A whisker away from disaster and preparation of the 'vishukkani'

After our usual morning chores, Lekha and I set off to my sister’s place for a pre-vishu lunch. Enroute, I’d to fill fuel in my vehicle and was headed to the petrol pump that we regularly visit for the purpose. From the main road, I’d to turn left to get into the bunk and with the indicators on, no sooner had I started negotiating the maneuver when a speeding Honda city just swooshed past our left, swerving violently in the process and did not bother to stop, knowing fully well that he was in the wrong. An unpleasant situation was definitely avoided.
Lunch at my sister’s place was, as usual, sumptuous with a wide variety of dishes and I ended up eating silly, which was a foregone conclusion what with the lip smacking delicacies in abundance! The ‘kaineetam’(gifting of a token sum of money on the occasion of Vishu) was distributed by us to Minni and Ammu and we rushed back to Arjan Vihar as there was a conglomeration of the Sai Baba devotees in the evening, at Dwarka and a serpentine queue of vehicles had already started making their way in, as we were moving out.
Late in the evening, it was time for us to set up the ‘vishukkani’ in front of the deities and keep everything ready for viewing, first thing in the morning, on getting up from sleep. I’ve always enjoyed doing this since my childhood, when the entire household painstakingly went through the minutest detail, to ensure setting up of a smart arrangement, before going to bed. On the day of ‘Vishu’, after lighting the traditional lamps, the elders after having seen the ‘kani’ themselves, used to wake us, children, up and cupping their palms over our eyes take us to the puja room to view the splendour of the arrangement, denoting the start of yet another new year. Later, after bath, change and puja, the patriarch used to distribute the ‘kaineetam’. Tomorrow, it will be my turn to do that for Lekha as I’d been doing in the last ten years that we’ve been at Delhi.
Tailpiece.
When I was a kid, I used to invariably open my eyes earlier than usual and see a pair of slippers or something as silly as that, before shutting my eyes tight yet again and awaiting my turn to be taken in front of the ‘vishukkani’. And I used to hide this fact from my cousins as it was too embarrassing!

The stunning news reports of the day

While browsing through the newspapers this morning, I was saddened by two reports in particular. The first was about a girl, who was repeatedly forced into sex by her father and had sired a child out of this incestuous relationship. The child, in turn, was forced to be abandoned by the perpetrator of the crime! I remember my Ammachi telling me, a long time ago, and I quote, “this is ‘kalyug’ and during this period all things unimaginable can be expected to happen as human beings would have degenerated to sinking depths of depravity. And this would signal the time for God to once again come in a new ‘avatar’ or incarnation on this earth, to teach man as to what is right and what is wrong in the way he has been leading his life”. Unquote. I can imagine the tremendous psychological strain that the poor girl would have undergone over the ghastly experience and one thing is sure, it's that she’d have lost faith in relationships as a whole.

The second was about a brother officer, quite junior to me in age and service, who has been literally caught with his pants down. I shall not sit in judgment over his actions because neither has anyone given me the mandate to do so nor do I’ve the right to do that and it would be very easy for me to sit on a high moral ground and mouth platitudes to impress the others.

Sukhjinder must be suffering silently and I suppose, he’ll have to go through this dark phase that he has brought upon himself. But what saddens me is the tremendous strain that Mrs. Sukhjinder and their two children( a daughter, who I’m told is in her teens and a son) have to undergo, for no fault of their’s. Here’s wishing that God gives them the strength to tide over this nightmare and come out totally unscathed from the sorry episode!

Singh is king!

This afternoon I’d the privilege of catching up with a dear old friend of mine from the Academy, Surinder Singh Bal. He continues to be naïve, laughs so easily and his zest for life is as infectious as ever, as it had been since I met him first in Jan ’73, as a first termer. Extremely good at outdoors, especially horse riding, he, however found academics to be his waterloo. And the sardar just couldn’t tell a lie because his face was so very transparent with emotions, that, one could spot it the moment it came out, which gave him and his course mates, tumultuous times because we’d to take collective responsibility for a course mate’s peccadilloes!
He’d joined the Army but decided to hang his uniform last year in pursuit of his heart’s calling. His latest quip is that the women’s reservation bill is going to plummet his fortunes further, as he is a minority in his family consisting of his wife, Happy and two lovely daughters!
His escapades at the Academy are legendary and I shall just cite two of them to underscore his personality. The first incident was at the glider drome during equestrian classes, sometime during our first term. His horse was the grumpy ‘Shehanai’ who just wouldn’t let any guy ride him smoothly and he used to grin whenever he put his rider into discomfort. Now, on this particular morning wonder why Shehanai was not at all inclined to go with Bal’s ‘cootchicooing’ and no sooner was he astride on him, he darted off like a bolt of lightning towards the stables, throwing off his rider enroute. Much later, as the class was winding to a close did we see Bal walking the horse towards us, the rein in one hand and a clutch of green grass in the other. Such was his indomitable spirit! And within a couple of outings, Shehanai and he were the best of pals.
The second incident was while we were on a night march during ‘Camp Greenhorn’ in our second term. I was the guide for my squadron guys who were in single line formation and he followed me quite closely, in the literal sense – he was very protective and rather fond of me. It was pitched dark and we were passing through a terrain of short grass and shrubs and before we realized as to what was happening, I fell into a deep ditch. I could hear a very concerned Bal shouting out, ‘hey chhotu, where are you’ and followed me into the very same ditch, landing plump on a woeful me – that was one time I’d hated his company, albeit for a fraction of a second!! All’s well that ends well and we were retrieved by the team and got to be first in the event, eventually.
There are many more stories of Bal and we’d a blast, reliving some of those incidents. We’ve promised ourselves to keep in touch with each other regularly, from now on. Thanks, Bal for making my day and may life continue to give you whatever you wish for!!!

Do mothers bring up their children differently?

I’ve always asked this question and tried to find the psychological reason as to why mothers do this, because it’s a phenomenon that’s very much in existence, as gleaned from the experiences of some of my close friends and relatives. Looking back into my own life, my parents never showed any difference in their approach towards either me or my two sisters and in fact, they imbibed in me that it was up to me to take care of my sisters’ well being, even if it were to be at the cost of my own discomfort. And I never grudged that as I thought it was my natural responsibility for having been born earlier than them.

Years later, when I used to return from school or the Academy on holidays, it was my sisters who would insist upon my mother to have my favourite dishes prepared for me during the period and thereby, get me preferential treatment. And even to this day, despite the fact that we’ve our own families and lead our own lives, we open up to each other for guidance, support or opinions and even agree to disagree on things and value them for their worth.

Meena, our maid, has four children – the eldest being a son, followed by three daughters – ranging from seven to fourteen years. What amazes me is that she outrightly and brazenly shows her preferences – she’s fond of the third child for reasons best known to her – and at times, puts one child against the other with disastrous consequences! And the resultant behaviour is that whenever they’re left to themselves, the three of them gang up to give the mother’s favourite a rather horrid time!!

Does the mother who exhibits this sort of behaviour believe in the ‘divide and rule’ policy but what do they aim to achieve in the end, is a question that will continue to haunt me till I find a plausible answer!!!

A small mishap and enlightenment!

On Friday evening, Lekha had returned from her customary walk and while sitting on a low stool to remove her shoes, fell off from it and took the impact of the fall on her right arm. The maid gave her a light massage in the area with a pain removing gel. Though the night was painful for her, Saturday morning saw her doing her daily chores and other jobs of the house without much difficulty, but by afternoon the pain had gained momentum and she was in extreme difficulty to move the arm, even slightly. As is usual, the service hospitals get totally shut down, in a sense, for outpatients and in her case, for the nature of her injury, an exploratory x-ray was a must for medical management.

Meanwhile, I’d got in touch with my friend and family doctor, Ramachandran and briefed him about the situation and based on his instructions, had an x-ray taken in a laboratory close to his clinic and armed with it, reached him. It was confirmed beyond doubt that there was no fracture but, that, it was a ligament tear that was causing her all the misery. Medicines were prescribed and we were out of the clinic by 2030h and got into one of the worst traffic snarls that I’d gotten into, for a while, in Delhi.

Dr. Ramachandran’s clinic is in sector 4 of the colony, Dwarka and by a nasty coincidence, Sai Baba was having his conglomeration in the nearby sector 10 and the increased volume of traffic was conveying a whole lot of his devotees to and from the venue. As I waited for the traffic to move on, my thoughts went back to an earlier topic of mine viz. ‘do we really require an usher to attain our God?’ Or is it that these people consider, being in the bandwagon of a godman’s following, as a status symbol?

The answer to the first query is a definite ‘no’ and the answer to the second, if in the affirmative, then my sympathies are with them!

Three cheers to a rare consensus!

Last evening, it was a delightful sight to watch the news channels and to be witness to a rare phenomenon on the Indian political firmament. Political parties across the spectrum, coming out to condemn the ‘Dantewada massacre’ of the CRPF jawans, by the Maoists and rallying around the theme that the extremist group needs to be taken head on and brought to book without any delay.
Earlier, PC Chidambaram while accepting responsibility for the tragedy, had reportedly offered his resignation to the Prime Minister and his party leader and expectedly, they refused to accept it and pressed for his continuation. I would like to believe that all these actions were spontaneous and not a pantomime to score political points!

It’s my personal opinion that this Home Minister has been proactive, has been businesslike in the running of his ministry and has taken many balanced decisions towards enhancement of security preparedness. One also admits that though much has been done, much more needs to be done. He’s media savvy and has articulated his thought process well to the people and perhaps, it’s this general acceptance of his capability among people at large, that has made the BJP to come out and say that his resignation at this juncture would be like handing over the game, set and match to the Maoists!!

Let our political leaders show maturity and the grace to wholeheartedly endorse the good policies without worrying about who or which party is the initiator and only, such a consensus would help the country in its progress towards prosperity, overcoming all dangers. So, I’d like to say three cheers to our political leaders at this rare show of bonhomie and understanding!!!

Do I give that deadly feeling?

I’ve a youngster Narender in my directorate who’d joined us almost a year back, completely disgusted with everything about the service. Prior to his arrival, he’d undergone an aborted court martial and was placed on the ‘service no longer required’ list. He’d almost resigned to the fact that he’d have to leave the service rather unceremoniously and consequently, he was angry with the system, spewing venom at anyone and everyone whom he did not consider ‘right’ as per his perception and the two main targets of his ire were, CGS Khan and Kashmir Singh with whom he’d direct confrontation, while working with them.

It did not take time for us to realize that the youngster was a victim of his own hot headedness, though in a well meaninged way, and was very badly handled by his superiors all through his service life. We, in the directorate, took him under our wings and decided to help him out of his discomfort. The fact that the then COP was Matloob Aslam Khan’s course mate and his good friend, made matters easy and Narender was cleared off his past stigma and promoted to his present rank. He has changed considerably, in that, he’s now willing to listen to the others’ point of view and has picked up the habit of laughing at his own self!

I'm fond of the youngster and I can unhesitatingly say that the feelings are mutual. But today, he tells me in one unguarded moment, that though he wants to frequent my place, he has refrained from doing so because he’s scared of me, as he feels that I’ve not let him come close enough to me. He also did say that I can never make friends with anyone!

I strongly believe that relationships are for keeps. And therefore,I do take my own time to make friends with people and do assign levels of closeness with the others based on their temperament, qualities and above all, my very own personal experiences with them. I must admit that I might have set seemingly high standards of behaviour but rest assured, I work consciously to attain them and from my viewpoint it’s not that difficult at all. I sincerely hope that I don’t put off people by that aura of ‘deadliness’!!


Tailpiece.

I have just now finished a long conversation with my Amma and it's satisfying to note that they've had a good pilgrimage.