Letter to Editor : Hats off Gen . Kapoor.

Here is the one I sent off today . Hopefully it will get published . In that case will try to post a scanned copy of the same .

Sir ,
For the last 60 odd years we have been reading and hearing successive Chief Of Staffs of the Army , The Navy and The Air Force proclaiming that the Armed forces are in fine fettle and ready to face any challenge to the national sovereignty. The fact that after 1962 ,the defence forces have acquitted themselves very well in each and every confrontation has always given credence to these claims.However it is a little known fact that it was possible only because of our valiant soldiers, the seamen and the airmen and not because of the equipment they had to use but inspite of it .Finally it has always been the man behind the machine which has mattered !
It has been my personal misfortune to witness in every inspections and presentations ,one after the other , Commanders projecting khushi picture of the state of affairs and glossing over / not mentioning the shortcomings . The malaise went right up to the top . Even when shortcomings were projected and not made good no noise was made . The Indian citizens at large believing the statements of the Chief Of Staffs of the three services were always blissfully unaware of the true state of affairs .
The hopes that even when projected the projected shortcomings would be made good in good time by the powers that be were always futile . It is also unthinkable to assume that none of the commanders at some time in these 60 odd years did not forcefully project the urgent requirements . However the very fact that today 80% of the tanks and armoured carriers lack night vision speaks volumes about the results of such forceful projections of the requirements .It was too much to expect our corrupt politicians to think in the national interest before their own interests
Ours , that is aam adami's experience has been that the only thing which will make our politicians do the decent thing is the extreme public pressure from the aam adami , the print and the electronic media .
Under these circumstances the acknowledgement of lack of night vision capability of Indian Army by none other then Chief of Army Staff has come as a breath of fresh air . I say hats off to Gen Kapoor in having the courage to bring these shortcomings to the notice of Indian citizens . May be it will generate required public opinion and pressure to wake up the powers that be who do not seem to see what is good for the nation , leave alone at night but even in broad day light !.

Sincerely,
PM Velankar , Nagpur.

Our USA Trip 25 June 2009 T0 23 July 2009.

About the map .

"Click " unless mentioned otherwise will mean left click.

Place markers have been placed with an accuracy of + - 0ne meter.

Red lines are flight paths of our flights . Flight path from Indira Gandhi Intl Airpt till Dulles Intl Arpt is accurate as it was shown on the seat video . Others are not accurate , as two points have been joined by a straight line without considering corridors or reporting points..

Blue lines are road routes followed by us . Accurate to the extent obtained fron "get direction " on google map.

Click on place marker , Red & Blue lines will open up information windows giving details about that item .

Click on photo link will open the album in the same tab contrary to what is given in info window
However right click on photo link and click on "open in new window"/ new tab " will open it as per the click . I will recommed right click method and closing of "info window" by clicking cross on top right for better viewing of the map.

Click on the legend "View Our USA Trip June 2009. in a larger map " at the bottom of the map , will open "My Maps " window of my Google maps account.

Navigation through the map is normal .

Would love feed back .


View Our USA Trip June 2009. in a larger map

You can also view this in MY MAPS page of google maps Here is the link, copy it and paste in address bar.
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=106720451124266370165.000479f3afbfd86684c3f&t=h&z=2

I have also put it up on google Earth . Sorry I do not know how to get the link.
Take yor pick to view and enjoy .

Our USA Trip 25 June 2009 to 23 July 2009.

View Our USA Trip June 2009. in a larger map
in case you see only gray background ZOOM - OUT(keep clicking on " - " sign .

PRELUDE TO THE CAR JOURNIES !

During our serving days we never had the pleasure nor the problems of owning a car . It is not that we did not have the need for it . With two growing sons and only a Vijay Super as a mode of transportation at Shillong , a four wheeler was definitely a necessity , but those were the days when other necessecities had priority over owning a car !

After retirement we settled down in Nagpur and when the younger son got admission in an aided engineering college , without capitation fee we were quite happy and used the dough ( kept aside for that very purpose , in case we ever had to pay the capitation fee ) , for buying a second hand Fiat for 55,000/bucks . Now with both the sons away and only two of us around the "necessity" part of the car was no longer an overriding factor.It was got for the convenience and the pleasurable part of it . What we had not bargained for was the problem part of it .

The engine used to over heat even after a small distance . As rectification we changed the four bladed radiator fan for five bladed one . It did not help much . Then the radiator it self was changed with a copper tubing radiator .

The battery was always down . It was difficult to get manpower for a push start at any and all places or times . So dynamo was replaced with an alternator . During our limited distances drives those problems did not bother us after these rectifications but they were spread over long period of time and had taken considerable amount of cash :-( .

At speeds above 45 kmph the nose wheels ( front wheels for the uninitiated) used to "shimmy" badly and the steering wheel used to vibrate and shake uncontrollably . Reducing speed was the only solution . No matter what we tried and how much we spent ,we could never get rid of this snag as long as we had that car .

In the mean time what with re-employment , pension , both sons away and one son earning , our finances were , for the first time in our memory , looking up . So , finally when the problem parts of the car far out weighed the pleasure part , we sold it off for a princely sum of 23,000/ bucks and actually considered ourselves lucky to have got that price !! With improved finances , a bit of bank loan and those 23,000/ bucks we got a base model brand new Maruti 800 car through the canteen on the 10 th of May 1998. It was a car from one of the very first lots to be received in Nagpur to be fitted with "catalytic converter" for better emission standards .The "pilots notes"("user manual" to the uninitiated )were replete with warning that "ONLY UN-LEADED " petrol to be used to prevent damage to the "catalytic converter" .{ a new one cost about 10 - 15000/- :-( } Those days un-laded petrol was not easily available any where as only few petrol pumps and that too only in bigger cities stocked the un-leaded petrol . It became quite common to hear people asking "where is un-leaded fuel available" , not to find the answer,but to boast to all within hearing range that he / she had latest model of Maruti 800 :-). The boasting was not misplaced . What a difference between our Fiat & this maruti ! It was like chalk & cheese !!!

It was the very first brand new car we had ever owned . I was 56 years old when that happened. Today the officers are owning better and bigger cars and that too at much younger age !!

We did not know it then , but this car was to bring us lots of pleasure and adventures !!

Velu.

EUREKA ! EUREKA !! EUREKA !!!

During the years 1999 to 2007 we had traveled extensively by road to all corners of India . I had prepared a road map on which full details of every journey under taken by us were recorded . All those who had a look at that map were suitably impressed ! My son suggested that I put them on the google "My Map pages " . It was a grand idea and helped me in spending considerable amount of my time in a very pleasurable hobby :-)and so the maps were duly made and posted on google "My Map pages " site after completion of the journey .

We are now in Gurgaon and have been for the last month plus to help out our DL (daughter -in -law)by doing some baby sitting and generally trying to be helpful . I have doubts about my contributions to both these tasks but I am sure and have no doubt that the DL will also agree that Priti has been doing both the tasks wonderfully well . In the mean time Google , Googgle maps , the Blog , the Gnat 50 years site and generally speaking the internet has been great help in getting me through the days and nights :-)

With time on my hand I thought of putting those maps on google earth . When trying to do that ( put my google maps on the Google Earth ) , I accidently discovered ( now you know the reason for the title of this blog:-)that google "My Maps "can be imbeded in the blog . After lot of trial & mostly errors I finally got the hang of how to do that .

It is a fair warning to all those very few followers of my blog { are there any ? :-( } that the next few days they are going to be over loaded by google maps and descriptions of our road journeys under taken through the years by car .

velu

Nagpur - Bangalore . June 1999 .

My reemployment at HQ Maintenance Command was to expire in November 1999 . By June of 1999 I had already asked for an extension of one year . However as I had already completed 5 years of re employment so the chances of getting another extension were rather remote ! However to our surprise my posting came to Hq Training Command Bangalore in that month . During those days there were rumors that in cases where Air Hq did not want to give extension to an officer without saying so in so many words , he was posted out to a faraway place . This automatically solved the problem of extension , as in most of the cases the officer did not want to move away from his selected place of re-employment and quit on his own :-)

So far as I was concerned , I was not playing the share market , doing side business in real estate or share brokerage during working hours , a routine practice with quite q few number of officers particularly those posted at Delhi . We had no school going kids and no over riding interest in staying at Nagpur so there was nothing holding us back from proceeding on posting! In any case we had decided that I would do my work to the best of my ability and not willingly let go of the IAF, unless they did not want me no more and said so in so many words with reasons as to why !

We thought about the posting . In the best of circumstances , that is if my extension for another year comes through I would then retire from The IAF from Bangalore in November 2000 maximum an year and half stay at that place . In the worst case scenerio I would retire in November 1999 that is after a stay of five months . Under these circumstances we decided to go on posting with least amount of luggage and go by car . It was a daring decision as I had never driven our maruti more then 40 odd kilometers beyond Nagpur and Priti had not driven even that much !! Our complete luggage consisted of 4 packing cases and one TV which we sent off to Bangalore . Priti's niece was married to a Naval Officer who was doing a course at that time at CDM in Secundrabad . Hyderabad being half way we decided to spend couple of days with them before proceeding to Bangalore .

Then the preparations for the car journey began . Got the maps studied the distances and asked various people about road condition, places to stay etc . We asked experienced travelers if we have to break journey and stay over night on the way to Hyderabad . We were assured that reaching Hyderabad from Nagpur on the same day was no problem at all . In fact we met one odd fellow who claimed to have made the journey all the way to Bangalore in one go as they had some emergency at home . After so many positive feed backs we we were assured and started feeling confident that "yes , may be we can make it to Hyderabad on the same day without any hitches ." Now , after all these years and having trapised all over India in our car we feel that all those ghuta hua travelers must have had a good laugh at our anxiety fears . Any way with all these experienced travelers we discussed the sun rise , sunset timings and also the discussed the best time to start . Due to bad habits of most of the Indian drivers and particularly of long distance truck drivers to drive with head lights on full beam I used to be almost blinded and found it most difficult to see the road ahead and on many an occasion had almost gone in a ditch or hit some thing by the road side . So It was decided to drive only during day light hours and call it a day & make night halt at which ever place we were before it became dark and made use of head light necessary . So the rule followed was start as soon as it becomes sufficient light in the morning and stop at any place before sunset . It was a wise decision which was to be followed in all future journeys.

During my morning walks I started going earlier just to check light conditions during dawn and day break to arrive at our wheels roll time ( starting time to the un-initiated ).

Finally the departure date as decided approached .

( TO BE COMPLETED )





View Nagpur - Bangalore , June 1999 . in a larger map