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Life During Probation Period -Part II (Foundation Course)

          This is the most exciting course that every railway officer cherishes be it mechanical (IRSME), civil (IRSE), electrical (IRSEE), Electronics and communication(IRST), stores (IRSS), traffic (IRTS), accounts (IRAS), or RPF(IRPF) officer. 

This journey starts with a Chief guest welcoming all officers on the very first morning. In our case, it was Rani from Gaikwad Dynasty whose home is Laxmi Vilas Palace, Vadodara Gujarat. It was my honor to welcome the chief guest with a bookay. The very next program is the introduction to faculty members of NAIR, Vadodara. We were blessed not only to have good senior officers training but also a good mentor. Sir, Sachin Sharma a 1991 Batch IRSME officer, Sir Manish Agarwal IRSME 1992 batch IRSME, Ma'am Deepa Chawala IRAS officer, taught us diligently and efficiently.

The first session was an ice-breaking event in the evening for which we all were divided into groups of 10 each consisting of 8 officers from different services. We had been given a task to come with some form of a skit, dance, anything entertaining to present in 6-8 minutes to an audience consisting of all faculty and their family and of course the other participants. Well, I came up with an Idea of portraying Arnab and someone imitating Kejriwal and Lalu and traveling in a train and discussing alcohol ban dry state issues of Gujarat. There were some other characters portraying policemen, vendors, the public, and havaldar. Our skit was on the funny part some came with an awareness skit program on beti bachao beti padhao message, women empowerment, etc. Overall it was a very efficient way to start interaction among officers apart from sports activity.

NAIR has one of the best sports facilities when it comes to the Government Training Institute. It consists of two synthetic badminton courts, 4 wooden badminton courts with a coach, two lawn tennis courts with a coach, one squash court, one swimming pool, one volleyball court, one basketball court, and one football ground. This institute is better than LBSNAA as I have heard from civil services officers. Indoor games included two TT tables and four snooker tables which were always occupied which were amusing. The recreation room had the two largest size television with sofas and chairs, magazines to read foosball table, carrom and chess and some computers with internet to surf on. 

At Nair, we were accommodated in a room shared among two officers and it had all the facilities accept TV, which even if available was of no use. I shared my room with Muffed Khan, IRSEE officer of the same batch that is 2016. Coincidently we belonged to the same state Madhya Pradesh.

Our schedule started at 6:00 o'clock in the morning and ended at 10:00 o'clock at night. The very first thing the morning was PT from 06:00 to 07:00 then breakfast and from 08:00 to 09:30 and then classes from 09:30 AM to 05:00 PM. From 05:00 to 06:00 snacks and then from 06:00 pm to 10:00 pm. 6 to 10 pm sometimes consisted of sports events among officers, dance, singing, drama or Garba night. Our morning routine was very strict as it was for preparing to go on a 16500 Ft high Roopkund Trek of 6 days in Uttarakhand. 

Mess facilities were good enough charging at 300 Rs per day which was fine as per the quality and quantity of food we consumed. 

Roopkund Trek was a moderate-level trek and comes under the top 10 treks to go for in India. It was exciting to shop for trekking gear, and then trekking the 54 km trek on foot in a time span of 5 days. For this, we were divided into two groups of around 85 officers in each group. out of 170 officers around 130 officers had completed the whole trek and reached the height of 16500 ft of Roopkund Lake. This trek consisted of undulating mountain stretches, beautiful scenery with an amalgamation of clouds, rain, and mountains. This trek tested will power of every individual and the connection of an individual with nature. The more one was connected more he/she was able to enjoy the journey. We played cards, enjoyed the campfire and food at different heights on the mountain.

Hope you enjoyed a look into memories of the foundation course of a Railway Officer. Stay tuned for further Bharat Darshan Journey ahead in the life of a probationary officer.

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