went to war might return home, even though, as old men.

The hope has been further strengthened by the exchange of prisoners on 12th September 2005. Pakistan President General Musharraf has recently confirmed that the process of exchange on humanitarian grounds will continue. We feel that both the sides will agree that the cases of the 54 POWs need immediate consideration. All the available evidence in the known cases of POWs retained in Pakistan has been presented by us.

We know that the pain of separation and the agony of suspense are the same on either side of the national borders. Unfortunately, the information-gap caused by the national border between the people of the two countries has been such that we have not heard of any claims by families in Pakistan whose sons, brothers and husbands they suspect are in Indian captivity as POWs of 1971 war. Our search on the Internet has yielded only one such case, that of Mohammed Arif, whose voice on All India Radio was recognized by his wife. We appeal to the families who are floundering in the same suspense as we are to come forward and give whatever clues, proof and evidence they have. We appeal to the print and electronic media and human rights groups on both the sides of the border, the International Red Cross, People’s Union for Civil Liberties, NGOs and social service organizations such as the Rotary, Lions, to persistently keep the issue of the POWs in the forefront to ensure its early resolution. Please raise your voices till inhuman incarceration of innocents who went away as young men ends and they return in their old age to the loving care of their families.

Tomorrow, Didi’s Doll enters into double digits of her age in months. We both remember the afternoon when she was born; our first reaction was an immense sense of relief since she came into this world just as unnaturally as Julius Caesar. Till then, all our anxieties and all our feelings were centered round our own daughter, but how things changed thereafter and how fast! She looked sombre for many days and made us wait for quite a while before she smiled for the first time. Yes, it was a mysterious smile that only the infants and Mona Lisa can manage.

She stayed with us in Pune for a few months early this year and went back to her home in Navi Mumbai a little before Mirchi and Mukul left for the States, but the love affair involving all of us on both sides of the Pacific and Didi’s Doll was already a raging storm by now. I had been earlier surprised to find her reacting to some musical pieces with an intensity that seemed strangely familiar, and now it was the turn of some pictures and paintings in our house. She started with a picture of a spotted deer that my Tsunami friend had photographed; she would drag us towards the picture and carry on an animated but one-sided confabulation with the deer. Just before she left, she seemed to notice a portrait of a lady that my once-talented nephew had reproduced from a picture. I had asked him to do so only because the face of the lady somewhat resembled my wife and my nephew had done a remarkable job. I do not yet know what drew Didi’s Doll to that painting; may be she too noticed the resemblance. But, one fine evening, a realization dawned upon me that perhaps the Doll felt that the face resembled her own mother.

Didi’s Doll has visited us a few times since then. She does not seem to notice that the deer is no more on the wall but she does take us to the lady. Now she seems to recognize our house only through that lady since she frequently finds both of us at her own house in Navi Mumbai. Earlier, she would look at the painting and then look at my wife or her own mother, depending on who was around, but now she simply keeps on looking at the painting. I had been hoping and waiting for this to happen all these days. First, the Music and now the Art; that leaves out Books as at present. I hope and pray that they too come to her, but I would have to wait till she enters into yet another double digits for that—the double digits of her age in years.

Baraats may seem to have made an exit from the wedding ceremonies in modern cities excepting in North India but Kolhapur is more of a traditional than a modern city. Probably, it has something to do with being an erstwhile capital of a princely state. We wore colorful headwear on our formal dresses and ‘formed up’ in our hotel porch for marching towards the mandapam that was less than a hundred meters away. It did not take more than a couple of tentative steps of the participants before the Baraat transformed itself into a frenzied, dancing mass. We moved ahead by inches and yet the time seemed to fly away.

The part-time priest was a practicing pediatrician who, along with his doctor-wife, had arrived from a coastal town for conducting the wedding ceremony. Mirchi’s school or rather its parent organization has made a foray into socio-cultural sphere and has tried to de-mystify many social rituals by designing its own versions. The part-time priest has been probably operating some sort of a non-commercial franchise for them in his home-town and around. The traditional ritual has no role for anyone except the priest; the bridal couple and their parents merely murmur their acquiescence in monosyllables. Mirchi’s school has prepared detailed scripts in Marathi for the bridal pair, their parents, and also the invitees and everyone is expected to say his/her piece under the direction of the conducting priest. Here, they had put up a computer screen that displayed the text as the proceedings got under way. We all actually participated in the ceremony.

My curiosity arose when I heard a Marathi word, which I figured out as a kind of an assurance from the groom to his bride that he would not commit ‘husbandly excesses’. Our children invariably study in missionary or Central schools that abound in our various cantonments and are therefore strangers to Marathi that pops out of books and magazines. I was quite sure that my cousin’s son had not quite understood it. I jokingly remarked to my wife that I must mention it to them both at an appropriate time, which, of course can only be later. She retorted, “Look who is talking about husbandly excesses”

The ceremony went on with a solemn dignity with which it had begun but it also had its moments of good humor. We met our friends and relatives who had arrived on that day and moved in to the dinning complex as soon as the lunch was served. We had some illustrated company; there were a few Central and State ministers in attendance. As I lay back while my brother drove, I tried to analyze as to why I had liked the way this wedding was conducted. I did not have to try hard. It was obvious that both sets of parents had refused to succumb to the ritual and had applied their mind instead.

For the fourth year in succession, I am back to my ‘seasonal’ job. I finished with my last student for the day on last Saturday at 1:00 PM and hurried back for home since we had to leave for Kolhapur in the afternoon for attending the wedding of a cousin’s son. I have a multiple relationship with my cousin or rather with them since his wife is also related to me. Besides, and more importantly, my cousin and I had worn the same uniform together for many years and therefore are brother officers. The engagement ceremony was to be conducted during the same evening while the wedding was to be solemnized on Sunday morning.

Our country has seen many changes during the last decade; our motorists have begun to experience the pleasure of driving along four/six lane highways, our moviegoers now can visit a number of multiplexes that have begun to come up in many cities and we can choose between many Internet Service Providers for our broadband connection at reasonable rates. We covered the distance of 225 kms in less than four hours, which was quite unthinkable some years ago. The venue was a cozy hotel located in the heart of the city with a lot of parking space—a rare sight these days. They had displayed various timings of the wedding ceremony for our information in our suite and I noticed a small package containing a few things that we all decide to carry on our journey and sometimes forget. We go down and sit through the proceedings of the engagement ceremony. Dinner is served and they inform us that an entertainment program had been organized by the girl’s family and would we like to take our seats?

Compere is girl’s younger brother. I have performed this role at a few get together functions in my army career and should certainly know how a compere can make or mar a function. This young man was supremely confident, had a great sense of timing and in short, knew his stuff. We soon had another talented young man from the girl’s extended family on the stage. He started with a piece from a very popular Marathi play written in a dialect spoken in our coastal region and ended with a beautiful tableau called “Dog and his Master”. What a bandwidth of histrionic talent! Then there was a young woman, an ophthalmologist by profession, who read a poem that her cousin, the bride-to-be, had written and then it was the turn of the girl’s paternal aunt who surprised us all by showing the funny side of their family while putting on an accent that was many years older. I was amazed; I did not reckon to see so much talent in a single family when the show had started. Then it was our turn and we did what we could do best; we danced with abandon.