After the Colour Presentation Passing Out Parade in December 1978, it was the course NDA reunion in December 2016 that created the wave to pick up the threads to locate everyone and to get them onto one platform. The exponential power of the social media over platforms like WhatsApp/Telegram was extensively used to connect and data was gathered/stored on to a web platform 55nda.in. This website after the reunion ran out it’s two years rental and due to the steep fallout in traffic and value, the renewal wasn’t followed up and allowed to lapse. But wisely, Murali retained all the data on his own portal.
However, in the recent past, as most of us have/are transitioning from professional and domestic responsibilities to a stage where leisure steps up in priority, amongst many things, there is a definitive need to reconnect. Some of you wouldn’t be aware that a “Pachpan” Association is under formalization and the approval from authorities is expected anytime – there is a lot of intent to use the association to bond meaningfully. But on that, later in another blog.
The myriad posts that glue the course on WhatsApp has great appeal but it’s topic conversations/threads attention span gets drowned in either the mind-boggling traffic and/or the limited ability of the mobile’s capacity to store data and memories category wise. As smartphone users we are constantly bombarded with high volume of content in which verified information is muscled in to a corner with misleading digital texture. Some would debate this point but there is an obvious weakening of analytic ability — the capacity to distinguish between the essential and the inessential, truth and untruth. Across various social media groups these days and so very often, the urge to shut down an argument is the urge to shut down and force into submission the person making it. As potentially active citizens turn into passive consumers with diminished attention spans, relationships have become the unintended victim.
Cortisol is our primary fight-or-flight hormone. It releases triggers physiological changes, such as spikes in blood pressure, heart rate and blood sugar, that help us react to and survive acute physical threats. These effects can be lifesaving if you are actually in danger – like say, you are being charged at by a bull. But our bodies also release cortisol in response to emotional stresses like a inflammable content of a social media post or an angry email from a senior. The average human being spends four hours staring at their phone screens and always keep it at an arm’s length. Whether we like/admit it or not, the smartphone has dramatically reconfigured us – but then, this again is not the direction of this blog post this day.
Now to rewind back to the web portal again. The value of a portal re-emerged by a sample response picked up mostly on Telegram and though the old website www.55nda.in was the choice, it wasn’t available – there are cyber squatters who can really be spoil sports. After bouncing around with options, www.55nda.com was available, is now live, with all the data retrieved in place and a reality. The web portal is being funded by the Pachpan Association by the left funds of the December 2016 reunion. Now let us look at the endless opportunities that we get out here.
The blogs that were written and supposedly forgotten by Satish Vaidya, Jimmy Thomas, Murali and Mukesh Prasad are all there, just like new.
All the music that had been suggested and uploaded back in 2016. Folks add more and more there.
Some of us maybe not be fully aware but we have a project “Pachpanresorts” which now has its own domain name: www.pachpanresorts.in. I will leave it to Atul and the gang that set this up to explain more. We have a WhatsApp group driven by popular demand at the last course gathering hosted by Surinder at his Western Army Commander’s palatial residence at Chandigarh. Jassi Chopra drives this, HS Sethi has already put the details of his Bhutan visit and will be posting his Alaskan cruise later this year. All that, can now come up to be hosted at this website, where information would be just a couple of clicks away.
All the photos and videos of your trips can be hosted here, it will allow others to get an audio-visual advisory of what all can be done.
All the course sojourns that the Pachpan Association has in mind will find its place here.
There is a 55 Invest group which has limited membership but where pearls of wisdom have been offered by the financial wizards – Atul Madan, Sanjeev Khanna and many more. We have some ladies too on that group who look for financial advice on investments.
Satish Dua has embarked, so far on two rounds of TED talks, the links can be hosted here and you won’t have to search for it.
The blog space will accommodate all the debates that we want to get into. Instead of short machine gun burst like, short WhatsApp posts, there can be more articulation and enunciation. The topics can vary – politics (the current favorite), the state of national security, what ails the defence forces, issues with CSD, ECHS, the choice is endless. There is a lot of passion in these debates – I think that directionally everyone has the best national interests in mind – thoughts differ on the various paths that lead to that destination. Every election digs deeper – mostly not on issues that are concerning, but on a stridence, that has a rather crass, volumetric appeal. The volume quotient best seen at prime-time TV, challenges common sense, warps the narrative and burns seriousness.
We would of course be looking for volunteers to manage the content of these specific pages. Like I am sure that Jassi Chopra would like to project his WhatsApp management of “Travelogue” to the web. And financial wizard Sanjeev Khanna can be assisted by other volunteers to manage the “Investment” page. The “Pachpan Resorts” by Atul Madan who in any case has a such large portfolio of course related management that we wouldn’t want to increase his burdens.
Why wouldn’t each one of us, want to leave to leave a legacy – all your thoughts expressed on blogs, articles carried/hosted on www.55nda.com. Subtle thoughts, that can startle when read down the memory lane by their prescience.
I have been, and perhaps not unfairly so, been referred to as the king of verbiage – I should and must apply suppression to being long winded, and know when to stop. With this ladies and gentlemen, welcome to your very own web site – www.55nda.com, here is wishing the maximum (and multiplying) benefits to all.
Cheers……
