Thoughts in Words

My mother used to describe my arithmetical grasp as a child of three to all those who would listen, who were plenty. The age of three, as I look back now, was an eventful year it appears. I had lost my power of speech totally, flew in an airplane for the first time from Trivandrum to Madras accompanied by my parents, was forced to learn swimming, was taught to pronounce "Cuticura" correctly by my grand uncle while sitting on his lap and so on. I believe if given three toffees in my right hand and two in the left and if asked how many toffees in total, I used to throw all the toffees and walk away in a huff. That was the kind of stuff I was made of. So it was not my fault if my personal finances were in shambles when I started earning. I was wired like that by the Almighty. To top it, our father never believed in insurance policies or investment of any kind. So much so that later when I found people talking about the share market, it sounded too sinister and even as som

  The place was Ranchi, the year 1982 and the location, the Military Hospital at Namkum.    As a person who prided in never having reported sick right through my days at the Officers' Training School and up till '82, that is a total of 14 years in uniform, I landed up in the MH for the first time almost dead or at least worrying the medical fraternity enormously so, all because of a reaction created by a Novalgin tablet. But that is another story and not the one captioned here. However, after that admission and walking back in one piece, I was admitted a couple more times breaking my future record of non-admissions too. For never had I to be admitted again till just one year before my retirement.    The second admission in Ranchi was due to acute pharyngitis and the third was due to a severe backache, both in quick succession to the reaction one. My constitution seemed to have undergone some quick amendments after the drug reaction. Mutton fry in full blast happened d

This is an expression we heard rather often from our elders, especially when they chided us. And we went "oof, there he goes". But when you hear it from someone, one generation below us? That gets our goat. Recently my daughter-in-law was admonishing her niece and nephews through marriage with this expression. It was regarding the value of money, rather the lack of it. The kids were always for expensive stuff dismissing cheap stuff as, well, cheap! To explain their disdain, let me illustrate with one anecdote. Once I took my grandchildren out for ice cream, when I visited them, like a dutiful grandfather, in their father's car. Straight to Baskin Robbins as per their choice. They polished off some exotic ones of various flavours and hues on the spot and took enough and more packed for home. The bill went up to more than two grand. (I hope a grand is still a thousand!). On the way back I cribbed like hell for my entire one month's pension being wiped off in one s

Is this about a train journey that was special or a journey on a special train or both? It was Mar 1990. De-induction of Indian Armed Forces from Sri Lanka had begun. I decided to stay back and come along with the last batch, just for the heck of it. There was no point coming home early unnecessarily. Coming from an active zone, it didn’t make sense. Added to it was the order that we were to travel by a special train from Madras to our permanent location, Jaipur. I had never travelled on a special train before. My troops and I were in the last passenger ship that sailed out. As we sailed out and I went and stood on the upper deck to have a look-see around and to gulp in the sea air, I was astonished to see our Naval War Ships of various sizes all around, though at great distances from, our ship in the vast sea! They were also sailing out on de-induction and were giving our ship protection in the bargain. We were sailing in a tactical formation. It was huge, the number of ships and

      While I was being introduced to what was SSB in preparation for the selection by a relative of mine who was a Major he asked me what all games I played. Not wanting to count and list it out to him, I gave a short answer, “almost all”. “Do you play Bridge?” he asked me. I was stumped. I had no clue what it was. He had succeeded in putting me in my place. He showed me a bridge to cross.       Four of us as youngsters within five years of service were in a battalion in Rajouri, a field area, in 1972. There is a custom in our Officers’ Mess. The senior most, generally the CO, goes to the dining hall first and others follow, mostly seniority wise. Till then everybody sits around in the ante-room, where all report before the CO (note the reverse), having a couple of drinks and chit-chatting. In this particular Mess, the CO and a couple of seniors used to play Bridge. We youngsters were not given to drinking as them and so soon got tired of the delay due to their Bridging. To go to di

The other day my grandchildren sent me a whatsapp (what else) video wherein they were playing with their neighbour’s tiny cute little bundle of a Shih Tzu pup. They were frustrating him by not giving the ball to him. I got wild. Game should be played with equal chances and when it comes to pups they should always win. Every dog should have his day. And then Dr Divya, a top notch gynaecologist of Hyderabad sent me a picture of the shining head of her Daschund pup, his tongue licking her palm. He will grow to be a long dog for sure. My thoughts bundled backwards over the years. Once in the early 80s I happened to lay my hands on a book titled “The Man Who Spoke Dog” in a library. I borrowed it and am not ashamed to say that I didn’t return it for I knew when I saw a treasure. I happily paid the due fine. But as it happens I lent the book to someone to whom I could not recollect later and so lost possession. I broke the axiom, “never lend a book”. Also the philosophy of losing wh

I had the worst of times and I had the best of times. Through a lot of foolishness I have reached an age of wisdom, yet to be fully attained. There were times of incredulity and there were times of belief. There were seasons of darkness and there were seasons of hope. During the winters of despair I dreamt of the springs of hope. I had nothing before me and I had everything before me. The above paragraph sounds familiar? Yes it would. I took it from Charles Dickens and mangled it out of shape! You see it seemed apt for the story about to be told. Looking back over my narrow shoulders at my life and weighing the good and the bad, what I had and what I have, what I needed and what I wanted, what I dreamt of and what was dealt to me, I have two things against God. I am not an atheist, let me declare. But I am not really “God fearing” as one is expected to be, brought up to be. Whatever I do or even think God knows it all, right? So to me God is more of a friend. You might s

Having executed what might seem to many as my death wish, meaning smoking, albeit frustrating such many nincompoops for many decades, it is time to record my dying wish. Once I kick the bucket, no blame should be placed on me, but the shroud. It is silly to meet your maker, naked. Time of death is but then the biggest mystery. Hence it is better to make a bucket list a priory. Those who have seen war movies or westerns obviously have noticed that the man who is about to be done for is given a swig or a drag or both by the very compassionate “pardner”. Let that be remembered in my case. The soothing that it gives is immense and is not to be denied to me. I would like to go high and in a swirl of vanishing smoke. If there are any movies that I enjoyed other than those of Sophia Loren or Gina Lollobrigida are the genres mentioned. I don’t obviously know who those compassionate ones would be next to me at the appointed hour, but I hope it will be one of the loyal readers of my blogs.

That when I was in Class 6 in our village ESLC School in Kerala, I got the first prize in Long Jump which I executed in my new white full pants, was a hit. That I was known as “High Jumper Rajendran” in the High School in Madras, from Class 8 onwards, was a hit. That in one Malayalam test in Class 8, I was given the maximum marks for a question on reference to context in poetry and when my class mates questioned the teacher complaining that I wrote only four lines whereas they wrote a whole para, and when he said that in those four lines I had written much more than what they wrote, though baffled me, was a hit. From then on that I was first or second in every class both in Malayalam and English was also a hit. The teacher had pulled the trigger! That I represented my School in Swimming as a sub-junior was a hit. That I represented my College in Basketball (from which I walked away after two years for reasons not relevant here), Volleyball, Football and Athletics a