Today I complete one year of my superannuation from POWERGRID  (it was 29th February last year, to be precise) – an organization that stands out in the field of power transmission sector. It is an organization that has created a niche for itself in power sector & much more. An organization that has a vision & has also created for itself a set of operational rules that are sacrosanct. The vision & the rules are so built into the structure & psyche of the organization that they are mutually inclusive & help to undertake a gradual but steady leap forward. They do not act as an albatross, as is usually perceived, around the neck of the decision makers. One of the several positive results is that you can adopt technology to leverage it to your advantage. This I say so as I have come across ‘n’ number of organizations in the Government, even today, where buying a desk top computer or upgrading an old one is an impossibility – unimaginable in 2017.

This I speak with the advantage of hindsight, having been out of POWERGRID for last one year, having had time long enough to ponder over the world outside & compare it with the system & traditions of POWERGRID.

Without doubt, POWERGRIDians should feel proud of the organization they are working in. Small hiccups could always be there but that is what makes it colourful otherwise it would always have been ‘black & white’ & hence drab.

POWERGRID also has a woman Executive Director heading a Region – NR1. It is a first achievement of its kind. Hearty congratulations to Ms. Seema Gupta. This is a major achievement for her in particular & POWERGRID in general. Not a small one in any case. In the words of the PM of India ‘it is not about development of women but about women leading the development’.

Last one year for me passed off faster than I had thought. Well, earlier 60 years too seemed to have travelled at a much faster speed. So, what can one say of this 61st year which has a weightage of only one in the river of one’s life?

On the positive side, I do not feel any different today. It is same as it was on my 60th or may be on 59th or 55th year too. God has been grateful. I have continued with my 5 kms morning run on tread mill which I generally complete in 41 minutes. I would actually have loved running in the open air, closer to the nature, but living in an area where road construction activity is in progress I thought it prudent to take advantage of the indoor facilities. Dumbbells help me to keep my upper limbs in order, which otherwise were losing flexibility. It takes me around one hour through this regimen.

Subsequently it is transmission lines, face book, twitter & WhatsApp that keep me busy. Of course books too provide me company. Photography on holidays is another hobby that I enjoy. Writing too is a pastime. Browsing too much on social networking sites is not a good idea – this I have felt lately. This impacts your individuality. However I was able to foresee victory of Donald Trump as US President after going through these sites & keeping a track of Washington Post & New York Times too. Sometimes I feel surprised that by gleaning through these newspapers & social networking sites I could draw a conclusion about the US Presidential elections but these very papers & our revered journalists could not.

I do not watch TV anymore. This has helped me to stay away from the programmes that feature Barkha Dutt. In any case she has left NDTV anyway. I consider her to be the epitome of untruthfulness & dishonesty (nothing personal, but she singularly represents these attributes of many news channels) in as far as our mainstream news media is concerned. Quite often she takes recourse to not reporting an event only to hide her fallacies. Not an easy remark to make especially as our generation saw the rise of TV network in India as no other generation will. For us NDTV & Barkha Dutt used to be the perfect & unbiased source of news & information other than BBC, but then those subtleties were eventually thrown to the winds. The result, even Barkha Dutt, for all her proficiency in the field of TV reporting, could neither see the rise of Trump (for good or bad, I am not saying) or that of NaMo. This is because these people lost contact with the ground & were too busy with their own perceived realities. There could not have been a better exposure of her than at the Jaipur Literature festival recently where she had to battle it out with Suhel Seth & Swapan Dasgupta among others where she was anchoring a panel discussion on ‘POST TRUTH’, the newly invented cliché by the media, after they failed to see the rise of Donald Trump. Barkha Dutt was dashed to the ground by the brilliant arguments of the duo. Even the audience would have done the same had she not hidden behind the fig leaf of being an anchor.

And well, our daughter got a job as an Asst. Professor during this one year & teaches in Jammu. She is an excellent teacher who regularly innovates to keep her students abreast with the subject that she teaches. It has been a unique experience for her too. Living, studying & then teaching in Chandigarh was a very different experience – it was progressive. Jammu has been entirely different. My wife is doing well too, though health sometimes is an issue. She has anchored us well & does it more proficiently than ever before.

All in all God has been benevolent to us & good wishes of our friends & family have always been a source of comfort.

May God bless everyone who continues to be source of our strength & provide purpose to our lives to be in this world – for “WE ARE, BECAUSE YOU ARE’.

Here I would also like to thank Dr. Bashir Khan from Srinagar who has always been a help whenever contacted for any issue. Mohammad Amin, who has always been such a support, is a fabulous person & they are a wonderful family.

Nonetheless it would not be improper to remember the school where I studied & passed my Higher Secondary from: the CMS Tyndale Biscoe School of Srinagar, Kashmir. It was this school that prepared me for the world thereafter. The motto of the school, “IN ALL THINGS BE MEN”, drove me & my life all these years – human failings notwithstanding. For me it was the period after that that could be construed as “POST TRUTH” (for the foundations of the world around us are built on many fallacies) & not what Barkha Dutt perceives as the time after which NaMo & Trump won their respective elections in their respective countries.