The Ring of Death....

Taking out a fresh cigarette

I thoughtfully tapped it on the pack

And then...

I saw,

The Statutory Warning -

"SMOKING KILLS"

Skeptically amused,

And with a smile

I placed it on my lips

And lit the cigarette.

Taking a deep puff

I let the smoke fill my lungs...

Two trails from the nostrils

Let go...

"TOBACCO CAUSES CANCER"

The line dared me again

A scoff from me... another deep puff

I blew a ring into the air... arrogantly.

The ring...

Fluttered, withered

Then hung in the air

A perfect ring...

Playfully descended

.... and strangled me. 

The On-Line Tryst....

I had fallen in love!!

Or so I seriously thought.

48 winters, summers, autumn and springs!! And here I am falling in love….

Wifey the Witch reads this, and is already turning the cauldron on for that potion of bat feet, spider nails and cat hair… Incantations are not audible. But they sure seem to be appearing to do something with instant disappearance of someone. Anyways, let the Witch work out the spells.

Let me contribute to this. And if you readers don’t find any other posts from me in this for a long time…. Write me off!!!

And do write a nice obituary for me.

Talking of “falling in love”…

It is confession time for me.

For all the gods dwelling in heavens and finding all’s well with the world... I pray to thee – let not the heart/soul/mind fall in love ever again. For - the feeling is good but the parting is better!!!

It was this “social site”, I had got addicted to and was “searching” for the compatible age partner to begin some interaction with. The drill was same. Played over and over again –

Search - Select – send IM – wait  for response…

Search - Select – send IM – wait  for response…

It was like the fishing sport. Fix the bait, throw the line. Watch the float. Pull with a jerk.

The difference…. No one seems to be taking the bait. And the few who took – called me a “jerk” after few chats!!!

After many a failures at making a breakthrough and many a successes at mastering the chat jargon of “lol”, “brb”, “imfao” etc etc… Finally, I come across a profile – wanting to make friends with “same age group men”…

Day -1

Select – send IM – wait for response….

A “hi” for a “hi” received!! Yipeeeeeeeee….. Initial introductory pleasantries exchanged. “byes” said for the day with promises of being on line the next day.

Day -2

Log in. Look out. Find. Send IM.

Receive response. Exchange pleasantries… Byes for the day.

Day – 3, 4, 5 , 6……

Repeat of day – 2.

Day 7 – absent from the site. Strategy!!

Day – 8 – off liner waiting. Lots of complaints. Few ultimatums of discontinuing. Apologies sought. Apologies accepted. (heart soaring. Mind racing. Face grinning) Promises of not being off line for long exchanged. And yeah… also the cell numbers!! (strictly for use to notify “on- line” presence when one of the two is missing or in “invisible” mode)

Day 9 onwards…. IM – Call – IM – Call – IM – Call  – Call – Call – Call…..

By now it must have become aptly clear to you, what started as an “online” chat, became an “on-phone” rendezvous.

And there went away all my eagerness to surf dear old “sulekha”, let alone the urge to contribute! The telephonic tyrst seemed more entertaining and enchanting of escapades experienced by me.

This “love affair” was certainly turning out to be a cozy one. Hours on the phone… days in and days out. Seemed like adoloscence revisited!!

Until…. The bolt from the blue!!!

Day – 32… . The phone bill is delivered at the door steps (wish I had agreed to the Service Provider’s offer of getting it on mails!!). The astronomical amount (more than what came when WW spoke to the Senior Witch – my MIL), sent about fire-works in all directions. The “tsunami” that followed, put to shame the wrath it has showered on Japan few years ago. The aftermath was greater devastation than I had ever seen on a bombed out city….

The excuses… the explanations…. And the clarifications I put forward wont be mentioned here. But any experienced and renowned Lawyer who wishes to keep winning cases (and arguments) may contact me.

Day – 33… A call from the erstwhile “on-line turned into on-phone friend” in some corner of the country gets a response – “this number does not exist. Please check the number you have dialled”.

The SMSes she has been sending are still showing “pending” in her Reports.

WW has amassed more reasons and more skeletons in the closet to throw unreasonable tantrums at me.

I have changed my telephone service provider. I have also opted for on line billing and on line payment modes for the phone bills.

“On-Line” phrase still feels nostalgic.

Somehow… I feel, being in love was good. Falling apart seems better…

The MCP in me still tickles a funny bone some place.

Can I dare the tsunami once again!! Lets see….

Can we get Patriotic??

No sacrificer and no Saint, can ever rise high,

As do the simple serving folk – who for their motherland die!!

Being an ex soldier and at times having experienced the ultimate urge for that supreme sacrifice for the Motherland, I often wonder how to inspire the younger generation to even start thinking on these lines. As I sit and brood, all I can do is implore the youth to merely salute, the brave and the dauntless, who lay down their today for our better tomorrow. Probably, this simple act of remembrance will ignite that much needed spark of patriotism in every heart.   

 Yet, patriotism does not mean going out to the battle front and laying down your life. Patriotism in the hinterland pertains to realising & respecting our independence and retaining it at all costs. For the past six decades, our country has relished the feeling of being independent. The younger generation has been born and brought up in an independent environment. As such, they seldom realise the pains and travails of being subjugated. Therefore, it becomes the first & foremost duty to respect our freedom, retain the unique experience and strive to take our country to greater heights of self reliance so that we do not have to look up to other powers for assistance and jeopardise our freedom in the process.

The journey from being an under developed country to a fast developing nation has been exemplary for India. We are now very much on the roads to fast becoming a developed country with undoubted potentials of attaining super-power status. Our intellect is fast invading the developed world. So much so, dependability on the Indian brain has increased many folds in these countries. Our social, spiritual and cultural ethos is being adopted by the western world in their quest of searching the ultimate sense of well being.  

Nonetheless, the road to progress has never been a bed of roses… There have been formidable obstacles. We have to overcome these and set our sights right. We have to focus on the positives to nullify the negatives. Our country is faced with internal unrest brought about by external instigation. Student unrest, in a frenzy of politically motivated provocation, is becoming common. Class & creed based division of the society is proving to be an eternal termite that is in the process of eating away the threads of unity. Materialism is fast catching up with the youth. Family ties are gradually weakening. Lure of the west is goading the educated away from the Motherland. There is a tug-of-war in progress within his mind.

My advice to the youth is simple - let us not forget, intellectually as well as politically, the direction of all true progress is towards greater freedom. Strive hard towards making the nation self reliant in all respects and attain that ultimate independence - a situation where we have our own rules and our own say. A situation, where we are not unduly bullied and held at ransom by the so called Economic "dadas" for even the simplest requirements. Class & creed, sect & religion, haves & have-nots and all the like weakening agents have to be fought back tooth & nail. May be we can emulate the freedom fighters of the yesteryears in this manner.

One has to continuously ask oneself -

What is my place? My Time? My friend!!..... What is my duty?

And ,what am I? And, what my power??

So must one ponder, hour after hour…

Ode to Humour

My sense of humour seems to have experienced a myocardial infarction recently… (that’s a “heart attack” for those with little knowledge of medical jargon!!). And I am scared about the outcome. I fear it can lead to paralysis of the faculty that lets me feel comfortable at various occasions and has often taken me out of the soup when I have very efficiently turned my well intended act of flirting into a process of “humour-under-erosion” on the part of the subject.   I don’t want this faculty of mine turning into a state of vegetable for the rest of my life.

Don’t know how I came to self diagnose this sudden demise of the only “sense” I claimed to have till now. For, I was pretty sure I was a “good-for-nothing” and a “senseless” fellow (adjectives, courtesy Wifey the Witch). The only sense I seem to have was making out humour in even the most well intended serious facts of life. I would find fun at each allegation of being a clumsy oaf levelled at me when ever I dropped the spoon too loudly at the supper plate. I called it music to the ears. I left the water tap partially running after each shaving session. When accosted, I attributed it to a reason for me to go back to the tap and shut it tight only because it was running!! People were fed up of my antics in the company of kids and often asked me to stop behaving like a monkey. I coolly reminded them of their ancestors and pleaded to them to have at least some amount of respect.

Well, not to let out the skeletons, I prefer keeping the closet locked.

Yet, I have this gnawing feeling that my sense of humour has taken a beating recently. To an extent that the poor sense decided to experience a hear attack and is now in a critical state. I have tried self-resuscitation to breathe some life into it. But my frail “humour health” forbids it to come back to a normal self.

Early symptoms?

Well… Let me think. My best pal, with a comparable sense of humour sent me this one liner mail that had – “Panda Mating fails… Veterinarian takes over”. I was sure there was a catch to it. But some how could not grasp it. I was wondering why a veterinary would not take over. Wasn’t it his job? Surely a gynae would not take this on! For, a Panda is a Panda and Panda it will remain.

Then there was this cartoon clip that said – if people were meant to pop out of the bed, we’d all sleep in toasters. Funny he, who coined this. I am yet to pop out of my bed. I have always been half dragged and half pushed out of the bed. And sleeping in a toaster is not anyone’s forte I guess. How does one get into it in the first place? And what does one do when the coils begin to heat?

It was only in retrospection when I went through these and some more of them once again that a realised there was a humour/pun attached to them which I failed to grasp! Then, there was this phone call this morning.

One of my old pals...

Another one gifted with a supposedly good humour. And he asks – “Hope you are in the well?” (age old humour-under-erosion adage!!). And I was like – “what the heavens!! How can I be in the well when I am plonked comfortably in my office chair with the heater at its warmest?” I made it known to him. And, it was then it struck me that my “sense of humour” has experienced an attack and is dying.

Honestly, I don’t want it to die. I want the humour in life to carry on. Almost as if it was never meant to die. May be, live eternally. People should remember me as a funny old man rather than a sulking young fellow. Humour does funny things to you always. The other day I was at the dentist, showing long time caries of Wifey the Witch. She was scared of everything in the dentist’s cabin. Even the comfortable looking couch that could raise and turn you to convenient levels & angles (my darker fantasies were already at work when she boarded that couch!). She was apprehensive of those - many a needles and groping tools placed on the tray. There was that pair of pliers she was eyeing warily. Dr. Dentist begins the examination of the erring tooth.

And me goes off – “watch out Doc!! She bites badly…”

Doc’s fright, her stares and my poker face – all seemed to be reacting in military precision. Only to be disturbed by the sweetest giggle I ever heard – that of the nurse. I almost telexed my funeral date that day.

But then, the Doc shows magnanimity and pulls out her right molar. I am waiting for the left molar to develop a malfunction. That will be two bite marks less on me.

I hope and pray to God my sense of humour regains health and I am once again alive and kicking on the circuits. It helps you to get away with many a things. For those, who lack in this faculty, I urge you to find fun in simple things of life. Let not the jest for living die down in you. For, it is the soul of happiness. Even if it makes people laugh at you.

At least you give them a reason to laugh…

Waking up on a foggy morning…. Without malice to the people of Bikaner

I have recently been transferred to Bikaner. I was posted at Jodhpur before this. Jodhpur being the second largest city of Rajasthan (after Jaipur), had its own fun filled days for us. The nature and character ofJodhpur has grown over the years of its almost 600 years of establishment. It stands on the threshold of becoming a Metro city.

Bikaner, on the other hand, although shares the same age-group with Jodhpur – having established at more or less the same year; has a long way to go to shed off its initial impression of a “sleepy town” that I have always gathered whenever I visited the city. Not that I am new to it… I have been frequenting this city since past 12 years or so, on a regular basis. The impression that I had in my first visit is yet to change for good…

At Jodhpur the life was fast paced. The city has developed a reasonable system of civic amenities and showcases a merger of a “neo-township-with-a-heritage-look”. There are just about sufficient malls and cineplexes (two of each to be accurate) that are enough to cater for the need of the populace. The roads are wide enough to let the man, animal and machine to pass through comfortably without getting much into the ways of each other. This “trio” has had a sense of plausible understanding amongst them. And, you seldom find a camel snorting over your shoulders or a stray bull working up its hooves to goad you. The cows roaming the streets often sniff at you in anticipation of some feed. But mind their own business if you have nothing to offer. I have often observed them reacting to the honking of the car and getting out of the way in the most disciplined of the manner that would put to shame an errant kid who is hell bent on crossing the roads no matter what is hurtling towards it.

The “aam janta” is equally alert and “smart”. They know how to behave with whom. Be it advising directions to a lost traveller or being inquisitive about his presence in the streets of the old city – they fall just short of investigating about your horoscope. They actually have a knack of smiling at you! Sweetness of manners is clearly evident. Wifey the Witch often opines – “these people are so sweet so as to give diabetes…” I respect her opinions because I have observed most of her observations being true. Witches do have their own ways to know the unknown.

Bikaner…?

Well, I was apprehensive on receiving the Transfer Order in the first place. My earlier short-duration visits to the town added fuel to fire. Visits in summer months introduced me to the first of sand storms I ever encountered. Visits in the winters got me face to face with chilling temperatures and foggy conditions. As part of the psychological defence mechanism, I satisfied myself during summers imagining myself to be “Lawerence of Arabia”. In the winters, I thanked my organisation to have given me a free trip to Kashmirsans having to go there.

Little did I know the difference between being at a place for short-duration and having to be at that place for don’t-know-till-when. Baptism into the town was by the fiercest of the sand storms experienced in a long time (I joined in June). Here, it is said, the authorities have the strange ways of mixing fresh water of theIndiraGandhiCanal with the briny waters of the deep bore wells! The cocktail is not very pleasant for the “first-timers”… So, the search for the house was in localities that received lesser concoction of the briny stuff. I swear I will do no more house hunting at Bikaner now.

About the sleeping virtues of the town. The men are sleepy. The machines are sleepy. The animals are sleepy. It is difficult to elicit a reply to your query in the first instances from anyone. The “two-toed sloth” will win the race. As a thumb-rule I have just formulated, you have to speak out your query a minimum of four times if you expect to get even an iota of reaction in the first place. As for the machines… they are bound to get sleepy. The width of the roads seldom allows two of a kind to pass through at the same time. Not to mention the antics of “three-wheeler” & “two-wheeler”, the kinds of which even Hollywood is yet to design computer graphics for. Another of the species responsible for clogging of the drive ways is the legendary “bull” – the stud variety, who have humps larger than their heads. They have the serenest of the dispositions that will give inferiority complexes to each ascetic meditating in the Himalayas. It is always better to let them lie – even if it is in the centre of the roads. Even if you have to change the route.

As for the development of the city of the 10 years or so I have been visiting it, I don’t find anything significant. There is just one Cineplex which does not even have a decent parking space and serves the coffee cold when you want it hot. The city boasts of hordes of “namkin” and “bhujia” joints though. That’s the only place you find “awake” from the customers point of view and “sleepy” from the salesmen point of view. Please refer to my “thumb-rule” above to get the point!!

Anyways, talking of waking up in a foggy morning… Its January now and the beginning of a new year. 7 months since my advent to this city. I seem to have been bitten by the “sleeping bug”. The mornings are being witnessed later than the usual waking hours. With winters having a firm strong hold, one is forced to extend the “man-quilt” relationship. Each additional minute gained in the bed is additional minute experienced of the warmth the quilt provides…

But today was different. I decided to wake up at the first alarm and make the first cup of coffee for Wifey the Witch (my occasional ways of earning her waning love!). The scene outdoors was simply fascinating and captivating. A fairly thick shroud of fog covered the air. Each breathe emanated steam. For once, I was reminded of my tenures of the High altitude regions I have been posted to during my army life. Felt good, I should say…

But then, a thought crossed my mind. If one has to witness this serenity, one has to shed off the sleep. We got to wake up to the realities of life. Sleeping is but an art of the tardy. Nature gives us its best at all times. We have to awaken to it. And I prayed to God (I seldom do it) – Let the city awake O Lord… Let the gush of freshness and the smell of fog fill each with a longing to come awake and greet a day in its entirety.

And even as I prayed – I watched the sun (“ravi”??) endeavouring to make a feeble effort to make a peep hole through the shroud. It is failing for now. But it is also getting the same sight I have witnessed this morning. I am sure, it is enjoying this phenomenon.

Hope to see it succeed. If only to spread its warmth…

Some Random Thoughts.....

The yearnings go far beyond

The written words & unspoken mind

When the morning dew

Covers the petals with drops…

That shine like beads of pearl

When the rays of Sun on them fall

The Flower, so ever gently

Turns its face towards the warmth

And… allows the caress…

Its then that the miracle unfolds

The lingering moment...

…. So much it holds!!

The nature’s blessings…

A new Day rising…

The unspoken words…

And then….

A yearning for the new day to begin again

this is my first blog : Reminiscences

THE IMPROVISED BARGAIN

It is no secret that soldiers are adept in improvising and innovating in almost every aspects of necessity, be it their daily grind or operational requirement. Improvisations range from explosive devices to water crossing expedients to field stretchers to weapons slings to fantastic excuses to so on & so forth! These men in Olive Greens cheerfully meet every conundrum against all odds with an appropriate solution. Their expertise at improvising is simply amazing.
This aspect in their bargaining prowess too was seen at a tiny village in Sri Lanka during our tenure of peacekeeping mission in the island nation.
Our troops, “kappus” from the North East, are known for their epicurean tryst with the two legged, four legged & no legged creatures alike. One of their priorities after setting camp is gaining "intelligence" about the availability of prospective ingredients of the next Carte du jour in the near vicinity. No amount of caution during every roll call, proclaiming civil areas as "out-of-bounds" is going to deter this spirited kappu from venturing out for “intelligence gathering”.
In this quest, we often come across some really unbelievable piece of improvisations on their part.
As part of area familiarisation & domination, we were on patrol of a village adjoining our Company location one sultry morning. We were just a week into this new area of operation and our alertness was at its best. The patrol formation was as given in the Training Manual. Our movement, as taught on the training grounds. As a young officer, I was vigilance incarnated. Scenes & lessons of "Rambo" & "First Blood" still very fresh on my mind, I had ensured that complacency was kept miles away. We were reconnoitring the countryside when we noticed a group of people huddled under a coconut tree about 300 yards away.
Distinctly recognisable amongst them, where two men in olive greens…
Anticipating the taste of the first blood, we lost no time in cocking our weapons and performing the “dash” – “down” – “crawl” – “observe” drill. We put on hold the “fire” part of the drill although. Keeping the group within our aiming sights, we cautiously moved towards them.
The group seemed engrossed in a heated discussion, the subject having something to do on the sand. I conjured up an image of the militants in the final stages of plotting out a strike at our Company location and planning it out on a sand model. The most animated seemed to be the two men in army fatigues.
Must certainly be the militant leaders, I thought, my heart pounding with excitement.
Cautiously we approached the group. As we neared, to my utter surprise, I recognised the uniformed men to be two jawans of my Company. What was transpiring within the group was of even greater interest & certainly a new chapter in negotiating skills of our seemingly simple looking kappus.
These jawans had observed potential tandoori chicken foraging in the vicinity and ventured into the village in search of a good buy. Having picked their choice of birds, the two male species of chicken now lay on the sand at the centre of the group, their legs tied firmly by the strand of a coconut leaf (another Improvised Tying Device!) and their wings entwined. Other members of the group included the erstwhile master of these two birds and three of his neighbours, each enviously waiting for a deal to strike. What was in progress was a most typical negotiation I had ever come across.
Despite the fact that the language barrier of the native islanders and our nor'eastern restricted a clear comprehension of each other’s rates and the bargaining prowess, the two parties seemed to be the most unperturbed lot. For them the bargaining was simple. The owner would write down his selling price on the sand in Arabic numerals and look up to the soldiers who in turn would wipe off the figures and write down their offer. This writing & erasing continued till a bargain was struck and the fate of the birds decided. Not to mention the bond that was created between the jawans & the coop owner. And then, they lived happily ever after…