Belan...tine Day!!

 Happy Valentines! Or should I say 'Belan ..tines', in India there are many who get their phonetics mixed up, with "V" being pronounced as "B" or "S" being pronounced as "SH" or vice versa. Valentine for the Eastern UP Bihar and even some parts of Bengal becomes Belantine, which I dare say is probably more appropriate in our part of the world. After all the  "Domestic power does flow from the belan", to paraphrase Mao's "Power flowing from the barrel of the gun". Are you at a loss as to what is the connection, well the 'Belan' is the Roller pin which dishes out the Chapatis or Indian breads. Traditionally Belans were used or at least depicted as used for putting the harried husbands in their place. So naturally one who wields the belan rules the roost! Most of us much married guys would rather sing paeans to the Belan rather than to that Valentine which transformed into this all powerful person.  

 The advent of Valentine in India came about with the liberalisation  which started to unfold in the 90s with the emergence of a nouveau middle class which did not comprise the Babus alone, but also young professionals employed with these multinationals. Since their employers were Westerners, the philosophy and thinking also started to undergo metamorphosis and soon the Archies and Hallmarks made their foray into this exotic land. I wonder, how many of you would recall the quality of greeting cards in India in the pre 91 era, I do, as we all received birthday and Diwali greetings while we were in RIMC Dehradun, staying in a boarding. The cards  almost always comprised beautiful roses with may be a Cake added more as an afterthought and for Diwali the Earthen lamps 'Diyas' or an occasional candle. Archies and Hallmarks recognised the potential of this untapped market and suddenly in every nook and corner in the metros, these Galleries mushroomed with accompanied media blitzkrieg in the form of print and electronic advertisements. Naturally the youth swooned, not to be left out and just lapped it up.  It surely was no coincidence nor was it a sudden realisation of the finer nuances of Indian feminine beauty that "Miss Worlds" and "Miss Universes" started appearing on the global beauty pageants with the frequency of the IPL sixers. The cosmetics industry had woken up to this untapped market and lo and behold......

Valentines being an alien concept does not necessarily mean love itself is alien in our land. There are many who would go on about our age old tradition of Love and  this being the land of Kamasutra and our temple architecture depicting love in all its forms and there would be many who would blame it on the British for the Victorian prudence to have got us so  mixed up in our values and traditions. Vasant Panchami or the fifth day of the Lunar calendar in the month of Magh which normally falls in the month of February is also dedicated to the sacrifice of the Lord Kama or Kamdev as he undertook the suicidal mission of attempting to disturb Lord Shiva while he was in deep meditation thus inviting Lord Shiva's wrath and ended up being reduced to ashes by the third eye of the Adiyogi. All for a good cause.....the cause of Love!

  Be that, as it may, I am not sure how many of us are actually aware of the ancient festival of "Bhagoriya" celebrated by the Bhil tribals in Western Madhya Pradesh, a festival to celebrate just this "Love". Bhagoriya coincides with Holi and the youth come adorned in their Sunday best with the boys wielding their bows and archers intoxicated with the Spring festive spirit as also spirits which are freshly distilled from the Mahua (Madhuca logifolia) flowers (local produce). Love is literally in the air. The petite dusky damsels are attired in their colourful skirts,  decked up in silver ornaments, bangles, necklaces of beautiful beads and are naturally so attractive! The young couples dance  in gay abandon and then the boys apply 'Gulal' (red powder colour used extensively during Holi festival) on the foreheads of their chosen beloved to declare their love and then elope.....with the tacit approval of the parents. The finer details of the matrimony which follows are left to be tied up between the two sets of parents, which by the way is a reverse dowry where the groom's side has to shed some cattle to the bride's side and also host the villagers. 

Call it what you want but a festival to celebrate love is always welcome. I wonder whether in todays India these festivals and traditions are an anachronism or are they still relevant?

"Fold your Seats"

 

 

"Someone taught me how to dance last night,What a mover he was!

And someone taught me how to do it rightWhat a groover he was!” 

  Tina Charles would croon, and we would swoon, no not because of the lyrics or the beats of the song per se, it was because, we were seated in the auditorium in NDA Khadakwasla with our seats folded, trying to balance our precious derriere on the edge of the seat. Even before a movie commenced we were enjoying the edge of the seat thrills, irrespective of the genre of the movie. In NDA, movie shows in the auditorium were an experience which had to be lived through to be understood. Although we had all been watching movies since the time we made our presence felt in this world, at first in our mother’s lap, as with no TV, social media and hardly any places to hang out, parents would invariably troop into a movie hall for an evening out. For me the real movie experience though commenced with “Haathi Mere Saathi”, Rajesh Khanna starrer Chinappa Devar film which had an elephant in the pivotal role apart from super star Rajesh Khanna and Tanuja. Supposedly a movie for children, as there were elephants playing football and performing all kinds of circus tricks, although it was a typical potboiler with an evil KN Singh shooting down the elephant and Rajesh Khanna avenging his murder.

Getting back to the NDA movie experience, Wednesdays were English movies and Saturday/Sunday Hindi movies, as that was the only source of entertainment, most of the cadets would be there, despite the hardships and the side effects. Dressed in our Muftis, we would march in squads (four or six cadets in a square or rectangle form) to the auditorium, knowing fully well what lay in store for us. Daredevilry was inculcated right here, with Cadet Sergeants, Battalion Cadet Adjutant/Academy Cadet Adjutant on the prowl and Drill instructors waiting in ambush…..we still dared. No wonder, in later years, the young commissioned officers faced the terrorists and the Pakis so nonchalantly. Having entered the auditorium, it was the same Tina Charles songs which would play ad nauseum, I am sure she was not aware that her songs were the rage in NDA. She may have come and performed live for us, if she were informed…may be. I always wondered that, was it because they did not have cassettes of any other songs or someone was excessively fond of Tina Charles. Anyway, the movie would finally commence and provide some respite for us, when we could seat ourselves more comfortably, seats restored, till it was interval, when the edge of the seat thrills would be back revisiting. Finally, once the movie ended, it was time for the sprint of our lives, but in perfect synchronisation which even synchronised swimmers would find difficult to emulate. Back in our squads of four or six, we were expected to take off for a “hell march” with our steps in synch and matching our strides from the auditorium to the Cadets Mess for our dinner.  The adversaries were all lined up located strategically to spring an ambush, were we to relax a wee bit in this sprint. The relaxation may not actually be there, but if the powers that be thought the effort was subpar then, the degree of difficulty would multiply, with a trip down to Khandwa Gate, which was just about a km added, sometimes the run would graduate to more meaningful exercises with moving on the haunches for some distance to improve our reflexes. Sometimes the sprinters would attempt a Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, by trying to outrun the sergeants or the Drill instructors, the odds though were heavily against succeeding, but that challenge itself was worth it. If you made it, you were a hero, if you got caught, well…just too bad! Finally, may be after about half an hour or so, we would land up at the Cadets Mess. Well, actually the whole exercise served as a perfect appetiser, for the meal which was gorged down hungrily.

 In NDA Wing Ghorpuri, it was “Saat saheliyan khadi khadi…” from Vidhaata Sanju baba starrer which was the only song which regaled us. As we were right in the middle of Pune, the movies were compulsory. The authorities felt we would surely jump the walls and proceed to MG road enact our own movies rather than watch these stupid potboilers. Some smart ones amongst did manage to do just that, but most of us were the average Joe types. Trainees and recruits were never supposed to be idle, as ‘Idle mind is a devil’s workshop’. We joined the Wing in the month of July, with Monsoons at its epitome; the open air auditorium was infested with gigantic mosquitoes, waiting in the wings and the rain capes provided them just the right vent to sneak in. We were issued the World War II DMP (Dimethyl Phthalate) oil, which was supposed to be mosquito repellent, unfortunately these pests had started to enjoy the aroma as they just went about relishing their favourite drink. Our rain capes, again WW II vintage, apart from increasing the weight did nothing to protect us from the torrential rains; rain water found its way through the arm cuts and through the opening for the neck and drenched us thoroughly. To top it all we had to suffer some of the most horrid boring movies.

At RIMC Dehradun, we got to watch 16 mm movies on the projector which was installed in the Bhagat Hall, then known as Convocation Hall. A fatso arrived in his car with the projector and the movie reels, generally we watched Laurel Hardy series of films, but occasionally we were shown some Westerns like, “My Name is Nobody” or even Hitchcock’s “Frenzy”. In senior terms we were permitted to go to Indian Military Academy to watch movies in Khetrapal auditorium. The only hitch was that 200 of us were packed into two Shaktimans (3 Ton lorry) like sardines and were almost suffocated by the time we reached IMA. But the movies were fun, as the auditorium was much better than our make-shift arrangement, where we had benches for seating. Moreover, we would march out just as the movies got over, we could overhear the Cadet Appointments getting on with the “fold your seats” routine…little realising…we too were destined to end up here itself on these very “folded seats” in due course.

Netaji

 Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose - the name strikes a chord of patriotism which lies buried deep in our sub-conscious somewhere. For our generation and those preceding ours, who were brought up on the staple diet of 26th January and 15th August brand of patriotic fervour he was always an icon, a legend but an enigmatic one. We were simply over awed by his sheer audacity at all levels starting from spurning the ICS to challenging Mahatma Gandhi himself by contesting and winning the Congress presidentship and then relinquishing it. His daring escape from Kolkata house arrest to Kabul is simply unbelievable and part of folklore. If that was not all, his vision in raising the INA and actually leading them in the war effort to rid the nation of the yoke of centuries of colonial rule will catapult him way ahead of his contemporaries in freedom struggle. Mind you that was an era when we had the leaders of the stature of Gandhiji himself Pt Nehru, Sardar Patel, Maulana Azad, Babu Rajendra Prasad,Rajaji each one a luminary in his own right not to forget Bhagat Singh, Azad and countless others who have been venerated by generations of grateful and not so grateful Indians.

But truly apart from Gandhiji it was only Netaji who not only charted a different course but had a following which rivalled that of the Mahatma himself. So much so that even Gandhiji had to literally force him to part ways as his leadership itself was threatened after the loss of his protégé in that landmark election in 1937. Naturally the aura around the man continued to grow even after his mysterious disappearance in the air crash as we were led to believe.

The moot question which Indians asked themselves was "what if Netaji was alive today". In other words they have been convinced all these years that had he been alive, the course of our nation would have been different and definitely better. We Indians have always been idol worshippers and towards this end, we invent gods even when there wasn't one at hand. There are a number of examples in the recent past where mere mortals have been venerated as gods, the host of Godmen past and present and even  Mrs Indira Gandhi in her hey days post 1971 or the PM Modiji fall in the same category. Netaji Bose was that kindle of hope for the masses, he was obviously God like in his demeanour and his persona oozed with a confidence which was rare in a colonised nation. 

He realised rather early, the limitations of the satyagraha model of freedom movement and was prepared to guide the destiny of the nation in his own revolutionary manner. Obviously the power struggle within the Congress Party ensued as the leadership was uncomfortable with a parallel power centre emerging, who had the charisma and aura to motivate and awaken the masses who were still in their slumber. Had he not been eased out of the Congress then, the course of history would have been different, there is no doubt about that. His subsequent forays with the Nazi and fascist regimes were obviously not inspired by their ideology but merely to get them to assist him in driving the British out. He did not kowtow to them but interacted with them as an equal convinced of the justness of the cause.

Netaji was not stuck in any groove, as is evident by his actions in raising the INA and subsequent assault on the British India. While he was inspired by the Socialist ideology, which was true every leader those days, after all, what do you expect from an impoverished colonised nation. Obviously, having been subjected to humiliation, exploitation and deprivation by the Britishers who represented the Capitalist Right and were at its forefront, Indian political leadership had to lean towards the Left. But the remarkable quality of Netaji was his intelligence, understanding the psyche of Indians and his quest for solutions which imbued him with that rare flexibility of mind, where only the cause mattered and the means were secondary. Although it would be a conjecture, but he would definitely have undertaken a course correction much earlier rather than drive us to our doom. 

Most importantly he was the alternative which the nation yearned for, a void which remains unfilled for all these years. 

Work from Home

 

‘Attend C’ or ‘Sick in Quarter’ were the most sought after categories sought from the Doctors on duty, during our Academy days or even as a youngster whenever there was an event which was to be skipped for some reason. What heavenly bliss it was, everyone dressing up and getting on with their daily drudgery, while the supposedly sick was cooling his heels in the bed, relaxing with a thermos full of tea and a couple of buns, listening to music on his transistor or walk-man. Alas, even that pleasure stands withdrawn now, Covid has brought upon untold miseries but the worst part is the ‘work from home’, with ubiquitous connectivity and availability of unlimited data… the last refuge too stands exposed and one is suddenly naked. After all home had privacy and no work; barring of course the files which the inefficient carried home after office hours(!)

Work from home sounded too good to be true, everyone presumed that their performance would get a fillip with this lockdown, as they could deliver more from the relaxed environs of home sweet home. There would be Tea/Coffee snacks available always, one could take a break as per convenience and the best part was there was no overbearing boss breathing down our neck with the unattainable deadlines. It started off alright, everyone was relaxed, the spouse too was happy to have help at hand for daily chores, especially after the maids too were working from their homes and they couldn’t do it virtually. Man of the house was happy to help, being chivalrous and the Gen X person, who was not overly concerned about the gender bender issues. So while the dishes were handled post meals in perfect harmony with almost clockwork efficiency. The mopping was a chore but had to be endured and could be managed even with alternate day effort, Jhadoo or the broomstick did become the personal weapon or accessory in days to come and no wonder, this tool was assigned as the ride of the witches, after all if you keep at it for too long, anyone would become one….Laundry was relatively easy, what with fully automatic machines ensuring even most of the drying effort too, not to forget ironing. As though this was not enough the battle with the groceries, milk, vegetables, eggs, bakery, although home delivered had to be waged and waged with the purifiers...each item had to be cleaned and sterilised…… most of us were already ready to get back to the regular office.

Well, the trouble had just started, now it was the turn of the office to ping for the video conference, which were now a daily affair which would just go on and on…..presentations, discussions, brain storming, virtual workshops dressed in our jockeys with just the upper torso visible, some wardrobe malfunctions when the camera played truant left some of us quite naked and embarrassed. At the end of the day, there was no brain left to be stormed, with no output…… as they say in Hindi, “Nau din chale aur dhai kos…”  having walked for nine days one moved just 2.5 kos which is approx. 7.5 kms, some speed and efficiency.

Even the poor students were not spared with on line classes and tests galore, the boundaries had blurred, home was school with the teachers on the screen and Moms hovering around, they were literally caught between the devil and the deep sea…..as to who was the devil, I will let the readers decide. We in the Armed forces, were spared this agony, for once we had the last laugh. With our age old procedures, there was no way we could work virtually, so we had to be there physically, even if in reduced strength or alternate days. We would proceed to our respective workplaces all decked up with the masks on observing social distancing….but thankfully not working from home!

Vaccination

Vaccination is the new buzz word, with the onset of the pandemic the race for vaccine had commenced, Russia was the first off the blocks to announce its Sputnik, but the most promising one appears to be AstraZeneca. This race is akin to a derby, where the punters are betting on their respective products, at stake is the multi-billion dollar earnings expected from the global vaccination of almost 7.8 billion plus. Adar Poonawala and his Serum Institute of India is at the forefront of this drive having tied up with Astra Zeneca. Bharat Biotech's indigenous Covaxin is not far behind.

Vaccination is the panacea against Corona that we all have waited for not so patiently, although the efficacy of these vials is yet to win the confidence of the general populace. We don't have a choice, no dilemma really.......but come to think of it, we never had any choice in the earlier vaccines too. Right from the time of our birth or should I say even before that, when the expectant mothers received their share of jabs to keep us safe even while we were supposedly safely ensconced in the uterus. The saga of vaccines actually commences with TT or Tetanus Toxoid, which is our first introduction to the vaccines through our mothers, of course. However, it is post our arrival that we are subjected to this inhuman torture, where our tiny little upper arms are pricked repeatedly at short intervals by the doctor or the nurses' needles for BCG, Hepatitis, DPT and MMR. This prick manifests itself later in life with the mortal scare of this medical fraternity, where many tigers are at their mercy. More often than not, it is the mothers who shed more tears than the new born infant on these occasions. The poor unsuspecting bloke is brought here, innocently and curiously gaping at everything, till the prick is delivered, shell shocked at this rather painful turn of events he can't reconcile nor forgive anyone associated with this crime. The worst part is, it is not a one off event, it just keeps recurring and doesn't let go even in our adulthood. Some of us have also been the recipient of the anti-rabies vaccine having annoyed the canines into digging into our flesh sometime or the other in our lives. It is all the more painful when it is your own pet, which is responsible. Pet parents are used to the yearly vaccinations for their dogs or cats. While most pets are trained and accept this ritual as one of those irritants which has to be endured, it wasn't so for Buddy, our Lab who would ensure that the Vets had to be changed every year with his antics, as once bitten the vets were not twice but always shy.

In the vernacular, vaccination is referred to as 'Tikakaran', which is similar to the tika applied on the forehead by the Pandit as a blessing on the forehead to arm you against evil eyes and bless you to be victorious. So tika actually is a life saver, as goes the punch line in the Oral Polio vaccine drive "Do boond zindagi ki". The most successful vaccination drive in the world which has eradicated Polio from our country. The success stories also include Small pox, which incidentally traces its origin to Cow pox, as Edward Jenner the pioneer of vaccines discovered and took fluid from the Cow pox blister to immunise the first kid against Small pox in 1798. In fact, the word vaccine itself owes its origin to 'Variole vaccinae' the term used for Cow pox... (Holy cow!)

In India vaccination is too huge an affair not to be politicised and so we have the BJP vaccine being derided and an SP vaccine promised to deliver. During the Emergency a drive for forced sterilisation was undertaken, referred to as 'Nasbandi', rendering the rural population especially vulnerable to these babus who had individual targets of sterilisation to achieve and for them every male young, adult or old was fair game. Sure enough rumour mongering against the supposed side effects of Covid vaccine resulting in impotence have started doing the rounds. The challenges thus are huge.

We in the armed forces have no option but to undergo this pin prick at regular intervals, the TAB, TT were administered whenever we ended up sustaining bruises or yearly during the Annual Medical Examination. The UN tenure is preceded by hosts of vaccines, as Africa is home to many ailments such as Yellow Fever apart from the usual TAB, TT, DPT etc.

The vaccination drive rolled out from 16th Jan. I was wondering as to why should it roll as rolls for we in the Army signifies the commencement of yet another session of 'ragda'. It always started with innocuous "get rolling"; as a reflex action even today after almost four decades, hearing the word 'roll' immediately beckons us to get rolling...wonder why vaccines have to roll out, why can't they just walk, run, jump, dive or crawl. Unlike the academy where one could front roll and back roll or dive roll, here it is just roll out, i.e. there is no turning the clock back, once the deed is done you are on a roll.... hurrah no more masks, social distancing or any other restrictions, the world is desperately hoping to restore the status quo ante!

 

LOVE JIHAD

 'Love jihad' is an oxymoron like the 'wise fool', although "All is fair in love and war"; obviously this 'love yudh' or 'ishq jihad' is highly unfair, as decreed by the powers that be. We shall soon criminalise these cupid struck wannabe 'Love jihadis'. So will this then be a dharm yudh against jihad.....Holy crusades(!). 

Apparently this term was coined after a few cases of forced conversions  post inter religion marriages were reported, although nobody has been convicted so far. It has suddenly started raining Laws and Ordinances criminalising this crime of passion. I wonder whether the lovelorn damsels will gather the courage to hum "Pyar kiya to darna kya...." as crooned  by Madhubala in Mughal-e Azam challenging the might of  Akbar in the Diwan-e-Aam. The powers that be would like to believe, "What's love got to do with it.....after all it is just a second hand emotion", with due apologies to Tina Turner.

As wise men have correctly ordained that "Marriage is the only war where you get to sleep with the enemy". I am sure the idea of Love jihad has been conceived by bachelors who are blissfully ignorant that marriage itself is a jihad and it makes no exceptions. It does not discriminate between Love jihadis or loveless jihadis (obviously the rest of us belong to the latter). After all what exactly is jihad? It is supposed to be one's struggle with oneself with a praiseworthy aim i.e. we must vanquish the evil that is within us for our spiritual salvation. Marriage invariably acts as a motivating factor towards our quest for Moksha.

Currently such inter religion marriages are solemnised  under the Special marriage act, the act which makes the elders in the family react rather violently, at times ending up in what is normally referred to as honour killings. The word "honour" though is left squirming in the dictionaries for such blatant misuse of its noble intent , after all any such killing is the most heinous and dishonourable act.

Maradona, God bless his soul, decreed "All is fair in love, war and football" with his infamous 'Hand of God' goal against England in 1986 Soccer World Cup. In India Football would have be substituted by Cricket. But this jihad business is definitely not cricket. 

Love is sacred, let us not ruin it... As the lyrics in "Khamoshi" old Hindi movie go..."सिर्फ़ एहसास है ये रूह से महसूस करो, प्यार को प्यार ही रहने दो कोई नाम न दो"

Confused Chanakya(!)

Consequent to the latest round of Sino Indian LAC standoff, I am contemplating changing my profile,  I can no longer  be a "Confused Confucious", that is obviously anti-national, I could be a Confused Chanakya or  Cunning Chanakya, or may be even Keen Kautilya even at the cost of being labelled as a "Keen kumar", a title reserved for the jumping jacks in their professional lives, who are the initiative types, the guys who suck up to the bosses(!)  But Confucious oh No; God save me from the wrath of the troll army, who have earned notoriety of an exceptionally high order in such a short time frame, you see, short time again, with such short fuses too, they can take an offence to anything at all. No one is safe from the wrath of the Troll brigades which are unleashed on the PM, RaGa  to Big B and just about anybody else. The other day the Big B himself was at the receiving end with his set of questions in the KBC. 

 Confused Confucious at least added to the confusion, with Chanakya it could be chants, as Chanakya could never ever be confused(!), but unfortunately Ashwin Sanghi has already usurped that title for his novel Chanakya's Chant. That would be blatant plagiarism, moreover state of confusion is bliss and I wouldn't like to clear it either. We honed the skill of "doping" in NDA (nothing political about this NDA, I am referring to the original National Defence Academy Khadakwasla). No not the narco variety of doping, else the NCB would be on my heels before I can finish this "dope act" of mine, nor the sportsmen type  usage of performance enhancing drugs, nor does it have anything to do with the Chemical bonding by doping as done in the silicon chips. Doping when used as a slang, it could mean a "fool". The dope acts in our second term in NDA were a deliberate put on act to fool the seniors into believing that we had goofed up owing to our ignorance, in the most innocent  'bechara' type facial expression. More often than not, it worked, we did get away with murder literally.

The trouble with these Chinese are that they have a long term vision and they have no concern for the short term whatsoever, whereas we have traditionally been myopic, surviving from one day to the next, "living in the moment", already in a state of Nirvana since times immemorial. Naturally we are at a loss as to why are these guys afflicted with this "Long term" malaise, why can't everyone be like us, you see the Pakis, they only think of today and may be dream of the morrow when they have their rendezvous with the 72 virgins but nothing beyond that. In any case all these grandiose plans actually come to a nought. See all those Five year plans, where have they landed us. Had the Planning Commission been scrapped ab initio do you think we would have been any worse, so why this charade..... as it is we have been blundering along from one crisis to another. But with the Chinese, we have really developed it into an art form, whether it was the 'Annexation of Tibet' or the 'permanent seat in Security Council', "Hindi Chini bhai bhai"  leading to the 62 debacle  to the 'Wuhan spirit' ending up without any fizz in Doklam - Galwan. It is obvious we don't have a clue ......

Anyway getting back to the 'Long and Short' of this vision business, my hunch is that it has something to do with their short physical stature, being rather short in height they make up for it by strategising over the long term or may be it is their eyes being small , which empower them with this unique quality. Not that we are Goliaths by any standards, but compared to our Northern neighbours, we are definitely endowed with a couple of inches more in the  vertical domain. Confucious has to be jettisoned for sure. Any suggestions.....