KGB Act

You see, I began my last blog to tell you about how I got my hand in the till, and as is my wont, went on and on about everything else but the captioned story. Like Amitabh Bachan repeatedly said in a movie, “arre, asli bath tho bhoolee gaya”. By the way, my wife used to tell me: “You talk too much”. Being adept at English, she could pack a punch or two or more if she wished (which is more often than you’d like). And when it is delivered through clenched teeth, with a hissing noise and through tight lips – man, it gets delivered! And it’s something that’s better not be talked about! There you go; I am digressing.

As I was telling you, we friends kept going to the fair every evening (what else, when you are jobless), and kept ourselves happy through voyeurism of all kinds. One day we entered a stall where they had a host of ties. So many varieties of colour, print, texture etc. Perhaps, there was an unexpressed desire in all of us to possess one, since we all might need that stuff sooner than later, when we land some white collared jobs. So we all spent a lot of time in that stall, seeing, touching, feeling and so on, most of the time sighing. Remember, I told you about our pockets and our unenviable financial strength. Anyway, not to digress again, we found that we all came out of that stall empty handed. All of us had sad faces on us. We all gave big sighs. Our brisk walk suddenly became slow and sorrowful. Now wait a minute. There was one fellow who was not affected as the rest of us. Devadas was one highfaluting fellow, who used to whip out a tie at the slightest pretext, in college. He didn’t even need half an excuse for that! So he must have been unperturbed on that day. (How he used to whip up his wallet too, which made Balakrishnan call him “fast draw”, is another story). The sorrow I mentioned was affecting the rest of us.

A decent, meaning, safe distance from the tie stall, Balakrishnan takes out his right hand from his pocket, uncoils something black from that wrist by his left hand and hands it to me, with a flourish. A beautiful sheer black tie! He magnanimously said, “Rajendran, you are going to join the Army. You will need this”. We were flabbergasted. None of us had seen him ‘buying’ it. So we questioned him in chorus. Puffing up the chest, increasing his tall stature by another inch, he said: No. And went on to describe how he picked it off the stand, took a couple of steps away as if to examine it in proper light, furtively looked around to see whether anyone was watching him and on being convinced that the coast was clear, casually wrapped it on his wrist and after one more glance around to ensure a safe exit and as casually as ever, simply walked out! We didn’t know whether to laugh or be scared!

Those were the days when KGB was quite in the upper layers of our minds since we used to devour spy thrillers by the dozen a week and essentially watch only James Bond movies. In short we had filled our minds with such possible thrilling activities hoping to carry out some of those. Balakrishnan still describes this episode as his “KGB Act”!

Of course I wore that classic tie for my convocation and for that must-be-taken photo with the black convocation gown and the square graduate cap. The convocation ceremony in the grand Madras University convocation hall came before my joining the academy. And once in the Officers Training School, the tie was knotted on the first day to be finally opened on the last day, once the training was finished! There was no time in between to gentlemanly (though each of us was called ‘Gentleman Cadet’, GC as it were) open the tie and gentlemanly tie it back nice and proper each day and every day! And once finally it was opened after 9 months, it couldn’t be called a tie anymore, all that Windsor knot and all! The tie was also finished! Sigh! Such a loyal serving tie that was.

Now, Balakrishnan qualified beyond any reasonable doubt.  And I wore that tie, to be a Gentleman Cadet! That’s how I got my hand in the till and quite qualified to be in the league. When I thought of all those pretty models with those sparkling Diamonds on their long slender necks, I remembered our grand ‘KGB Act’. We did it at a much higher level, intellectually, if you do not mind. That historical tie adorned and glorified my gentlemanly neck, like a beautiful, sparkling, black diamond during the entire period it took for my conversion from a boy to a man!

Now such an accomplishment should not go waste. What one learns, one should teach others. The Masters keep saying that. I sure did as a dutiful citizen. Wait a minute. Can you hear that hissing sound? mm? May be it’s you? 

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