1. Reminiscences of the Great Dictator (Director)
10:00 am, Dec. 18, 1984: With knock knees and beads of sweat developing on the
ascent to Mount Railway Board, we presented ourselves to BL Sharma, the Great Dictator‟s
(hereafter the GD) Sr. PA. Sharmaji was the epitome of courtesy as he viewed us piteously
while ushering us into the GD‟s room.
It was a sight to behold, one that almost caused three probationer‟s vacancies to arise
immediately. We passed through the dark shadow of the GD‟s ante room/conference room
and into the unidimensional yellow and green painted and uniformly darkened room of the
GD. On a shabby sofa sat a medium-statured man clad in a brown checked suit and yellow
floral tie with his legs crossed and swaying, fingers tapping on the chair‟s armrests, complete
with his Bond glasses, a supari (mercifully only the masala) box and an intimidating supari
cutter handled most deftly with attendant 3-D sounds. At least one Ramsay Brother was here
to stay and He would be our Boss too. We were never asked to sit although three chairs were
lined up facing his sofa seat, reminiscent of an executioner‟s firing squad position.
“Hm….mm..mm…..Huh, He doesn‟t make „em like that anymore”, were the GD‟s
opening words. In sheer terror we recited our names punctuated with a Sir between the first
and last name (with a bonus Sir if one had a middle name). For him, JNU was the den of
rascals (called rebels without a cause), Stephen‟s produced snobs while Gopalganj had little
to boast other than the mafia and private armies, Thiruvananthapuram of mischievous Mallus,
and Allahabad „worthy‟ successors to the Nehru „legacy‟ while Hyderabadis were boorish
and uncouth. As more probationers arrived in the next few days, GD methodically dog-
tagged and assaulted our hitherto established pedigrees. If a bonus ice cream bespoke
bourgeoisie tastes, playing the dholak or singing Maithili or Khasi folk songs was plebian and
Bacchanalian salsas were unpardonable sins. History was not good enough for the IA&AS,
nor were plant physiology or biology or international relations and political science,
insurance, defence, CA, ICWA or CS………the list was endless. As classes started GD laid
out his “golden” rules that are summarized below with their expected fallout:
Rule Crime and its punishment
1 Late for class Dismissal from service
2 Gracelessly collapsing from a chair in class Warning on personal file
having been auditanated and/or creditanated
3 Giving „proxy „ for a non-GD-held class Stoppage of increment
4 Eating with God-given spoons and forks Reduction in rank
5 Licking curds off the elbow Dismissal from service
6 Drinking daal and porridge from the serving bowl -do-
7 Dating in the presence of the Buddha Permissible with divine
benediction and an add-on
increment– buy one, get one free!
8 Wearing unisex T-shirts Affidavits to HQ to be produced
for change of name and sex
9 Causing damage to Yarrows Debit would be passed on to our
parents‟ accounts since our bank
balances were microscopic

2. 10 Foaming toothpaste at the mouth, using the sun to Warning pasted on our maiden
dry a long mane or hennaing in the courtyard ACR
11 Worship of Bacchus If Nelson‟s bad eye was not so
bad, such worship would qualify
for a warning on the personal file
at the least
12 Traveling in the Matador van No more than 3 horses per
probationer on the upward climb
and more than 2.5 on the descent,
subject to a maximum of 30
horses equivalent, the rest would
have to use God‟s own self-
locomotion
13 Courtesy to visitors As ordained by the GD on a
case-by-case basis
14 Distinction between DD, faculty and probationers All to be uniformly disciplined
15 More than a single scoop of ice cream or a fresh Spare a thought for the poor and
pineapple pastry on the Mall your future
16 Giving up on credit and debit the first day Qualifies you for a pep talk from
the GD
17 Gathering Vitamin-D on the Yarrows lawn, post- Warned against skin cancer
lunch
The list would be much longer. As the days tuned into weeks and then months, the
GD taught us more of men and matters than of mundane issues of audit and accounts. He
believed that working in the less than salubrious confines of an AG‟s office would train us to
be more practical auditors and accountants and more rounded (metaphorically though)
humans. Training us in accounting for the mess vegetables, fish, fowl and rum (for Harry‟s
delectable 7-layered pie), to organizing VIP visits, supervising the gardeners, keeping an
„eye‟ on the faculty (including the new DD), chiding us for profligacy, bringing out the
foodie in us by declaring himself to be both a veg as also a non-veg, denying us central
heating in the Glen, unreasonably refusing leave to a probationer to collect her PhD degree
and expressing happiness on a rowdy probationer‟s selection to the IAS, the GD was a
bundle of contradictions. Even over a Sunday morning coffee and cookies in the lounge (that
he relished; only the plate survived!), the GD asked a hapless probationer from the N-E her
current bride price and a good Bihari the same for dowry!
Yet there was method in his unstated „insanity‟. When we were caught in the midst of
Bacchanalian worship along with our DD, we were dramatically ”forewarned, for being
forewarned was being forearmed” against future surprise checks. When the then AC (P) came
visiting us in Yarrows, the GD fawned upon him as a probationer notwithstanding the
passage of time from 1966 to 1985. I too was the recipient of such affection from the old man
while he was PAG in Kolkata. Although he came on line, he refused to recognize a DD by
my name till I said I was his probationer. He had a peculiar habit of moaning that gave away
his moments of happiness. A feast followed such a bout of moaning in Treasury Building that
afternoon with a special menu for an already rotund probationer.

3. That same afternoon, I had another interesting lesson from him. He asked me where I
was staying in Kolkata to which I said it was at my grandfather‟s. He moaned again and said
he was proud of at least one probationer of his being sensible! In Bengali homes, the jamai
was feted and buffeted for the first three days later which, each day a dish would vanish off
the menu! The lesson was never to billet oneself unreasonably upon anyone. Similarly, when
the General Body of the Mess was baying for the Mess Committee‟s heads, the GD suggested
that we give the probationers a taste of a budget meal – the end result was the Mess
Committee sneaking into Yarrows in the wee hours of the morn. The probationers were
safely in bed with a bellyful of the best kaddu dishes, ranging from soup and salad to sauce
and pudding! The GD also took it upon himself to politely inquire about the previous day‟s
catering services and expostulated on the wide variety of Indian culinary „delights.” Needless
to add, the cries for our heads were conspicuously absent next morning.
Notwithstanding his often carefully calibrated idiosyncrasies, the GD was fiercely
protective of his probationers. I recollect when India‟s external security agency sent a Special
Secretary to Yarrows for recruiting probationers on lateral transfer basis. He allowed the
Secretary ample time to dwell on the positive aspects of their new service – it sounded like
join the Navy and sees the world. The GD‟s intercession however, after silent sufferance of
the Secretary, was timely but calculated to land the axe on the Secretary‟s feet. The GD
placed two fundamental questions. The first was one of constitutional protections against
sacking. The second was how „others‟ were being recruited. Needless to add, the Special
Secretary left Yarrows with a sense of deep foreboding. Despite our collective desire to be
James Bond 0007, the GD strongly advised a probationer desperate to exit the IA&AS to stay
on and repeat the CS exam rather than join the new service. Happy coincidence, this
probationer today holds an important position in the Indian Foreign Service and actively
retains his links with all of us.
The GD had very humble beginnings in life, having studied under Petromax lanterns
at railway stations and been financed all along by scholarships. He was also the proud winner
of India‟s most prestigious single annual scholarship from the Bhandarkar Institute of
Oriental Studies. His oratorical skills were legendary be it in English or in Sanskrit. He held
audiences spellbound for 150 minutes as he spoke on the Vedas without so much as shred of
paper in his hands with over 500 people in the audience including the entire Cabinet and the
then Governor. When he spoke to us of “men and matters” extempore, he had a conviction
borne of decades of experience and struggle. He was seized of the idiosyncrasies of his peers
and seniors who would be our AsG. He pandered to them in interesting manners. We once
had an ADAI (Railways) lecture us on Vedic Mathematics. It was as if the GD wanted to
send us a message – keep your extracurricular interests alive in the mundane world of audit
and accounts. He was fiercely proud of his independence and did the honours in inaugurating
The Glen himself, to the exclusion of the Wise Men.
Broadcasting to the nation in October, 1939, Winston Churchill voiced his
apprehensions about Soviet Russia, "I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a
riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is
Russian national interest." While it is not my intent to equate the GD with Russia, yet the

4. quote applies aptly to the GD, albeit out of context. It was not his interest that mattered as
much as that of his probationers. He quietly accepted that his non-conformity did not go
down well with HQ, he had very little time before superannuation and that cultivation of
Sanskrit would tide him over his personal and professional disappointments. Yet his loyalty
to his probationers remained like a karma to him – they were his extended family – in their
joys lay his joy, in their sorrows, his own. Human to the human, inhuman to the inhuman,
respect for India‟s poor, critical of the quality of governance, criticism tempered by
beautifully calibrated humour and topped with apt quotes from the Bhagwat Gita, Upanishads
and the Vedas, he was a man who got along with few, particularly in the service. Yet he had
his probationers‟ loyalty and a captive audience in the world outside.
In the last two decades and a half, my batch has retained its sense of humour, unfazed
by crises, and stood by each other, not, for a moment, losing our high sense of self-respect,
despite individual and collective efforts to dim our professional and personal standing within
and outside of our service. We have prospered more outside the narrow confines of the
IA&AD and brought laurels to it without, simultaneously, losing our individual identities.
Much of this is due to the GD‟s efforts.
Notwithstanding his relative lack of popularity in the service, Satyavinayak Tryambak
Kenghe (IA&AS, 1955) remains perhaps one of the finest Directors of the IA&AS Staff
College who trained good human beings and not just good officers, having recognized that
the two qualities were complementary rather than exclusionary. Ours was the only batch that
had him as the GD for our first and second phase of training. We hated the GD, much like our
immediate seniors in the 1983 batch, reminiscent of maltreatment in a kennel. Exiting to life,
we realized that Mr. Kenghe had indeed prepared us for the rough and tumble of life for
which we remain ever grateful to him. “He doesn‟t make „em like that anymore!” indeed.
Thank you, Sir. May your soul rest in peace.