Juvenile

 Calling a person "Juvenile" was not supposed to be a compliment and was considered derogatory for any teenager, naturally every teenager resents it. He likes to be treated as an adult, oh yes we all have been through that stage of life when testosterone commences its magic act. From an awkward child who was trying to come to terms with life, when he learns William Wordsworth's famous, "Child is the father of man" and starts believing in it literally. No wonder he actually wants to be a "Baap" everywhere, although he goes about threatening all and sundry with, "Tum jante nahin mera baap kaun hai!" Master Agarwal didn't probably need to do even that, his Porsche did the talking as the police and the Juvenile Justice Board immediately understood the gravity of the moolah involved in such an accident. He was not only offered Pizza in the Police Station but was granted bail within a mere 15 hours of the act.

Juvenile act of the Juvenile Justice Board can be pardoned as I presume it is 'the company that you keep', would have probably impacted the decision making. But one punishment which has been meted out I think is downright cruel and smells of vendetta is Essay Writing. Imagine the plight of the young educated upwardly mobile juvenile being asked to write an essay of all things. The brat wouldn't have written more than a proper sentence since his early school days, the emojis and abbreviated lingo used for texting has met his requirement of any kind of written or rather keyed in communication. Wait a minute, even that would more likely have been swiped as the predictive text would have done the needful. I just hope the JJB was considerate enough to permit use of ChatGPT, the universal saviour in such dire circumstances. But going by the mood of the public at large, that may not be the case and hence the worry. 

The penance also includes a fortnight of assisting the  traffic police and undergoing treatment with a psychiatrist. Treatment with a psychiatrist is perfectly fine, a session in the comfort of air conditioner with a shrink is highly manageable. The traffic police part could be a little bit of a bugbear; in case he lands up being deputed on the roadside, as the heat will not only end up tanning his well preserved body but may even end up in a heat stroke. But then, the nature of assistance not having been defined leaves quite a bit of ambiguity, hence the assistance obviously will be rendered in the air conditioned control room, munching on his favourite pizzas with coke thrown in, as chilled beer will not pass muster being office premises.

Snuffing out lives is akin to stubbing the joint so what's the big deal? Master Agarwal would naturally be used to stomping the vermin at home, here the size of these lowly creatures was slightly larger but then they dare cross his path that too when he is on the wheel in his Porsche. He was pleasurably high, not drunk, may be just a bottle of single malt, that doesn't make him a drunk by any stretch of imagination. He was drunk alright, but not on the liquor which he consumed that night, he was 'intoxicated with power' with the 'power of money'. For once his juvenility has turned out to be a boon. I am sure he must be now taking pride in the fact that he is after all a juvenile. He will prefer to stay one all his life if his father could pull it off, may be he can, who knows?

Caps Cups and Wine Bottles

 Our headgear is our pride, that is what we all have been taught. So much so that even religious rituals require us to cover our heads. The turban actually adds to the persona of the individual and is not just another fashion accessory.  So a Sikh will tolerate anything but when it comes to his turban, he will not tolerate any disrespect whatsoever. Kings and queens on coronation are also crowned, in the Army too the hat, berets and caps are respected and shown due deference. Our uniforms in any case are our pride, and we can't conjure an image where a soldier is without an appropriate chapeau or his helmet in the battlefield. The topee protects us from the vagaries of the weather and for baldies like me it provides us the much needed cover as the Almighty chose to reward us with a shining pate instead of a flock of hair. In winters we can't afford to step outside without our mandatory woollen caps. Since most of us have been fans of Hollywood Westerns we have acquired our stetsons and felts in addition to our usual repertoire of headgears.  But these days our hatstands are overflowing and there is practically no space for the collection of assortment of different kinds of caps, hats and topee.

The reason is, in our exuberance as good hosts we have now made this almost an unwritten writ where a visiting guest is presented a cap as a memorabilia. So wherever you go you return with some unique caps, these caps have their specific identities such as the formation sign, regimental or training academy insignia, school crests and so on. These days we have added stars to the caps as if the brass on the shoulders and the flags on the cars were not enough. Since the customised caps have these details embroidered or printed they can't be further gifted away nor can these be discarded lest they land up with any Tom, Dick or Harry who adorn them without realising their worth demeaning the pride associated with them. I must be having almost about a hundred of them with me, with a steel trunk specifically assigned for it. I am sure most veterans would be facing a similar predicament.

Like the Caps, there is another item which is again available in plenty, the crested mugs. Initially these were a novelty when we realised a printed customised mug which could have our photographs or regimental insignias printed they were a collector's item. But again this item too was picked up as an appropriate gift article for any visitor and then the floodgates opened. There are only a finite number of such mugs which we can display in the showcases, some can be used for our daily cuppa of coffee or tea, but the rest again have to be kept wrapped in the packing material lest they be damaged. Our cups and caps have between them a complete zoo and armoury as also the family album. Zoo because they depict most of Army Formation Signs from Elephant to Eagle, Owl to Tiger, we have them all. Armoury needs no explanation, Tridents, Swords, Tanks, Guns, Drones, Ships, Submarines and Aircrafts all find their pride of place. 

We also collect many mementos which are presented to us when we serve with a unit or formation  before demitting office. These are sort of well deserved and have an association as well, but then as is the practice that whenever a senior officer visits a unit or formation he is presented with the unit/formation memento. This memento is presented  to the appointment and not to the individual and some of us do give it to the office itself but then how many such mementos can be housed there as well. As the formation/unit insignia doesn't change but the senior officer changes every two years on an average.

Apart from all these memorabilia there is another item which is gifted but that is by the visiter to our homes. As youngsters when we called on senior officers we normally carried flowers and chocolates for their kids. Wine bottles were not easily available nor were they so affordable. Times have changed now, having watched lots of Hollywood movies and sitcoms, the practice of carrying a wine bottle has become a norm. Homegrown Sula wines are easily available but if we want this to be classy a Jacob's Creek or Champagne is chosen, for special occasions Single Malt is the order of the day.  Host a party and collect wine bottles by scores, which then stay wrapped in their packaging more often than not, to be gifted away. Thankfully these can easily be gifted away as there are no regimental sentiments associated with them. 

Is it time we take stock and curtail this gift culture, instead may be gift books, ideas and just pleasantries which may go a long way!

To vote or NOTA vote

 To vote or NOTA vote that is the question. Recently I saw a video clip in which the English Dramatic Society had many dramatis personae including King Charles himself getting on the stage to wax eloquent on their perception of the famous quote from Hamlet, "To be or not be".The stress on different words conveyed a different meaning to the statement, e.g. "To be or not to be is THE question" is totally different from "To be OR not to be is the question". But when it comes to voting there is no dilemma, no confusion just simple straight forward, "To vote or NOTA vote" either ways you go and press the button of the much reviled EVM. Incidentally this time around I made sure the VVPAT was functioning I saw my vote delivered to the symbol which I pressed and also saw the slip fall into the box. That leaves no doubt in my mind about the integrity of the EVM.

We faujis have to sacrifice quite a few of our fundamental rights while in service of the motherland, which many of our countrymen do not quite understand. The first one is ‘Freedom of Speech’ itself and even our Right to exercise our franchise to elect our representative is curtailed as on many an occasions we are deployed on the border, in difficult areas and have been unable to vote. Although technically we were supposed to be receiving our postal ballots, but in my 37 years of service only once I received the postal ballot that too in the 2019 elections. But I am a conscientious citizen and despite the handicaps, have made it a point to vote when I could, once when I was on leave in Indore almost three decades ago, then when the ruling was received that we can register ourselves as voters at our place of posting and cast our votes there itself, I did that in Delhi and Ranchi. I have been a vocal proponent of this policy of registering at our place of posting. Although there were lots of reservations in the minds of our jawans as many of them hail from a rural background that deletion of their names from electoral rolls in their villages is tantamount to being outcasted, their claims to ancestral property and their social standing in the villages would all get compromised. But in a democracy it is the vote bank which decides which way the wind blows and despite such huge numbers we, whether in service or later as veterans do not constitute a vote bank as some castes or minorities are, where political parties bend over backwards to appease them. Without such a demonstrable force to reckon with, our demands are normally put on the back-burner, One Rank One Pension was one such issue till we got some redressal at the hands of the present govt. There are many other issues which are yet to be addressed but without the votes none of these will see the light of the day be rest assured.

This time around when the time came we in our individual capacity ensured that we registered ourselves  and were eagerly awaiting our turn to participate in this festival of democracy as proud citizens. Then came the dampener, when the main rival candidate from Congress withdrew his nomination on the last day leaving the field open for the sitting MP from Indore. Anyone who has played any game would vouch for it, that a walkover does not give the winner any pleasure, the taste of the cake lies in defeating your opponent, like knocking him out in Boxing or getting the star batsman clean bowled by a deadly yorker length ball or a smashing down the line passing shot beating the opponent at the net. Here the fight was reduced to a single horse race and other than crying foul we could do precious little or may be press NOTA and express our disappointment. Thankfully today when I went to vote I realised that we were part of the Dhar-Mhow constituency and here we had the rival parties candidates seriously contesting the elections. Although there was no canvassing, may be being a military cantonment town it was subdued but the fight was very much live. So here we are, my father a very senior octogenarian in the lead, having gone ahead, done our duty, thankfully no NOTA as one of the candidates in my mind deserved my vote.

Vasudhaiv Kutumbkam ( All the world is a family)

 I heaved a sigh of relief, thank God, I belong to the Heart of India the state of Madhya Pradesh, once part of the infamous BIMARU states, now proudly boasts of the cleanest city in the country since last seven years on the trot. I have always loved my birthplace and the state that I belong to, I am sure most of you too would be equally attached to your native places. But this is not something which we go about shouting from rooftops, but today I actually was tempted to do it. There is a reason for this elation, after all no other than Mr Sam Pitroda has bestowed this honour of being true blue Indians. Now don't be a spoilsport by quoting his exact statement, but if you insist, the North East people are Chinese, Western part are Arabs, Northerns are Whites and Southerners are Africans, so where does that leave us the Hindustan ka Dil obviously he meant we are the only original ones, rest are well ...leave it at that. Satyanarayan Gangaram Pitroda, aka Sam Pitroda himself is a Gujrati born in Odisha, no wonder his looks are a little mixed up between an Arab (West) and Chinese (East) although Odisha is not classically South but then some African link too is visible, remember Gondwana.

But then we misunderstand Sam, he is an evolved person, in a state of Nirvana, on the lines of Nityananda, the Guru with his own United State of Kailasa; pearls of wisdom which emerge from them are worth their weight in Gold. They must keep at it and we must seek an IPR on these gospels as someday we could convert it in actual gold and distribute it to address the concerns of inequality and inheritance at the same time. 

Sam is a true believer in Vasudhaiv Kutumbkam,   'all the world is a family' philosophy and so he dives deep into the hearts and souls of his countrymen and discovers these hidden traits which we inherited when our ancestors were the citizens of the Gondwana Super continent which comprised Africa, India, Australia, Antarctica and South America some 200 million years ago. We have all been taught about 'Unity in Diversity' as the hallmark of our nationhood, but then these days the diversity has assumed the pole position and there are diverse number of views on how diverse are we. religion, caste, creed, gender, language, region, food and what have you. Here Sam was just making an honest attempt at bridging this divide, in his Yankee way by simply making the differences more international as that would at least look classy and not desi. Unfortunately he forgot that the foreign hand which was the bogey in the 70s is still not  welcomed with open arms, so how naive of him to expect a Jadu ki Jhappi.

He is also a proponent of Yoga and practises it religiously, especially one particular asana, the "Pad-mukh-asana"which when translated  in simple English is "Foot in the Mouth" syndrome. All his gaffes over the years are characterised by this unique asana which he has mastered over the years. His cup has runneth over, enough damage for this round. Until next time, Sam, not sure what salutation would please him, African or Chinese so sticking to good old French Au revoir!

Wardrobe Woes

 Wardrobe malfunction, the term arouses interest and voyeurs immediately start scouting for the graphic details. Well well, it is just a piece of cloth and not the complete wardrobe by any account, then why this term? A distant cousin of the celebrity term wardrobe malfunction is the "wardrobe dilemma". You must be wondering as to how come this sudden interest in wardrobes and their functions. Actually it was one of those evenings when we were getting dressed for a party and typically the mistress of the house was aghast that she did not have one piece of clothing which fitted the bill. I normally steer clear and stay out of harm's way on such occasions but then sometimes one's brain decides to play the fool and then we land up in a mess of our own creation. So I piped in, you have hundreds of saris, scores of dresses and suits and still the wardrobe plays truant with you. May be you are spoilt for choice, we men folk just pick up whatever, with no qualms about matching colours or combinations and walk out in a jiffy. An overflowing wardrobe and still the appropriate dress for the occasion is nowhere to be found. Reminds me of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem "Rime of Ancient Mariner", "Water water everywhere not a drop to drink!" While I was getting into a literary mood, the better half wanted to get physical, the Newton's Third Law kicked in immediately and the rebuttal which followed was something like this, "You have spent all your life in uniform, when you didn't have to make any choices, you were ordered to put on a particular dress and you followed it in letter and spirit. So much so that for even social occasions there is a diktat in terms of the attire so what do you know about the "wardrobe dilemmas". It is not just the dress, the matching accessories and the fact that the item should not have been worn in this station, else it will be construed that the lady has a very limited choice and is forced to repeat her dresses. Now that suggestion itself is calamitous, so we have no choice but to be extra cautious and then the poverty is attributable to you directly as you haven't provided me with even these bare necessities of life. So to keep your honour in tact we have to choose wisely."

I was chastised and wiser, should have kept my mouth shut, forgetting  that 'wisdom is better part of the valour'. Having beaten a hasty retreat, I thought this wardrobe malfunction needs to be researched a little, no not the episodes which are dime a dozen and more often than not these are typically publicity stunts. I was keen to study the coinage of the term and how come it was adopted when it is just a piece of stitched cloth which has failed in its duty to cover a vital part of the human anatomy. It was 2004 and during Grammy awards it was Justin Timberlake who subjected Janet Jackson to this ignominy. Not that the performance was effected, just that the viewership went up couple of notches. But mind you this was not the first occasion when the slip slid away, this was the first time that the term was used and adopted thereafter by the media. It seemed more fashionable than a mere 'tear in the dress' or as I said earlier 'slip sliding away'. 

Our Wardrobe woes are of a different kind, brasso and polish, medals and ribands, ceremonial attires so on and so forth thankfully there is no scope for dilemmas or  malfunctions.

Fakes are dark and deep

 

Deep Faking has catapulted the subtle art of faking to new exalted levels from its humble con-acts origins. Faking is as old as mankind, we all have faked or feigned injuries, head aches, stomach aches and generally managed to get away easily. These were childish acts more for fun and to skip an ordeal more often than not. There were some amongst us who were born to con but had landed up in the academies by default. These fake artists could fool almost anyone and everyone with their genuine innocent looks. Women are known to be quite adept in this art themselves, from the jewellery to headaches to the big "O" they can fake anything. They can successfully put on an act anytime, anywhere. The complete film industry is a fake industry, all the actors are faking it to make them look as original as they can convince us into believing. After all, we know there are no super heroes, they fake it and we gullible lot believe it.

Then there are painters, whose classics are faked and even these imitations are almost as good as the original. Many of us settle for Hussains, Rembrandt or Von Gogh  copies as we can't afford the originals. Who hasn't seen soccer players faking injuries to earn a penalty or to ensure that  the referee shows their, not so innocent opponent a red card. Faking, dodging, side stepping are all part of the moves which a pugilist indulges in to keep his opponent guessing. In politics too faking it is part of the curriculum. The politicians have to convince the voters by hook and more often by crook to bite the bullet. A fish gets hooked once it opens its mouth, ironically here it is the politician who keeps his mouth open but it is the voter who gets caught by the bait.

But all this faking is mere child's play in front of the colossus which is staring us in the face today, "deep fake". If faking was human, deep faking is artificial, obviously I mean Intelligence. It is the advent of AI which has given birth to this new monster where it is impossible to distinguish between a ‘real’ and a ‘fake’ and mind you it is not just a still photograph but a walking talking video with exact diction and pauses, fooling even the supposed speaker. A deep fake is the product of a complex set of algorithms, one is a generator and the other a discriminator. As the name suggests generator generates the images, audio, video etc and the discriminator is the critique who studies it from all angles and compares it with the data base to check how close it is to the original. There are a number of iterations cycle and finally the output is as good as an original one, except that it is a fake. Unfortunately this precision does not augur well for the society as has been proven a countless number of times that they can fall prey to any such propaganda. 

We Indians can stake a claim to the greatest acts of these deep fakes, remember, in Mahabharata Shri Krishna faked the sunset to get Jaidrath killed by Arjuna. Imagine if someone like Goebbels had access to these deep-fakes, he would have convinced the allies also into believing in Nazism. A common man, as it is believes everything peddled on whats app university to be gospel, now it will be next to impossible to convince him that this propaganda is malicious.  Election time the deep fake machinery is hard at work, Aamir Khan, Ranveer Singh have already lodged complaints. Photoshopped images were a precursor to this master artwork and it will be quite a task for even the cyber sleuths to crack these cases as they inundate the social media. 

Wonder why was it christened Deep Fake when it could have been Ultra Fake or Big Fake. Pockets used to be deep, now fakes are, may be the legacy of Deep Throat the legendary informant in the infamous Watergate Scandal has something to do with it. After all it disgraced the high and mighty President Richard Nixon forcing him to tender his resignation. Deep Fakes too have the potential to slay many a Goliath. With due apologies to Robert Frost,

The fakes are scary dark and deep

We have our sanity to keep

And way to go for the quantum leap

And way to go for the quantum leap!!!

PS Guess what even I had to resort to a little bit of faking the content regulator, as initially when I posted the blog with the topic "deep fakes" it was listed as with an advisory of suspicion of being of  malicious nature. Then good old NDA technique was utilized, just tinkered with the title and lo and behold, it passed muster.

For want of a Nail

Nails and hair spare no one, they grow and need to be cut to size, I am obviously referring to the male of the species. Females as we are aware, let these grow to the peril of others, although long tresses have been considered an object of beauty since ages. Many a poets especially Urdu and Hindi variety have compared them to the dark clouds, serpents and what not. Nails on the other hand when grown do make the shape of the hand more shapely probably that is the reason girls decide to grow them long. No wonder Salons make quite a killing with their pedicure and manicure procedures. In fact these days nail art itself is quite a business. Although it must be quite a painstaking exercise for the person concerned as also her near and dear ones, after all a finely chiselled nail can be more than just a nuisance. I know I am in dangerous territory here when I am referring to this piece of  human anatomy but then a little bit of flirting with danger is the spice of life. An extended palm with the sharp nails grown long can be quite a deadly weapon, if it is aimed at the jugular. Guess what, mostly these are painted bright red, the colour of blood, signs are ominous. Even otherwise just a brush with them can leave you scarred, so don't mess with them.

 Be that as it may, thankfully my better half is not fond of grown nails, she clips them and files them short. I was reminded of this business with nails as I was hunting for the nail cutter. This is an accessory which we just can't do without. Like short crewcut hairstyle that we have sported all our lives, our nails too have remained as short as they can be. Any growth has to be immediately tackled and if the nail cutter does the missing trick then it's a calamity. We turn the house upside down looking for it and will only rest when either it is found or a new one replaces it to give the fingers some relief. I got stuck rather badly once, travelling abroad for the first time, the security check staff at the airport found my nail cutter in the toilet bag. I was asked to hand that over and that was the last I saw of that exquisite Made in Korea piece which had given me good service for almost a decade plus. I protested vehemently as during domestic air travel, those days they did not check nail cutters and on an odd occasion even the moustache trimming scissors could also scrape through. They promptly showed me the picture where a nail cutter was a prohibited item in the cabin baggage. Now come to think of it hijackers have been known to use innovative means to coerce and scare the crew into submission, but granting the lowly nail cutter such an exalted status as a weapon seemed ridiculous to me. Some of you may recall the hijacking of Indian Airlines plane  by Pandey duo in protest against arrest of Mrs Gandhi in 1978. The weapons used were a Cricket ball and a toy pistol. 

As a result I was stuck in this francophone country Cote d'Ivoire trying to find a nail cutter, quite a herculean task, as the growing nails do tend to become quite an obsession and we constantly are looking at them apprehensively as though they would unleash a spate of terror. I finally found one though not as good as the one which landed up in the bin at the airport. We can't imagine using any other sharp object in lieu for this purpose. The old timers didn't need nail clippers, they could use razor blades or they would wait for the hairdressers to do the needful, especially the tough ones, the toe nails. 

Nails protect the fingers, are called skin appendages and are made up of alpha-keratin, but the other nails which are metallic are equally important as you would recall, "For want of a nail the kingdom was lost". Before this becomes the "last nail in the coffin", I better stop, whether I have nailed it or not, is for you to decide....