IDSA Years: A Personal Recollection

It is a privilege to be invited to contribute to the special issue commemorating the 50th anniversary of the IDSA. The institution and the time span are respectively multi-hued and vast and the managing editor has thoughtfully suggested that I dwell on three aspects: my personal association with the institution; its major punctuations and contributions; and the way ahead, as it were—all from my limited perspective.

My very first recall of the IDSA is rather embarrassing. ID-SA, when slowly pronounced has very different connotations, especially for cocky greenhorns. When I was asked by my Training Commander in a naval establishment on the eve of the 1971 war for Bangladesh if I knew what ID-SA meant, I gave a smart-alec answer that makes me cringe even now: ‘A combination of an idli and a dosa?’ Yes, I was suitably chastised at the time but this rather inappropriate response was my first introduction to a venerable institution with which I was fortuitously associated in a later phase of my life for almost two decades.