Yesterday I had one of the most pleasing experiences at Hyderabad airport as I went to board a flight while returning to Delhi. I had gone to Hyderabad to deliver two talks, one to College of Air Warfare and the second to the College of Defence Management; the talks were on ‘Kashmir after 370’ and ‘Chief of Defence Staff’ respectively.
The queues at the airport were rather long, the crowds huge, owing mainly to Haj pilgrims. My liaison JCO spoke with the security staff and they allowed me to enter airport without queue, as a mark of respect to a retired General. Nice!
As I reached the check-in counters the queue that I queued up behind was really daunting. Just then, an Air India employee walked up to me and inquired if I was a ‘military’ general. Surprised & taken aback, when I replied in affirmative, he escorted me to the vacant business class counter and got me checked in from there. Grateful, I asked him how did he know of me? He pointed to a trio of men in the queue and said, ‘they told me and we want to respect defence senior veterans.’ Curious as to how they knew me, I walked across to the queue and thanked them. When they turned around, they told me that they were officers from CDM, had attended my talk and interactions yesterday and were very appreciative of it. I learnt that around 40 of them were travelling to J&K for a study tour.
‘Respect more precious than perks! ‘ is the title of the post published on Lt.Gen Satish Dua’s FB page and published here as it is . Lt. Gen.Dua served as Chief of Intergrated Defence Staff to the Chairman of Chiefs of Staff Committee . He served in Indian Army for 39 years , Lt Gen Dua got retirement in October 2108 . He commanded 15 Corps,
I thanked them profusely and moved away for the security check. I kept running into these officers in small groups thereafter, whole evening, exchanged pleasantries and chit chatted about my talk and their impending trip – both connected with Kashmir. I earned quite a few compliments regarding my talk which left a good taste in my mouth.
Later, one heard announcements urging passengers to allow defence personnel to board first as recognition for their service to the country. The evening was getting better n better.
As if that was not enough, as I boarded the aircraft, there was an officer waiting in the vestibule for me where the air hostess welcomes you and he introduced himself as Captain Gopinath from Navy. He requested me to exchange seats with him as he had been upgraded to business-class and he wanted me to sit there in his place. I was touched. I thanked him but declined; he literally stood in my way blocking me politely and said ‘ Sir, I insist, I would not be comfortable sitting in business class if you weren’t.’ I didn’t know him from before. And that left me with a very pleasant feeling. It was overwhelming, add he escorted me to his seat, my seat now.
When we disembarked at Delhi, while walking towards the baggage carousel, we all got chatting. They all agreed with me when I pointed out that Air India was nice enough to announce priority boarding for defence, but one officer said, ‘the bureaucrats however want to scuttle our standing, they don’t give us our due.’
My response to them (and my message to the young officers) was, that these are two different things, rules & provisions from govt that benefit soldiers and veterans is one thing and goodwill and respect in the hearts and minds of the country & citizenry is a different thing, on a different (emotional) plane. The latter is hard to earn and is more precious. The first can be given, even revoked by a stroke of pen.
The respect can covert into privileges anytime, the reverse is not true. I’m not trying to belittle the importance of our hard earned entitlements and allowances, but let’s us cherish the resurgence in respect that younger generation is generating today, and privileges will follow. The taste in the mouth is better than more money in the wallet.
