Redemption

(This is the article I gave for the final issue of our in-house magazine during our training days here. I am not very much used to writing under time-pressures; but had to make this one)

My tryst with the National Academy of Direct Taxes, Nagpur dates back to December, 2007. That was the time of inauguration day of the 61^st batch of IRS Officers. Very soon some thirty of us exercised an attractive option called EOL – Extra Ordinary Leave. We were called the EOL Mafia by the CD of the 61^st batch. Cutting to the present, in a matter of just under three weeks, May 2010, my NADT time warp is heading for redemption. Do I like to be redeemed?

It is said that we don’t forget our first love; many of you would agree the same holds true in case of lectures too. If there was one single thing in most of the then young, raw probationers’ minds (well, it is a subtle way of projecting ourselves as mature, field-ready ACITs at this point of time) during the first month of our training, it ought to be – PL to BK. (Programmed Learning to Book Keeping) It was a great attempt to make all of us of the 62^nd batch, irrespective of our educational backgrounds, sail smoothly through the deadly ocean of Debit & Credit. Being a module of much significance our Course Director sir retained the jurisdiction of PL to BK. After many waves of debit and credit, the cyclones of assets and liabilities, and the pirates of accounting conventions and rules, most of us were in a quite realised what was in store for us during the coming months of training.

From there things passed by us like the oncoming highway traffic; unending onslaught of Income Tax Act and Book Keeping, interspersed with home tests and workshops. They just happened; we just sat back and experienced the Acts happening around us. Suddenly I realised I knew the basics of the IT Act. There was also the highway special patrol in the form of the NALSAR team. Those erudite people came out of nowhere and before they left in a jiffy, our brains were loaded like in those sequences in The Matrix movie with – Indian Contract Act, Transfer of Property Act, Hindu Laws, Companies Act and Indian Partnership Act! It was fun!! In the second module we were enriched with The Indian Evidence Act, Civil Procedure Code, Indian Penal Code, General Clauses Act...wait it is not over yet...and the Information Technology Act – just in the same Matrix way. Wealth Tax also made its appearance from time to time. ALP, DTAA and ratios were the buzzwords now. Luckily, we had pleasant motels in the form of INTAX, Pongal-Lohri celebrations, cultural nights, NPL, audi movies, and of course the Mess elections spread over the year 2009. We continued our run on the highway. Probationer’s Talk stopped us from time to time and opened our eyes with concepts like learning to unlearning etc. Another major takeaway was Discipline = Self discipline + Imposed Discipline.

Of course, it is not possible to forget the great times at New Delhi, Dehradun and Mussourie. Those memories are still as fresh as the recent Malaysian/Singaporean memories. Personally, like many others, I too have dreamt of the international attachment ever since the day I got selected for the IRS! Sitting there at the tax academy of Malaysia, it was heart warming and ego boosting to hear from one of the Malaysians – probably India is the only country that sends its income tax officer trainees for an abroad study trip. Long live NADT.

“In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is” – OJT made us appreciate that. The office stints threw us out of the safe harbour called NADT. We were moving closer towards taking independent charges. The OJT debriefing sessions and the presentations were full of hearings, raids, surveys, ARs, DRs, undisclosed crores, umpteen Sections...in short full of life! Due to our large batch size, more than the actual outdoor stint like OJT, Bharat Darshan or Mumbai module, the group-wise presentations mela that begin once we are back in campus, tests one’s endurance better. You are either waiting for your turn to be on stage and speak out about your earth shattering experiences or you are one among the hundred-plus helpless audience trying to be alert and grasp a point from here or there. In any case this mela adds to your overall personality. Needless to say, no one else in this world can claim to have glanced at 150-plus high quality books in such a short time as we did; the second module book review made this possible.

1-2-3-4-5 banana. Have you got a dog? Great big dog. Dance, dance I like to dance. Two dudes from Mumbai were making us learn Samba. That is how our third module aka Job Worthiness Module started a few weeks back. I guess Samba dance brings good fortune to our Department. JWM is full of action with the highlight, obviously being our posting orders. While most of us restlessly wait for them, the time passes in the form of INTAX 2010, moot courts, NALSAR reports, batch book, TA bills and the king of all – shramdhaan!

Well, having spent eight-odd years of post-graduation, training, job, coaching, waiting, wandering etc etc after graduating in the summer of 2002, topped up with a 16-month IRS training, I badly need to be redeemed now. It is time to have an office desk and see how that feels like!