Freshly Minted Veteran

 "Freshly minted veteran", just a day old, and facing the all too familiar expected query," How does it feel?" "Has the feeling sunken in?" Not sure how to respond to this, as one really doesn't know. It is just a normal holiday or a Sunday kind of feeling,  may be in a few days it may be a little different. After all it was a marathon that we have gone through, not a short 100 metre sprint, so we can't possibly come to a standstill all of a sudden. Even after we cross the finishing line we need to keep jogging for a while else a muscle pull or even cramps will ensue. I am sure all of us who have been running cross country during different stages of our training and later life would vouch for that.

Our life has also been one long cross country run, I won't call it a race, as we all have to run at our own pace, those trying to compete with the others naturally burn out faster. Literally or metaphorically the run was actually joined only after we joined the Academy, till then it was just learning to walk steadily. It's a different matter that many of us lost this ability to be steady in later life. So we took off in right earnest in the Glider Dome itself and somewhere when we were around the Hill, I will refrain from using the prefix (but samjhane wale samajh gaye, jo na samajhe wo anadi hain!), being politically correct in this era of hyper sensitivity, we changed gears slowed down, some of us endowed with greater energy managed to keep running and that made the difference in later years. I am alluding to the mental commando of DSSC preparation and then suddenly we found ourselves in front of the Equitation Lines and life  switched to canter and  then started to gallop and we found ourselves in GliderDome hoping to let things cool. Now it was the turn of time itself to take wings, what else did you expect when you are on the runway, so it just flew and at some point of time when we were soaring in the blue skies, expecting to get into a different realm altogether it was time yet again who brought you back to mother Earth and reminded that it was time to take things easy now.

So here I am on the other side of the prism, trying to look back and the only thing which I get to see is a perfect rainbow in all its hues and colours. Thank God for that, I just can't imagine a life in one single monotonous colour, it would have been sheer drudgery. The ups and downs, not perfectly sinusoidal but nevertheless keeping things even was the hallmark of this wonderful gift which has  been bestowed upon us. Yesterday's Summer of 87 get-together was a testimony to that, let the celebrations continue. Cheers!