Mussoorie Musings: An IAS officer kidnapped, but only in reel life!

IF THE earlier years’ trends continue, hotels in Mussoorie might have been booked for the next few days. Call it a groom-searching tourism when parents of prospective brides, mainly from Bihar and parts of UP, land up in the Indian hill station, Mussoorie, with their daughters’ kundlis to spot bright civil servant grooms.

The newly selected civil servants of India have gathered in Mussoorie’s prestigious training institute Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA), for the foundation course beginning today. For the record, IAS, IPS, IFS and other group A service officers will attend the course to be held between August 30 to December 10, 2010 before other officers except IAS leave the Academy for advanced training in their respective training institutes.

This is the period when match-making takes place alongside hard work in training sessions. Come Diwali, young probationers from all services including IAS, IFS, IPS would meet at Happy valley grounds in Mussoorie to participate in the annual fete. It is a festival when mehendi to astrology stalls are being set up besides organizing mock-jails and dance competitions. And eateries sell chole bhature and chaat to Bengali fish curry!

If 2008 batch Punjab cadre IAS, Dr Joram Beda’s video of LBSNAA is any proof, life is fun at the Academy, and no officer trainee would forget the sweet memories of those days in the rest of his or her life. Dr Beda, who hails from Arunachal Pradesh, has captured in his 5-minute video a number of golden moments -- Ganga hostel, Monday blues, tracking, birth day bashes and folk dances etc.

Bollywood’s latest movie, Sushil Rajpal’s Antardwand, may not be based on such a fun atmosphere, but is definitely telling a true story of bureaucrats being forcefully married. The film revolves around a story about a prospective IAS being abducted and forcefully married to a girl, a practice that is witnessed mostly in Bihar. Director Rajpal told media how mostly IAS officers and government engineers are targeted for forceful wedlock as private sector is yet to make any mark in Bihar. Don’t worry guys, it’s a story of kidnapping and forceful marriage only in reel life. BoI (babusofindia.com) extends best wishes to all new civil servants gathered at LBSNAA who would begin a new journey in public life for the next 35 years or more.