Dear Colonel Puri As an officer of the Indian Army, your heart must bleed at the thought that despite spending more than four crore rupees on an advertising campaign for recruitment, the youth of your country is still not interested in joining the Indian Army. You must be wondering what is wrong with your institution that more than twelve thousand vacancies of officers are still lying vacant for years. That must be causing a lot of problems, both administrative and of morale. You must also be concerned about the fact that Indian Army is earning a bad name on UN missions due to involvement in multifarious scandals. In recent years, Indian Army has faced problems like financial bungling, refusal of officers to go to Kashmir and other deployment areas, atrocities committed by army in Indian Held Kashmir and a very high rate of suicide and on-duty killing of officers due to extreme state of desperation and frustration among the ranks. The scandals of women army officers, which led to suicides and court martial of senior officers including a Major General, are the greatest stigma of all on the face of Indian Army. Then, there are the very galling scams of sale of arms and allocated liquor in open market. The most humiliating incident of all is the 'Ketchup case' in which senior Indian Army officers produced a fake video using ketchup for blood and got medals. The psychological scars of these ignominies have made you search for psychological assistance. In a desperate need for some catharsis, you have resorted to writing a letter to Pakistan Army chief. Perhaps it is not possible for you to put in writing your grievances to the Indian chief. Rest assured, we have competent mental health professionals with us, which can be made available to you for therapeutic treatment. -MAJ (Retd) MAQSOOD JAN, Kharian Cantt, via e-mail, April 23.