Thoughts in Words

  I have never been impressed by my name. A name should have a rhythm or some power for the one carrying it to be eminent. Check out any illustrious person's name. To illustrate, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay and Veerapandya Kattabomman. Or how about Colonel Julius Nagendranath Wilfred Singh, which has everything? Mine has nothing. There was a Vice Admiral who had a very long name. So, in the Navy, they just called him A to Z Rao. Long names have one problem, though. Filling forms. There will not be enough space for all the alphabets. I will not even venture into the present-day Islamic royalties' names, whether UAE Sheiks or Malaysian Queen. School children there have to mug it up. What a task! My father had some weird ideas. One idea, which he thought was progressive and nationalistic, was not to give me a surname. No caste, creed and all that you see. However, he carried one all along. Surnames are usually the name of the place, family name, father's name or the caste. ...

             Because that is an ant-Christ activity, that's why. Nobody answers a question upfront. But you must have noticed that I am a contrary man. In Kerala they celebrate Onam. That day, and during the nine days preceding the final day, they are active. Three score years ago, one could understand. Those days there was produce from the land. And, guess what, there was land! There were flowers, aplenty all over. So pookalam was easy. Around then came Dubai. Kerala went to nought. Now, no land, no produce, no flowers. Not even coconuts, after which the land was named! Now, it is next to a desert. You see, Onam is a harvest festival. Got the point? Without harvest, what celebration? Import everything from other states and celebrate your harvest. How silly! Instead of kids walking with baskets, on to the spread-out land of yore, to pluck flowers from the wild, learning and knowing the names of native flowers in the bargain, now they buy the comm...

            In 1964 I completed my Pre-University, a one-year Course from Brennen College, Tellichery, Kerala. Having done my schooling in Madras, how I landed up in Kerala, is a story in itself and figures in the blog; "Scholar's Mate". That was the last year Kerala was following the PUC system. From the next year onwards, it was straight to Degree Course after the 10+2 Schooling system. So, I claim to be one among the last batch of PUC from Kerala. After that I was back in Madras for my College. In the interim, my father had obtained the prospectus of INS Dufferin for my sake. I would stick with INS and not TS (Training Ship, as she was christened later). He thought a career as a Marine Officer might be good. INS Dufferin was the training ship for Merchant Navy. When I saw the prospectus, I was thrilled. Dufferin seemed to offer everything that I liked, including Boxing, by way of training. Only, one had to study too for a degree, which they woul...

  Ring out the old, ring in the new,    Ring, happy bells, across the snow:    The year is going, let him go; Ring out the false, ring in the true.                                                 ---Tennyson   Unlike any other year, everyone will be seriously and with relief looking forward to letting this year "go". There could be revelries with such vigour unseen till now. Celebrities will celebrate by dancing lustily, and the gullible will follow suit. WhatsApp messages, pictures, quotes, videos et al, will rush into your cell (pun intended), totally uninvited. All and sundry will be wishing you all sorts of things, not to speak of health, wealth and happiness. That will just be routine for them. They don't care e...

  That was the Summer of 1966.   While in College, I underwent a peculiar phenomenon. Once the final exams are over, I fell sick for about a week or ten days. Severely sick with headache, fever, nausea, upset stomach, what have you! That took my toll. My whole body underwent an overhaul. The reason must have been the stress of the exams, no doubt!   The summer of 1966 was no different. I was half-way through the overhaul when my good friend, Karunakaran, came calling. He and I were in the College Football team, he as the inside right and I as the outside right. Both of us were in NCC too. Among other talks, he casually mentioned that they were sending Cadets to an Army Attachment Camp. My illness vanished. Next day I cycled down to the NCC Office in our College. They said that they had no clue. I asked for the residential address of the Army Officer, a Major, who was the Officer Commanding of the NCC Group which included our College.   Next day early mo...

First time I wore a watch was when I became a college boy. An uncle had come visiting us when I was in my first year. This uncle has special importance in my life. He was my mentor, tutor, guide, apart from being the toughest uncle – everything rolled into one, right from my childhood. He had thrashed me umpteen times on various occasions of indiscipline. He just unclasped his Favre Leuba watch and handed it over. A simple, no-frills watch. By the time I completed the degree, the watch had become defective. After repairs a couple of times, the watch repairer in Parry’s Corner, gave up; I don’t remember why. For a long while the watch was in the house and I don’t know when and how it disappeared. More so because our father used to attempt watch repairs himself. When I joined the Army, HMT watches were issued to the Units. HMT Watch was itself in the nascent stages at that time, in collaboration with Citizen. The issued watches had cat/part numbers. On the dials was the unique ...

Not me, I tell you. I am a contrary man. If you care to read further, I will tell you why. To start from the beginning, as children, we had to ensure the following, among a host of things: - o    Once we step out of the long ‘ kolai’, the verandah, of our ancestral house in Kerala, just on to the ‘ mittam ’, the courtyard, for playing or whatever, leave alone wandering farther into the surrounding farm lands, we had to wash our legs right up to the knees before re-entering the house. A ‘ kindy’ (the name of Guindy in Madras originated from this unique vessel) for this sole purpose was kept handy on top of the steps. This washing applied to anyone, walking in from outside, wanting to enter the house: not only we children. The toes, the ankle and the heel were included. A story was told to us, how ‘ Sani’ God enters the body through an unwashed heel, and that ensured the heel is never ignored! o    We also had to wash and scrub the hands, not only as bein...

Background             Every equipment in the Army is introduced into Service only after User/Field Trials are conducted on them by the Field Army in all three terrains – the mountains, plains and the deserts. These trials are apart from the elaborate scientific laboratory trials by the DGQA. The tests that DGQA conduct are mind-boggling. To the manufacturers and suppliers of the equipment, it is, therefore, a nightmare. They test them in a temperature range from +50 ⁰ C to -50 ⁰ C, enclosing them in a hot chamber, in an ice chamber, sandblasting them, and so on and so forth for a specified number of days. The idea is that the general equipment has to withstand all terrains and all climatic conditions in which the Army operates. Field Army trials, on the other hand, are live, on the actual usage. All tests and trials are to meet the Qualitative Requirements (QR) as laid down. The Case       ...