Delhi State Archives

3^rd February, 2010

10 am - A visit to the Delhi State Archives

It looked like a torn down warehouse from inside and while I was ascending the staircase, I wondered what would happen to all that was housed so carefully within, if the building suddenly caved in. the research room was empty except for the 12 dust covered desks, and the lady librarian in charge of the room was not at her desk. After speaking to a couple of people we found out that the lady who haunted the desk had been transferred to another place, and the person who was presently in charge of matters regarding permissions to access the records was Mr. Narayan, who would arrive in a few minutes. The few minutes turned out to be 11.05 am, and Ritika got her permission signed and got down to hunt the necessary indexes. I submitted my documents and waited patiently for the verdict. He read out my case and said that documents after 1950s wasn’t really here, and the state archives would not be of much importance to me if I wanted to look up on the records and historical documents relating to youth movements. The Bharat Scouts and Guides’s Headquarters was at Indraprastha and the NCC headquarters was both at Dhaula Kuan and Ramakrishna Puram. And if I needed to search up anything for the time period before 1947, then I could requisition for them, but meanwhile it would be useful to go and visit the aforesaid headquarters. I thanked him for his help, chucked the plan that Ritika and I had made to visit the Qutub Complex late in the afternoon, and bid her goodbye and set out to the DGMCC - HQ at r.k.puram.

11.30am - A 3^RD visit to the DGNCC (Director General, National Cadet Corps)

I knew not whom to go and speak to, I entered and was sent to the reception to explain the nature and purpose of my visit, and they were not able to grasp the fact that a student could have any business at the ncc headquarters and the fact that she was very uncertain which department to go to as there was neither a board, nor directions, nor anybody with a good knowhow at the desk to explain where to go and whom to address my questions. Finally they gathered that I would have to go to the administrative department from where like a file I would be shifted to some other department if need arises. They asked me my name and when I said Oyndrila sarkar, a person said – Bengali? From Kolkata? Im a Bengali too. My name is Dilip.kr Majumdar. I found myself thanking god profusely, he called up a department and asked if there was anybody willing to speak, and I would be called. Waited till it was lunch, then he called me outside to meet another official, and I told him what I had come here for, and that I was going to research on the ncc. He said that there is a coffee table book where there is sufficient information, but that is to be bought for 800 ruppees, and I should make an application to the director general and request him for a meeting to make my queries clearer so that he can help me. Mr.majumdar went to deliver the application by hand. And I was asked to sit outside.

Suddenly, an old colonel saw me and came to ask me why I was sitting there, I wished him, and told him the reason I was there, and he said, “come with me, I will take you to the publication office, where Lt. Colonel Anupam Singh will tend to your questions, I am sure you will get a lot of help. Don’t sit outside like this, it doesn’t look good”. He called up the directorate of publications and asked him if he was busy, and that he was sending a “young lady who was researching on the ncc”, and her name was Oyndrila. I submitted my phone, signed in the registers and the kind gentleman, explained to me the way I had to go, and the number of corridors I had to cross, and exactly how many doors to come to Anupam Singh’s room. I thanked him for his generous help and went exploring, gazing at the pictures of the ncc cadets and the all our old Presidents of India till the recent one, on the walls through the hallways. I later found out that his name was Lt. Colonel Bal.

Lt. Colonel Anupam Singh shook my hand and held out the earlier application I had written, and seated me in his room, and asked me about my background academic records and was surprised to find a student interested in the history of the ncc. He asked me how I was inspired to think about this as a topic and if I was doing this for a dissertation or a thesis and if my thesis would involve taking a lot of photographs, and pictures and if an interview with the director general would help me in any case, also he would provide me with the contacts of few cadets, camps, and motivation halls so that I could meet them and gather a firsthand information about all the things I required to know. And he gave me two huge publications brought out by them and I would be returning one of them next week. They were out of stock for the present, and fresh copies were in print so it was his own copy which he lent to me. I am sure I will get a lot of help from these books. I thanked him and he wished me luck with my project and asked me to come back next week with whatever questions I had formed in mind, and also gave me his card, and said “Actually, I’m also married to a Sarkar, from Mussourie though, but you are here in Delhi from the far off Kolkata”.

2.30pm – JNU, LOHIT HOSTEL

I went home happy as could I could be, because there is a lot to be read up from here, it’s a mine of information, and have been missing lunch and writing this ever since, before I forget any detail.