Thoughts in Words

  Introduction      AN here is an acronym for Ardha Nari. So, what we are going to explore in this treatise is the Ardha Nari Effect on the protagonist, an ordinary man. Axiom      Every man is half-woman. Note the point. It is not that every woman is half-man. There is no concept of Ardha Nara. That is, a woman does not have a man in her (An aside, I wonder why the combative propagators of women’s equality have not taken up cudgels on this anomaly). The Positioning      The woman is positioned on the left half. By corollary, man is on the right. That is why woman is said to be the “vama bhagam”, the left side, of man. So, those who think the woman should be right, would be wrong. This positioning is also a point for militant women to take up. But let that be. Hypothesis      I, the protagonist, the ordinary man, is made up of two halves. This exposition will try to establish which side is who. Early Experiments      As a child this theory of duality in one intrigued

  Whenever I read about women in the Army, nay, Services, I remember Capt Sathi Nair. She was from the first batch of Women Officers commissioned into the Army in 1993. Now it is exactly three decades after. Capt Nair was commissioned in to EME, being an Engineer. And as luck would have it, her first posting was to 509 Army Base Workshop at Agra, where I was the Gen Mgr Production as a Col. An Army Base Workshops is akin to a factory, where various Army Equipment are overhauled and made new. The Agra Workshop was meant for all West European Communication Equipment. Manpower skewed towards civilians with 1500 civilians and 500 combatants. There were three quite militant unions, apart from a Works Committee (WC) and a Joint Consultative Machinery (JCM). This is just to tell you how enormous was the task to get work out of these civilians and to meet the assigned targets. There were more leaders than workers! And it goes without saying that the leaders do not work but keep looking o

“Old soldiers never die…they just fade away”, is an adage. That is, as a Soldier, if you live long enough to be old. Amen. I am a soldier and am old now. As a child, growing up to be a boy in Kerala, I used to stand alone at the gate near the vast paddy fields at dusk and watch the setting Sun painting the sky in crimson and red and in its various hues, the many flock of birds flying home in amazing formations and the day giving in to the oncoming night. Very much like the “Handing over Taking over” ceremony as used to happen in the Army. There was a child’s exhilaration and wonderment. That memory lingers but the scene has faded. Schooling in Madras had many friends, mostly sports groups. As it would have it, I can hardly remember their names except for a couple or so. There was one weirdo Hariharan who used to read Dictionary like a story book! As we were leaving school, we all had fully filled autograph books, in which we wrote creatively. Now I can’t locate where those prec

          Certain events may seem regretful on occurrence or due to non-occurrence, as the case may be. Later, on looking back, it would seem to have been for the good after all! That is my belief and here is why. After all, the Almighty sitting up in the clouds with silvery flowing beard and smoking a pipe with a smile that never fades, has plans for each of us. At least for me, for sure, personally speaking. Regret one. Rejection by Merchant Navy. Perhaps this was my first major regret. I had just completed Pre-University. Got the brochure of INS Dufferin and was impressed, especially with the sports activities that included boxing, to which I was never introduced but had a sneaky liking. I applied in all eagerness. Written exam was a breeze. In the medical, got caught in the eye test. The good doctor tried to encourage me - he seemed to want me to pass the test somehow - in the pitch-dark room where I had to identify red, green and amber colours, which slowly became smaller and

  RETIREMENT Not going into the etymology and different usages of the word, I think I have been retiring from various activities, by and by.   The first, as my memory points out, was when I was in the final year of graduation. I wanted to retire from studies, already having undertaken the adventurous and the long and arduous journey for one too many years. The way out seemed, donning the Army Uniform. Turned out, it was a bad idea. The Army forced me to do study by way of various courses; on an average of every five years of my three decades plus service! On the contrary, though much against the principle of “never volunteer in the Army”, whichever course I volunteered for, the Army stately ignored.   Then at the age of thirty I had to retire from football. It was because a senior, a perfect zero in sports, cast his evil eye, about five years before. He asked; “How long will you play games? Till thirty? Then you will break your arm or leg and then that will be the end of your sports”.