Chief Secy - meets his nemesis in sports

This story I got to know through a good IAS officer friend in Bhopal. He called me to tell that the Chief Secretary along with some of some of the Principal Secretary will visit the Bhadbhada area to have some fun and also enjoy their weekend so that before the new government is sworn in they will be prepared to go to work with their minds fresh. So I quickly took a bath and left for the place only to be greeted by them and asking me if I too wanted to join them in their fun. Yes I did but not with out my journalistic cap on. So after the end of the day and with some special pictures stored in my Nikon D-100 camera I went back to the office in the evening after the fun with some of the top IAS of the state of Madhya Pradesh and narrated the whole story to the RE. He asked me to quickly file the story since it made a nice read for our readers.

With the elections just round the bend and political class busy with its constituents on the festival of lights, bureaucrats – often considered dour and colourless folks – got some breathing space, turned out in style and celebrated Deepawali in fine fashion.
Chief Secretary A V Singh was in the lead, treading the rough terrain on Kerwa reservoir road and going speed –boating in the brimming waters near Bhadbhada. But he met his comeuppance in Housing Commissioner Raghav Chandra when it came to kite flying of a bureaucratic kind.
Sporty Government officials of different departments made the Deepawali crackers and fireworks passé. It was some good ol’ fashioned outing near the woods for them this Deepawali.
Two teams vied for top honours. One led by top bureaucrat A V Singh and the other by State IAS Association secretary Raghav Chandra. The officials of the Sports and Tourism departments were in close quarters.
Reels of kite-strings – the sharp manjha that is used in kite contests – were brought out for the fierce competition. Chandra, who confessed to having flown one after a gap of 30 years, was immediately transported back in the past.

“It feels great flying kites once again. I feel much younger doing so,” he confessed, perhaps reminiscing about his kite –flying days of the youth. The Chief Secretary, a little laid back to suit the mood of a perfect weekend on a beautiful winter afternoon, let his team fly his kite.
But he was fiercely competitive, egging on the teammates to snap the line of Chandra’s kite. Chandra soon regained the touch of the old, maneuvering the kite with some skill and panache.
Soon, the line of his boss’s kite was snipped and it went adrift. As ecstatic Chandra called for his teammates to grab the Chief Secretary’s kite and the manjha.
Later he said that if the State Government permitted, he would like to hold a kite flying competition for the rural folks shortly thus enabling the best kite flyers of the country to be produced from the State.
The Sunday sojourn was organized by the State wing of the National Adventure Foundation & Tirupati Adventure Club. After the kite-flying, the Chief Secretary went off for a speed –boating near Bhadbhada gates accompanied by Principal Secretary, Tourism, K T Chacko.