The Evening Before the Olive Green World : A Dinner with Gentleman Cadets

For the Passing Out Parade of our nephew, I landed at the Officers’ Training Academy (OTA), Chennai, two days in advance, to be a guest of Major Subash, our regimental officer. That evening, Major Subash’s Company Commander had invited all passing-out Gentleman Cadets (GCs) for a customary dinner. Despite my best efforts to wriggle out of it, Major Subash – a Platoon Commander – insisted that I accompany him. He wanted me to interact with the soon-to-be-commissioned officers.

Throughout the event, I remained fairly reticent, keeping to myself. I had hung up my boots some sixteen years ago and had been living in Canada ever since. What could I possibly share with these youngsters? Yet, some of the GCs persisted, prodding me for advice.

Five Pages and a Page

The advice I finally offered was simple: “Every day, ensure that you read five pages and write one page.“

A GC immediately asked, “What should we read?”

“Anything and everything – newspapers, magazines, military pamphlets, user manuals, or even porn. Just ensure you read every day.“

The cadets seemed a bit bewildered by my unexpected answer. One of them then asked, “What about saving money? Many have been advising us about it.” This, I suspected, came from senior veterans now employed by banks as Defence Accounts Specialists – catching them young, indeed.

When they persisted, I elaborated: “On joining your regiments, learn to be part of them. Be a soldier first. Learn about your soldiers, your equipment, and so on. Remember to enjoy your life. Pursue your passions, hobbies, and interests. Participate in adventure activities. Use your vacations to travel around the country – and around the world.“

“But what about savings?” persisted some who might have joined the service for a few dollars more.

The financial genius in me surfaced. “You don’t need to worry much about savings for the first three years of your service. Contribute to your Provident Fund – it will save you some taxes.”

Gifted, but Diminishing

Reflecting on that conversation, I can state confidently that every officer of the Indian Armed Forces can be classified as Gifted. Most of us came through Sainik or Military Schools, where admission required a test in Grade 4 or 5 similar to the one used in Canada to identify gifted children. If I recall correctly, ours was tougher.

After school, we all faced a fiercely competitive entrance examination for the Academy, where the qualifying percentage was a fraction of one percent. Then came the five-day ordeal of the Services Selection Board (SSB) interview – far more rigorous than anything before. Anyone who qualified through that process is genuinely super-gifted. Training at the Academies was no easy feat, especially the need to qualify in academic subjects alongside strenuous physical activities and tests.

And yet, on commissioning, the problem begins. Creativity starts to diminish.

Studying vs Learning

Officers tend not to learn – they study. Let me define the difference: what you study, you forget soon after the exam; what you learn, you retain for life. The tendency to study can be attributed largely to the grading system in most courses.

I recall an incident from my command days. We were tasked to write a paper on the tactical employment of modern surveillance devices for Army Headquarters. I asked the junior officers to produce a draft. One of them replied, “Sir, you write well. This paper is for Army Headquarters – why don’t you write it? Our efforts may not be good or creative enough.“

I pointed out how they had closed their minds to creativity. “You all went through the SSB,” I reminded them. “You were shown nine caricature images – head or tail impossible to make out – yet each of you wrote nine good, creative stories. The tenth was a blank card, but you still wrote a credible story. One hundred words were flashed at you with thirty-second intervals, and you wrote one hundred sensible sentences. Now you say you’re incapable of writing a creative paper?”

The Death of Creativity

The death of creativity begins when a young officer is given a task and told to go through an old file, paper, or Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) to see how it was done previously – and then accomplish the new task in a similar manner. Many military units have SOPs even for the most mundane activities, like organising an Officers’ Mess function. These SOPs, while efficient, are also creativity killers.

One of the first documentation tasks for a young officer is usually a Court of Inquiry (C of I), most often pertaining to a severe injury suffered by a soldier. The Adjutant invariably says, “Refer to a previous one. Carry out the C of I in a similar manner.”

If you want a young officer to be creative, you must first help him understand the purpose of the C of I: what evidence is, how to adduce it, and how to reach a finding based on evidence – not precedent. The manner in which proceedings are recorded on paper is perhaps the only thing an old court of inquiry might reveal.

The Blind Copy Syndrome

The trend of  blind copying, cut and paste begins here. It continues throughout service, steadily culling all the creativity one possessed at the time of the SSB.

Reading five pages and writing one page every day are the very first baby steps toward professional creativity and competence. As the youngsters anxiously awaited their entry into the mysterious olive-green world, what better piece of advice could I have given them?

The question is not whether they will remember my words. The question is whether they will have the courage to resist the system that slowly, steadily, silently extinguishes the creative spark that brought them there in the first place.