You know you are an Officer when....

Just one more to go... The last paper of the Departmental Exam is slated for tomorrow. The Departmental Exams are like the semester exams in colleges. These are a part of the larger bureaucratic formality, apparently designed to ensure that Probationers turn out into full-fledged Officers by the end of their intensive training (If we allow repetition of letters, "intensive" and "insensitive" are anagrams). There are three semesters and two Departmentals here.

From my point of view there is much, much more to these Exams - the foremost of them being the time one gets for oneself. This because unlike the normal days - on an Exam day you are inside a closed, classroom only for three hours at max. On other days it is about seven hours spread over nine hours and the day begins at 6 AM, with the compulsory morning PT. Thus one is choked during the normal days. Exams give me a great relief from all these. Added to this is the special bonus called the preparatory leave, for about a week before the Exams. It is exciting!

Above all the best part of the Exams is that they give me the compelling reason to watch good movies frequently. On the usual days, I am sapped by the end of the long lectures and I don't really feel like sitting in front of the system. But these days we are supposed to have been working very hard for the Exams and that means we need to take good breaks and that means watching movies often without any kind of guilt or discomfort. Also my group-study unit members never say "No" when it comes to opening any .avi or .dat file!

Over the past one week of Exams we have seen some of the best movies I have seen ever... It started with The Virgin Spring (Sweden/Bergman/1960), Mongol (Mongolia/Bordov/2007), The Counterfeiters (Germany/Ruzowitzky/2007), Pan's Labyrinth (Mexico/Toro/2006) and stands with The Downfall (Germany/Hirschbiegel/2004) that we watched last night. It is difficult to single out the best one out of these...however if compelled I would go for Mongol...er...also The Downfall. Mongol traces the life of the most famous person from Mongolia - Ghengis Khan. In addition to the authenticity one can feel in this movie, the back ground score also needs a special mention. It captivates you.

Another "cute" part of the Departmental Exams is that one is offered water, snacks and cups of tea at one's seat itself. During the normal class days the snacks and tea cans are kept outside the classrooms and the whole area regularly reminds me of the ration store where I had fought out for a few litres of blue kerosene many years back. (Just imagine...160 officer trainees v/s 2 tea cans and a few biscuit packets!)But being the Exam time, nobody expects us to simulate a PDS shop situation. Also, being "Officers" it is understood that we can not survive without a cup of tea for more than two hours at a stretch. So...this seat-delivery of tea and biscuits! Good idea!

After seeing the winning side in movies like Saving Private Ryan or say The Pianist, it is quite chilling to see the losing side in The Downfall. Not just the story of the losing side (that we have seen in the Vietnam War movies like The Full Metal Jacket or The Deer Hunter), but that of the last few weeks of the downfall of the greatest modern times dictator; Of the pain of a man whose great vision is shattered; Of the unmanageable shock of a leader as he sees his men betraying him; And of a family and group of die-hard loyals who actually kill themselves as a tribute to Fuhrer. The scene where a mother poisons all her children one after the other in their sleep is sure to bring tears even to the rocks. Bruno Ganz has lived as Adolf Hitler in this movie. Sometimes, he even makes us pity that beast called Hitler. Hats off boss!

Coming to the tea...I just think of those exams of school days, especially my Higher Secondary Exam. I would rate that as the toughest Exam I have ever taken, for the sheer amount of pressure and the stakes involved. But even during those exams, there was no seat-delivery of tea...forget seat-delivery there was not even a tea can anywhere in that vicinity. All one could do was to take a quick walk outside and have a glass of water kept from a huge stainless steel drum in the corridor.

I am an Officer now!

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