AFVOA Newsletter May 2020

Section 3 - Memoirs Newsletter No. 1 / 2020 P a g e 50 | 101 me! So, I will clearly layout what is expected of you and end with the symbolic handing over of a long rope to you. It is your choice either to pull mountains with it or hang yourself!”. Unquote.! The advice kept me on my toes and helped me to serve under VADM Aarte and then under Lt Gen Himmetsinghji, to their pleasure and satisfaction. Not that, I did not have my share of scares and contingencies. Here, I will end up with how technology got the better of me. It was my duty to arrange for eminent guest speakers, in consultation with respective SDS and coordinate the event, as well as, assist the speaker as required. As mentioned in the beginning, as per trend we managed to request Dr Raja Ramanna, the Chief Scientific Adviser to the Govt, to address the college. Since the address was to include many slides and since time was available and the trend demanded, I decided to replace the old slide projector with the latest in the market. Settled for a German made, fully automatic, autofocus Zeiss projector, which pleased us very much. The trials were also appreciated since manual focus for each slide was eliminated and everything worked with a remote. The eminent guest speaker arrived and handed over the tray of slides and sequence to me to operate the projector for him as per cue. The talk started off well and somewhere in the middle he asked for the slide showing the similar weapon system held by us and Pakistan. The left half showed the Indian System taken at display and the right half a foggy image of the Paki system captured stealthily, which he wanted to compare. But my technically advanced, latest projector did its job of auto focus. First it zoomed in for the sharp Indian side and finding the other half foggy, it zoomed out to do justice to Pakis. Artificial intelligence took over and the Tamasha of repeated zoom in/out carried on to the amusement of the audience, the annoyance of the eminent guest speaker and my utter dismay and embarrassment of the SDS and Comdt. More so, because the talk was on “Impact of Technology in evolution of warfare and National Security.”!!! The Comdt a gentleman to the core and a great leader, told me at lunch break, not to take the long rope too seriously and laughed it off with the inimitable Dr Raja Ramanna. Those were the days.