Capt Sathi Nair – A Remembrance on Women’s Day.

 Whenever I read about women in the Army, nay, Services, I remember Capt Sathi Nair.

She was from the first batch of Women Officers commissioned into the Army in 1993. Now it is exactly three decades after.

Capt Nair was commissioned in to EME, being an Engineer. And as luck would have it, her first posting was to 509 Army Base Workshop at Agra, where I was the Gen Mgr Production as a Col.

An Army Base Workshops is akin to a factory, where various Army Equipment are overhauled and made new. The Agra Workshop was meant for all West European Communication Equipment. Manpower skewed towards civilians with 1500 civilians and 500 combatants. There were three quite militant unions, apart from a Works Committee (WC) and a Joint Consultative Machinery (JCM). This is just to tell you how enormous was the task to get work out of these civilians and to meet the assigned targets. There were more leaders than workers! And it goes without saying that the leaders do not work but keep looking out for any mischievous event to lead and be a headache for the management.

Though Capt Nair’s wish was to be on the shop-floor, she was assigned the section of Production Planning and Control. Nobody was sure how she would be able to handle the wicked workers and get output from them. After all she was still wet behind the ears. Hence that job, which was essentially paperwork. Her job was as an advisor to me, pointing out how my production is faring with respect to the targets assigned and thus keep me on track.

It was a practice there, to have a simple tea break once every week at 1100 hrs, where all Officers meet. After the tea break there used to be a standing conference, mostly held by me, that is, the Production Man (as that is with whom the buck stops there) and attended by the floor Officers. Works Manager, who was also a Col and senior to me, was after all, meant to support and facilitate production. So, he and his team would rather slink away at the fastest. (it is another matter that I got them around with my “Beer Conference”, by and by).

In uniform we use certain language and expressions for effect and emphasis. You cannot be commanding soldiers in a soft diplomatic language, you see. In one of those conferences, in which Capt Nair was rather new, I was supposed to have used some emphatic expression, which the untrained would term as unparliamentary (quite a misnomer, that. But let us leave it at that). Promptly one of the Officers tried to make me aware, saying, “Sir, there is a lady amongst us”. I said, “as far as I am concerned, she is an Army Officer and that is that”. Right then and there she beamed standing straight and tall, her head towering above most of the Officers, naturally. Later came to my office and standing at attention, thanked me for considering her as such. No gender bias and all that crap, either way.

As I said, she being quite tall and with a straight and strong spine, with a military bearing, was not one to be confined to pushing pen in the caboodle of the office. When and if a particular section lagged in their targeted output, she would rush down to that section, wielding her pen, to question the officer-in-charge. This frontal attack was not a listed in her job description. But she did it! And I loved it. So, I brushed aside the objections raised by the Supervisors and the in-charges. With a chuckle. Then they tried another angle. “Sir, she is a lady. She goes into such deep corners of the floor and if any of the workers misbehave?” I grandly said, “let them try”. Her personality was such. None would dare! So much for their unionism. As for me, I was glad that the end results were in my favour; targets were met!

As was to happen, soon I left on posting and subsequently retired after a couple more of tenures. Then I was working for a Maruti outlet in Chennai. One day Capt Sathi Nair surprised me, pleasantly, by appearing at my office, standing tall and grinning. By then her tenure in the Army was also over and she was working for Reliance, in their Telecom Division. They had an office near my outlet. She had done her homework about me, on learning that she was to fly to Chennai on an audit mission. It was after a full decade after I had left Agra. We, of course, exchanged many pleasant notes. She is now Director of Operations & Chief of Staff at Intel. 

I had found this girl quite smart. active and tireless without any crib about anything. Much better than many Gentlemen Officers. I must say, I have seen Lady Officers in IAS and Allied Services, Banks, LIC, Post Offices and other (Central, I must add) government organisations and each one of them was extremely efficient, committed and sincere. Men are no patch to them. I still believe that women are and can be much better at work places.

On this Women’s Day, Vive La Women!