Field Marshal Philip Chetwode spoke at the inauguration of the Indian Military Academy in December 1932. His words are known at the academy as the Chetwode Motto. Two of its lines read: “The honour, welfare and comfort of the men you command come next. Your own ease, comfort and safety come last, always and every time.”
Free from Doubt
Arjuna’s last words in the Bhagavad Gita are his answer to Krishna: sthito ‘smi gata-sandehah karishye vachanam tava. “I am now free from doubts, and I shall act according to Your instructions.” It is chapter 18, verse 73.
Arjuna gives this answer at the end of a dialogue of eighteen chapters, in which he asks Krishna one question after another.
Four Judges
On January 12, 2018, four judges of the Supreme Court, Justices J. Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, M.B. Lokur and Kurien Joseph, held a press conference about the Chief Justice, Dipak Misra. “Unless this institution is preserved democracy will not survive in this country,” they said. Chelameswar called the step “extraordinary in the history of any nation.”
They had first gone to the Chief Justice himself: “We met the CJI with a specific request which unfortunately couldn’t convince him that we were right.” Soli Sorabjee said: “I’m very upset about this, I wish the four Supreme Court judges hadn’t done this.”
The Letter
In August 2020 a group of senior Congress leaders, later called the G-23, wrote to the party president Sonia Gandhi about the state of the party. The letter reached the media. According to Newslaundry, this “had several leaders expressing displeasure about letting such an internal matter play out in the media.”
At the Congress Working Committee on August 24, Rahul Gandhi said, as Business Standard reported: “it is the CWC where we discuss our differences and put out our thoughts, not the media.” Kapil Sibal tweeted: “Rahul Gandhi says ‘we are colluding with BJP’.” The party denied that Rahul Gandhi had said this, and Sibal deleted the tweet.
Private and Confidential
In September 2005 the Indian cricket coach Greg Chappell sent an email about the captain, Sourav Ganguly, to the president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India. It reportedly said that Ganguly was not “physically or mentally” fit to lead the team. The email reached the media.
Chappell said: “I sent a private and confidential e-mail to the president of BCCI. It did not remain confidential though I would have preferred it to have remained so.”
He Took the Blame
In 1979 the first flight of India’s satellite launch vehicle, SLV-3, failed. Satish Dhawan, chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation, faced the press himself. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, the project director, later recalled: “He took the whole blame on himself despite criticisms.” Dhawan told the press that “next year we would succeed because his team was a very good one.”
The Art Teacher
In Taare Zameen Par (2007), Aamir Khan’s first film as director, a boy named Ishaan is sent to boarding school to be disciplined. A new art teacher, Ram Shankar Nikumbh, realizes that Ishaan is not happy at school “and sets out to discover why.” The cause he finds is dyslexia.
The Phone
During the Rio Olympics in August 2016, the badminton coach Pullela Gopichand spoke about his player P.V. Sindhu: “Sindhu did not have her phone during the last three months. The first thing is I would return her phone.” He added: “I also stopped her from eating ice-cream. Now she can eat whatever she wants.”
Like a Father
In February 2020 Ratan Tata spoke about J.R.D. Tata, who led the Tata group before him. He called JRD his greatest mentor. “He was like a father and a brother to me,” he said.
Mother and Father
Mai-baap: mother and father. The Rekhta dictionary gives its meanings: parents, master, lord, the one who brings someone up, ruler, guardian. The same word names the parent and the person in charge.