Features: Magazine | Literary Review | Life | Metro Plus | Open Page | Education Plus | Book Review | Business | SciTech | Entertainment | Young World | Property Plus | Quest | Folio |

Marching down `civy' street

Are defence personnel assets or misfits after they have hung up their uniform, asks Pankaja Srinivasan

WEARING DIFFERENT HATS Ex-serviceman have excelled in whatever field they chose to enter post retirement

The conversation veers from mosquito nets to powdered eggs, from Form Tens to AFFWA shops, from TDs to bashas. For an outsider, it would be incomprehensible. But if it were a fauji eavesdropping, he would feel very much at home.

What makes this man different? It is not only his trademark haircut. It is his bearing, his attitude, his at times-rigid outlook that singles him out — for both bouquets and brickbats. He is from the "military" as the neighbourhood gossip will tell you. And what happens when this militaryvaadu hangs up his uniform and decides to be a part of civy (civilian) street? Plenty.

Second innings

Once ex servicemen were considered misfits in the civilian world. Not any more. Now they are sought after by employers and a number of them are running successful enterprises. But the transition has often been turbulent for most. After living a life of rigorous training, discipline and sticking to time schedules, they found the world outside bewildering. "I felt that I was thrown to the wolves," says Colonel A. Sreedharan of Covai Property, a real estate company. In the very first year, he lost a lot of money. Sreedharan laughs that off saying, "I consider that as guru dakshina for the new vocation I was learning."

But people automatically come to expect a certain transparency in dealings with a fauji. An ex serviceman doesn't work only for the pay packet, he also works out of loyalty and a sense of service - a quality that has been dinned into him in the long years he has put in with the forces.

Like 80-year-old Colonel Sundaram who works magic with children who struggle with maths. Most of them end up loving the subject after a while. All this, he does completely free .

"A service background has helped me greatly in my business," says Subramanium, an ex-Sergeant of the Indian Air Force (IAF), who owns a textile company. "In the IAF, I interacted with VIPs and this gave me the confidence that many outsiders lack. I learnt to speak Hindi and English, definitely an asset in any business," he says.

Naickam, also ex-IAF, is the proprietor of a security service where he handles more than 1,000 employees. "The defence forces teach you how to manage men and earn their loyalty, irrespective of caste, religion or social background," he says.

The fauji is admired because he has motivated his forces to march, even to their deaths sometimes. He has done this without dangling carrots in front of them. Corporate houses, airlines, hospitals and educational institutions appoint retired service officers in the belief that they can build a winning team. And they find that these officers are as savvy as any management graduate.

The ex servicemen say that all the management jargon they encounter outside is just that — fancy words. Most of it has already been in practice for years in the armed forces.

Commenting on this, Colonel Srikumar Menon (of Pricol) has an anecdote. "A team of coordinators was evaluating an organisation for ISO certification and implementation of Total Quality Management. They were using phrases like 5S, 3M and poka-yoke.

When I took out my notes taken down 25 years ago at the Indian Military Academy I found they were an improved version of what was now being advocated!"

Air Vice Marshal A.S. Gurunathan looks after the affairs at the Light and Life Academy (a school for photography ) in the Nilgiris. In the armed forces everything runs on systems and he is trying to replicate it in his present office. "The only way to be accepted outside is to shed fauji inhibitions and get off one's high horse. I can't continue being an Air Vice Marshall in civy street!" he says.

Of course, there have been examples of ex-servicemen who have found themselves hopelessly out of depth and have preferred to stay retired, reminiscing about the good old days.

But for most others who once made a career of defending their nation, they are facing challenges of another kind — successfully.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail