A surprise, from Mummy, Nayan & Radhika

DharmendraNarain Lal

Deputy Inspector General · Central Reserve Police Force

Thirty-three years. Eighteen postings. From the Punjab frontier to the hills of Nagaland, a UN mission in Kosovo, the forests of Bastar, and finally home to Jharkhand, where it began.

That is the part the service record holds. It says nothing about the singer, the artist, the man his batchmates still call first, or the father who never once made any of it sound like a sacrifice.

So, hanging up the boots? Hardly. He is just walking out for the second innings.

33Years of service
∞Memories
∞Relationships
18Postings
यादें · Read the messages → 33 years, the journey
Shri Dharmendra Narain Lal
Farewell at the Directorate General, CRPF
The send-off Farewell at the Directorate General, by DG Shri G. P. Singh, IPS
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यादें · In their own words

What people wanted to say to him.

Family, friends, batchmates, seniors and juniors. Thirty-three years produces a lot of people with something to say.

See all यादें →
Open the full memories page →
सफ़र · The Journey

Eighteen postings, one standard.

Every posting below is from his service record: the places, the dates, the ranks. What the record doesn't show is what it took, and who he was in each of them.

Do you have a photo from any of these postings? Most of these years live only in other people's albums. If you served with him, or visited, or have one frame from a mess night, it belongs here.
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The makingDaltonganj, Jharkhand
Prologue

Before the uniform, the traits were already there

Daltonganj, Jharkhand

Nothing that came later was new. The CRPF just gave these traits somewhere to go.

HonestyIntegrityHard workUp at 4 a.m.DeterminationBadmintonAdventurousWittyEveryone's friendThe one they trusted
199324th Batch
24th BatchNeemuchTraining

A boy went in, an officer passed out

Training, Neemuch, Madhya Pradesh
Joined CRPF, June 1993

Through the hardest drills and obstacle courses he became the one who pulled others through, and kept the squad's morale up by singing.

1993–963 years
Assistant Commandant030 BNField

First posting: the Punjab frontier

Firozpur, Punjab
30 June 1993 – 09 July 1996

Three years that set the tone for the next thirty. Langar with the whole company. A young officer who ate with his men and looked after every person under his command. They noticed. Thirty years later, they still bring it up.

1995Firozpur years
Milestone

The posting that mattered most

Marriage

Mid-tenure, he got married. From that day every transfer order was addressed to two people, and the family became as mobile, and as adaptable, as the officer.

Sept 1996First child
Milestone

A son is born, and Papa is on duty

September 1996

His first child arrives. He is not there; he is at work. It took his son a good few years to understand that, and then it became the clearest lesson he ever got about what duty actually costs.

1996–971 year
AC030 BNField

First tour of the Northeast

Agartala, Tripura
10 July 1996 – 04 August 1997

Same battalion, opposite corner of India. The first of several tours the Northeast would ask of him.

1997–988 months
AC064 BN

Kolkata

West Bengal
05 August 1997 – 27 April 1998

New battalion, new city, barely time to unpack.

19986 months
AC064 BNField

Deep Nagaland

Mokokchung, Nagaland
28 April – 23 October 1998

Six months in the hills. Hard country, harder duty.

1998–996 months
AC029 BN

Kanpur

Uttar Pradesh
24 October 1998 – 04 May 1999

A short tenure with 029 Battalion, and then orders again.

1999–20012.5 years
AC → Deputy Commandant029 BN

Mathura: Radha comes to the world

Mathura, Uttar Pradesh
05 May 1999 – 30 November 2001

In Braj came his first promotion, Deputy Commandant. And in 2000, in Radha's own land, a daughter was born. There was only ever one name in consideration: Radhika. The family was complete.

First promotionRadhika, born 2000
2001–02UN mission
Deputy CommandantUN MissionDeputation

Peacekeeper in Kosovo

United Nations Mission, Kosovo
01 December 2001 – 27 December 2002

Selected for the UN peacekeeping mission: a year keeping the peace half a world from home, under the blue flag. India's reputation abroad travels in people, not statements.

2002–03Bawana
DC029 BN

Back home to Delhi

New Delhi
28 December 2002 – 16 April 2003

From Europe straight to Bawana. A short tenure on paper. The family stayed on considerably longer.

2003–0414 months
DC145 BN

Nagpur

Maharashtra
17 April 2003 – 11 June 2004

Fourteen months with 145 Battalion, at the geographic centre of a country he had already crossed twice.

2004–073 years
DC → Second-in-Command145 BN

The Pune years

Pune, Maharashtra
12 June 2004 – 21 May 2007

Three settled years of school runs and family time, and another star: promoted Second-in-Command. The longest the suitcases had stayed in the loft so far.

2007–081 year
2IC037 BNField

Mangaldoi

Assam
22 May 2007 – 05 May 2008

A year on the north bank of the Brahmaputra, back in hard-field country with 037 Battalion.

2008–102 years
2IC037 BNField

Agartala, once more

Agartala Kotwali, Tripura
06 May 2008 – 12 June 2010

New culture, new language, new schools, new friends, genuinely hard at first for two kids. This is where the family learned its real skill: adaptability. Nothing after this felt foreign.

New cultureNew language→ Adaptability
2010–12Commandant
2IC → Commandant011 BNLWE Operations

Commandant, into the operations

Latehar, Jharkhand
13 June 2010 – 21 April 2012

Promoted Commandant, and sent into the forests of his own home state against Naxalism. An operations officer in his element: hardest terrain, highest stakes, leading 011 Battalion from the front.

2012–175 years
CommandantNSGDeputation

Five years with the National Security Guard

NSG, New Delhi
24 April 2012 – 28 April 2017

Deputation to the country's elite counter-terror force. Meanwhile Delhi finally became home: DPS Vasant Kunj and Sanskriti; then DTU and an M.Tech at IIT Delhi for Nayan, NIFT Fashion Communication for Radhika. The kids got their run-up because he had held the line for twenty years.

DPS · SanskritiDTU → IIT DelhiNIFT
2017–20DIG Ops
Deputy Inspector General, OperationsBastar · LWE

DIG Operations, Dantewada

Dantewada, Chhattisgarh
18 July 2017 – 21 July 2020

Promoted DIG and given one of the most volatile left-wing-extremism zones in the country. Three years of operations in Bastar. At home, two grown children tracked every alert out of that district, frightened for him daily, and completely certain he was the right man there.

2020–233 years
DIGDirectorate General

Headquarters

CGO Complex, New Delhi
22 July 2020 – 12 June 2023

Three years at the Directorate General, steering from headquarters the force he had served in the field for a quarter of a century.

2023–26Present
DIGGroup Centre RanchiCurrent

Full circle at Group Centre, Ranchi

Sembo Dhurwa, Ranchi, Jharkhand
13 June 2023 – present

The last posting brought him back to Jharkhand, a short drive from where a boy once woke at 4 a.m. with big plans. The journey ends on the same soil it started on, in the campus where we are all standing tonight.

तस्वीरें · The album

Thirty-three years of postings, packing crates, and photographs.

Your photos are missing from this wall. Thirty-three years, and most of the pictures are still on other people's phones.
आपकी याद · Your memory

अपनी याद · Add your Yaad

You served with him, trained with him, sang with him, or grew up around him. Write a line, send a photo, record a video. He will read every one.

📷  Upload photos & videos यादें · Read what others wrote →
The second innings

Thirty-three years was the first innings.

The uniform is going into the cupboard, not the past. The same person who woke at 4 a.m. in Daltonganj, who ate langar with his company in Firozpur, who kept the peace in Kosovo and held the line in Bastar, that person is not going anywhere. He is simply free now to spend it on whatever he chooses next.

Same discipline. Same integrity. New innings.

Mummy, Nayan & Radhika, and everyone here tonight.