Thoughts in Words

There is a misconception that once you join Army, you have no serious studies to undergo further. I am a victim of that. By the time I completed my Degree, I got fed up. Fifteen years of scholastic activity had been unbearable, except for the fact that both my School and College had vast playgrounds, which is where I spent my time. Before the 60s, Army Officers underwent promotion exams from Part A to D! By the time I joined, Part A was done away with. Later, though after I cleared it, Part C, which was an interesting practical exam, was also taken off. If one does not clear Part B and D, one does not go beyond a Capt or Major, respectively. There are other professional courses by the dozen if you are the aspiring type. "Keen Kumars", as they were described. The mandatory Promotion Exams have to be cleared by a certain number of years. So an early start is a good idea, for very few clear all the six papers of Part D in one go, what with all the operational, counter-ins...

Preamble It is imperative for any art form to have an audience. Imagine having to dance or sing to an empty auditorium. Imagine an exhibition of painting with no visitors to the gallery. Imagine performing a play with no one to watch. So it is with sports. Whatever sports. Indoor or outdoor. If there are no spectators, the performance of the players will dip, whatever may be the level. The players need applause. It is a motivator. Even getting booed has its merits. When booed, you recoup. You tend to correct yourself to minimise the errors. An empty stadium would be an anathema for the players. Same is the case with writers. They need a readership. With no one or hardly anyone to read, the writing goes downhill. A stage would come when the writer might put an end to the effort. Bouquets and brickbats are needed to go on. Both encourage to better the craft. In short, the writer, like any artist, needs feedback. Writing too is an art, as also a craft. Solitude Having said al...

I live in a vest in my home. Generally, that is. When guests arrive, I upgrade to a Tee/shirt, for their sake. Vestment has a papal connotation, but investment? That has an entirely different connotation. In the efforts in investments, I could have lost my vest, what to talk of my shirt, off my back!   Coming from a background which had nothing to do with making money, I was very ignorant about investments in financial "market". I was given a talking to about it, introduced to the share market (which I thought was illegal like satta market) and forced to buy Reliance shares when they went public, by a benevolent friend. When I refused to have anything to do with it, that kindly Officer, junior to me, said that if I didn't put the money, he would do it on my behalf. All I had to do was sign the forms. He was so gung-ho, I thought, what the hell. As per his advice, I signed some forms and my wife, worse than me in money matters, some others. Being a gentleman, I gave h...

I was still wet behind the ears in the Army in 1971. That was an eventful year. The world came to know a Niazi. Lt Gen AAK Niazi, East Pakistan Army Commander, who ignominiously surrendered to the Indian Army. Usually, when an Army surrenders to its opponents, there is some dignity and respect. In this case, it was not so. But that is a matter of serious study and essay, and that is not my realm. Much later, rather recently, the world and I come to know about another Niazi, who was referred as such by Vidisha Maitra, First Secretary in India's Permanent Mission to the UN. She was hauling the Pakistan PM over the coals in the UNGA. Till then he was known only as Imran Khan. She reminded Imran Khan Niazi about the shamed General and his atrocious activities. She ominously connected the two Niazis. Underneath her soft feminine tones was a solid menacing undercurrent. But that story too is another serious matter and hence not in my domain. I do not have any connection to the lat...

In this evening years of my existence, I realise that loyalty is a one-way street. In contrast, while in my subaltern years, I spent my days nonchalantly. Army looked after me and my perks, CDA (Officers) took care of my pay and allowances, numerous play grounds and swimming pools saw that I could sweat and laugh to my heart's content. Once the CDA himself in person, as our "provider" and hence a God-like figure, had addressed us in one station and admonished us for being ignorant of claiming our dues. Because of which, he lamented that Lakhs of Rupees due to us were being surrendered to the Government annually! There was loyalty both ways. The authorities to us and we to them. What about the MNCs? They have their "leadership", which in their parlance is just selling the most. Customer is at the lowest rung, though posters proclaiming him to be their God would be hanging on the walls of the Corporates. They talk ad nauseam about loyalty to customers, someth...

  Sampath came from Bangalore, and I came from Madras (I prefer English names of places as it is classy, unlike the politicised ones). We both had a lot in common. The only issue was that Bangaloreans generally looked down upon Madrasis. I believe they had pubs affordable by college students and we didn’t have! As a matter of fact, even now. Now that made a huge difference in our cosmopolitan, cultural outlook, as per them. That was one thing I lost out on, while I was abreast with him on most other things.   He was good at racquet games and cue sports. He was not into field games like football. Now I was into most of the field games as also into racquet games and cue sports. The game of "Pool”, was not even heard of those days by which I mean more than two score and five years ago. And in any case, it is no patch to the class of Billiards and Snooker. Sampath looked at field games with disdain. So, it was incumbent on me to match him game for game in his turf.  ...

Right from many years ago, our mother had the habit of getting into a chat with poor people walking across our house, especially the children and the old. Very often, her inquisitive questions discovered children who were denied schooling by their parents. She dared to call such parents, give them a dressing down and insist that they send the kids to school. Toffees and biscuits to the kids were a given. If it is the old and frail that she encountered, she would find some jobs for them in the house and on that excuse feed them and give clothes on festival days, apart from token money as salary. Those days we had an independent house with a small but lush garden full of flowers and various fruit-bearing trees. So she could maintain their dignity intact, in the jobs she made them perform. After she became a widow, she shunned coloured sarees. Still, it was not the drab white ones she wore. She liked her white sarees sprinkled with tiny little flowers or patterns in soft colours. In ...

No. The title is not an oxymoron. Or is it? There are two kinds of mothers-in-law. One is the boy's mother and the other, the girl's mother. If the boy had grown up as a "mother's boy", his bride may run into problems, not because of the new mother but because of the stupid boy. There is no such speciality for a girl. The girl can only be "father's girl", and that has never been an aberration. Neither is if she is a "mother's girl". This mother-in-law issue is a myth. God knows who created it. As regards the myth that women are the weaker sex, man created it and women being gullible, although much stronger, fell for it. Here man gained, or he thought, the fool! But who is the gainer in creating a monster out of the mother-in-law? More often than not, it is the boy's mother who is made out to be so, right? To get back from this meaningless digression, my mother-in-law turned out to be a motivator for me. You see, she insulte...

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 ...

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 t...