The Ultimate Friendship

Update: This post is one of the winners in the Blogadda Friends Forever Contest.
This post is in response to the Blogadda Friends Forever Contest of August 2010. This contest has been sponsored by Pring00.

We had'nt met for 15 years and yet when the call came - I was thrilled. He had been a good friend when we were training together at the military academy. But since completing training and being posted to our different regiments, we had not been in touch. Those were the pre-internet, pre-social networking and pre-mobile days. STD calls were always made after 2000 hours to avail the 1/2 rate or ideally after 2200 hours to avail the 1/4th rate. 

But today, his was a distress call - his pregnant wife was stranded due to landslides in the tiny hill station where I was posted and could I do something about it? Of course I could and in an hours time I had located the lady and brought her to our guest room and put her up for the two days till the roads opened up.

As she left, I could not help but feel good about the fact that I managed to help a friend. The friendship that one develops in the face of adversity transcends all. The bonding, cameraderie and espirit de corps that soldiers acquire is a result of the long, arduous and gruelling training. The hours spent together rolling in the muck, climbing ropes, suffering torturous punishments creates a special feeling that one cherishes only after the event.

We were there - friends - abusing, coaxing, cajoling each other over our respective weaknesses till the last day in academy.

My civilian friends often ask me why are men in the army ready to lay down their lives for the nation? What motivates them?

What I tell them is that for the soldier there is no nation, no patriotism, no fluttering tricolour - these are too lofty and impersonal ideals for the lowly soldier. At the end of the day, each man fights for the man on his left and the man on his right.

And that is The Ultimate Friendship.

It would be a long while before my friend and I spoke again, both struggling in the daily grind. But both of us were secure in the knowledge that we would always be there for each other in times of need - as friends should, because we were Friends Forever.

First Anniversary Post: One year of blogging!

It started with this post. One year, 14 friends and followers, 35 posts and 945 visitors later...as they say ' I am loving it'.

Here's why:

I love writing and I love to know what people think about my writing. (Hint: Comments!)

I love to interact with other people - across the blog.

I enjoy the sense of recording things for posterity.

In my blog I can truly be myself.

It gives me an outlet - to take out my feelings.

Here's to many more years of blogging.

Wish me luck folks.

Gender Bender Moments: Second Attempt

During my first attempt at writing Gender Bender Moments, I, as a friend would say - 'bhawnao main behe giya' ! As a result I put down only two points against the authorised ten. A deficiency of eight. So this post is to make amends for that. Starting from the beginning.

My Sins Against Gender Stereotypes.

1. I have done embroidery once and loved it. Really found in therapeutic under the circumstances.

2. Written a book on Women and Peacekeeping! Hope to get it published someday soon.

3. I wear orange coloured running shoes! And that construes a gender stereo-type violation for me.

4. I love cooking and rue that I don't cook more often. My speciality - the BBQ.
5. Invariably when watching sentimental scenes I get this speck of dust in my eyes and they start watering over. And when I try to surreptitiously wipe of the water, I get accused by my wife of getting senti ;-)

6. I am all for women driving and especially for putting the car back into the garage at night. But seriously I believe all women should be able to drive - it is essential - how else will the men be able to get back from parties stone drunk with all the breathalyser tests nowadays.

7. I absolutely detest cricket. Absolutely. I am football guy.

8. I can clear the table after a meal better and faster than anyone else in the house - and I enjoy doing it - when I do it that is!

9. I actually believe in women's rights and not just in their wrongs.

10. I can catch snakes - even poisonous ones with my bare hands etc - BUT i am absolutely petrified of uncomfortable with cockroaches.

There. That's done with. Now I tag Witty Jester Sreekanth Arpana ...more when I come across them.

An Ode to the Enfield of India by Gregory David Roberts in 'Shantaram'

Gregory David Roberts, author of the international bestseller 'Shantaram', has in this book written a beautiful tribute to the Enfield Bullet.

As a loyal Bullet afficiando, it is my proud privilege and honour to reproduce the relevant portion here. 

The Enfield of India 350cc Bullet was a single-cylinder, four stroke motorcycle, constructed to the plans of the original 1950s' model of the British Royal Enfield. Renowned for its idiosyncratic handling as much as for its reliability and durability, the Bullet was a bike that demanded a relationship with its rider. That relationship involved tolerance, patience, and understanding on the part of the rider. In exchange, the Bullet provided the kind of soaring, celestial, wind-weaving pleasure that birds must know, punctuated by not infrequent near-death experiences. 

 This paragraph can be found on page 501 of the book and very simply and succinctly sums up the Bullet and it's rider. 


This blog, incidentally, started as a result of the new Enfield Thunderbird Twinspark that I purchased last year. Prior to the Thunderbird, I had a 1979 Standard Enfield 350cc. Read my blog posts about the bikes and also how I trained my Labrador to ride on the older Bullet.

[Note: The snap has been taken from http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/79/Royal_Enfield_Bullet.JPG]

Gender Bender Moments: Of peacekeeping and cross-stitch

Purba tells me I have been tagged - and how? Pardon my cyber-challenged soul, but I take it that her comment on my blog, in response to my request in her blog is IT. That's how I have been tagged. Purba - do let me know if I am missing something while I let you know what a good gender-neutral soul I am!

1. I have done embroidery - once - and loved it!  Never got around to doing it again though.

This was 2002, sitting on the LOC, pre-ceasefire days, company commander of a company famous for the hostile company we had opposite us. I can't remember how it was I got the set - this was one of the Anchor Cross-Stitch sets which came with a  proper printed design and exactly the right quantity and colour of threads a needle and an instruction manual too! But there it was lying on the desk in my bunker. It was past mid-night and I had finished checking the guards and returned to my 'room' and flopped down into the chair. Life had been a mess over the past few weeks and we were exchanging tons of lead with our friends across the border. At night the borderscape was needled with long streaks of lights as the tracer rounds reached out at each other searching for the one moment of complacency to convert another soul into a figure - a statistical figure - 'one killed in enemy firing'. The constant chatter of the guns were almost conversational in tone as we responded to the enemy response to our response to...ad infinitum. Casualties had happened though luckily not under my command. We stayed awake at nights - moods were foul - tempers were high - men were armed and dangerous and jittery. Our friends across had made a few attempts to surprise us, but again, luckily - and luck is an amazing factor in warfare - we had come out with only wounded egos.

It was in this setting I opened the pack and started threading the needle. The design, if I remember correctly, was a flower pot. I started laboriously plunging the needle into the stiff starched fabric snaking the shiny coloured twine into and out of the mosaic of holes...only to look up an hour later when my buddy walked in with the mandatory cup of coffee. It was 3AM and the waft of well made coffee jolted me into the present. The disciplined Gorkha face did not give away a hint of the amusement he must have felt as he served me the steaming hot mug. The amusement would happen tomorrow morning when he shared this information with his friends in the langar - cookhouse - that the 'saab' was losing it; he was stitching clothes in his bunker. Now things were too serious for jest. I got up and stretched - and realised the design was half done. But now I had to take a break to go and check the guards. Winter nights stretch over 14 hours and guards have a hard time concentrating on their watch. This hot drink served twice and sometimes even thrice a night was essential to ensure everyone had something to look forward to during his duty. It kept people awake.

Twenty minutes later I was back at the desk and furiously stitching away. Now I was gunning for the finish - I knew if I did not complete it at this sitting, it would join the list of umpteen things that I have tried to do and never completed! Seven AM. I got up from the desk, sore but triumphant. I had done it. I still have it somewhere - in some old trunk. In case I do find it, I intend to frame it.

I sometimes wonder, why I enjoyed the experience so much. Probably because it was novel (for me), it was contrarian - cross-stitch would definitely not be looked upon as a militarily positive pasttime, it took my mind off from the crescendo of the guns, it probably gave my mind some rest - even when the mind was working.

It was one helluva therapeutic experience.

2. I have written a book - yet to be published - on (hold your breath) Women & Peacekeeping! Man I definitely deserve whatever you give to guys who have broken the frontiers in gender bending.

This is a bit funny. I was trying to find a particular topic for my dissertation in Staff College. The subject allotted was peacekeeping and we had to suggest what it was about peacekeeping that we would cover. Since I was late, all the other current and glamorous topics such as Peacekeeping Failures and Impact of Peacekeeping etc had been taken. As a result I landed up with Women and Peacekeeping.When the topics allotted were announced, there was a roar of laughter was my topic was read out. The usual jokes started off - how can you have women and peace in the same sentence et al. So there I was, left holding the baby that no one wanted!

When I started researching my topic, I found there was virtually NIL material in our (Indian) context. All the available stuff was by Western authors. Then as I read what they had written, I realised that it was all academic - no 'authority' who had written about the gender equality and women's issues had actually participated in peacekeeping. They were learned professors and distinguished personnel - but very few had what I had - ground experience.

Now just the year prior to this course I had completed a one year stint in D.R. Congo where I had some horrendous experiences related to women's issues. Imagine, my Bosnian team leader and I were interviewing three women who had apparently been raped by 30 soldiers, through an interpreter, and we were all males. And the interview was essential to file a report so that some modicum of justice could be squeezed out of the otherwise defunct Congolese judicial system. And there were many more such experiences.

So when I realised that I knew more of the ground realities than some of the experts, I decided to put my heart and soul into it. At that stage it was just for the marks and to do a good job. Unfortunately, I realised later, that I had become a victim of gender-stereotyping myself. Friends told me to forget about good marks with a topic such as mine! Anyhow, I completed my course, submitted my dissertation and forgot about it.

A year back I decided to convert the paper into a book. Work began in earnest and lo and behold, someone has agreed to publish it. It still remains to be seen whether it gets published as a book or a research paper.

So there you have it.

Not much, only two Gender Bender instances.

Wait a minute - this was supposed to be a funny post - humour etc. Sorry folks, the humour seems to have slinked away from this post...will try and retrieve it for another day.

Thanks.

Please COMMENT freely and frankly.

Age is just a number

I bumped into my father's friend and colleague, Lt Col (Retd) Sohan Roy, ex-Kumaon Regiment, in Ladakh in Jun this year. He had come from Jorhat in Assam, to ride a Royal Enfield Classic and ride from Delhi to Rezang La and back, via Srinagar (not an easy task).

Rezang La is the site of the famous last stand of the Ahirs of 'Charlie' Company of the 13 Kumaon during the Sino-Indian War in 1962. C Company was led by Major Shaitan Singh, who posthumously won a Param Vir Chakra for his actions.

This post pays obeisance to two things.

One, the spirit of adventure and a fantastic never-say-die attitude by Col Roy who is 62 years old. He epitomizes the Kumaonis of Rezang La.

Two, the legendary Battle of Rezang La.

Please click on the links for the entire story of the place, the bike and the battle.

CAUTION: YOU ARE UNDER ENEMY OBSERVATION

One comes across this sign board on a road in Kashmir. The aim is to caution drivers not to halt in the area to avoid getting shelled by enemy artillery. But this post is not about that enemy - it is about how appropriate this sign board is in our daily life. 

Remember this sign post when:

- You are out shopping in the mall with wife and kid in tow, and you happen to find your self ogling at some nubile nymphs in tights!

- Same setting as above, now you are lusting for the latest Canon EOS 7D or some other gizmo when your wife wants you to buy her a diamond pendant. 

- You are checking Facebook in office. 

- You have invited your friends over and have been drinking way past the dinner time, conspicuously ignoring her signs to lead them to the dinner laid out on the table, after having been re-heated twice.

- You leave the wet towel on the bed. 

-  Your wife catches you eyeing her best friend's features with more than casual interest. 

These were just a few I could think off - please feel free to add more as comments. 

The Signs of the Times (and the Place)!

This is a compilation of the various interesting signboards and hoardings that I saw during the trip to Kashmir in June 2010.

Drass fall enroute from Srinagar to Kargil and is now better known for the Kargil War of 1999.

Zoji La is well known in Indian military history for the 1947-48 Indo-Pak war. This battlefield saw the use of tanks - the only time that tanks were used at such a height anywhere in the world.

A little bit of military history - please pardon the spelling mistakes.

This lovely signboard was in the Drass War Memorial - it reflects a nice and positive outlook of the person who got it made - an essential attitude for survival in such bleak places.

In the Kargil War we lost six boys - these Immortals live on in our memories and their names can be seen engraved in stone in the Drass War Memorial.

 Darchik is a famous village in Kargil district for apparently having the purest race of Aryans in the world. It became famous a few years back when some German ladies landed up to get themselves impregnated so as to give birth to pure Aryans! No, we do not know whether they succeeded.






















Schemes such as these ones have given a boost to the area. They generate employment and help develop the area. 

I was really flummoxed with the choice of advertisements on the shikaras - Lux Cozi Innerwear - no issues as a product but it seems a bit inappropriate.

This was another thing I found really funny - all shikaras were advertising 'Full Spring Seats'! Dunno who it would matter to considering that one is unlikely to do any bouncing up and down on the shikara.

Life in a House Boat: Part II

Welcome to Life in a House Boat Part II. The snap above is a relatively rare one since most of the views of the house boats are frontal because the boats are lined up side-by-side. I had to actually look for this view of a house boat. Consider there are 950 house boats and one realises that the Dal Lake is one crowded place. This is the typical design of a house boat. The entrance in the front (to the left of the snap) leads to the rooms. There are three rooms to a boat and some boats have a frame on the roof where a shamiana can be put up for roof parties.
 [Click on the snaps for bigger image]
Dal Lake has a fulfleged market based on house boats.

 Similarly, there are shops along the banks as well. This was an early morning snap and that is why all the shops are shut.  

Shikaras are the lifeline of the Dal Lake. Everything is supplied to the house boats through shikaras. There are complete shops based on shikaras as the snap below will show.

Josh naturally had to try his hand on the shikara.

 The CRPF has a presence on the Dal Lake and we witnessed one patrol boat moving around on the lake.

Dal Lake has a proper floating vegetable, flowers and fruit market which comes together every morning at 5.30AM and disperses by 6.00AM. This market caters for the house boat owners and locals and draws a handful of tourists everyday. We decided to take a look. The shikaras here are different - not the tourist variety - they have no roof.

 The flowers were really awesome!

The rest of the guys were selling vegetables and fruits.

The quality of the veggies seemed pretty good.

This gentleman was having the early morning blues.

This was truly an unique experience.

Life in a House Boat: Part I

Ok Folks! This series of posts is for all our friends who wanted to know about our experience on a house boat on the Dal Lake in Srinagar this summer. To begin with, I, for various reasons did not want to stay in Srinagar. Have lost some good friends there and would not really be able enjoy or relax. Nonetheless, we decided on the house boat option after we heard from another friend who had stayed there with family. In any case, due to the flight timings we would have to spend a night there, so why not the house boat?

Teheran House Boat came recommended from reliable sources as a safe place and so we gave a call to Ghulam, the owner. To his credit, Ghulam monitored my arrival on the mobile and was waiting at the Shankaracharya Ghat to receive us himself. As such we were four hours late since we were stuck in a jam on the Zoji La!

At the Ghat, we got onto a shikara and headed for House Boat Teheran. The staff at the Ghat had loaded all our stuff on the shikara so we just plonked ourselves onto the seats and took off. After about hardly 10mins of paddling down the Dal Lake we reached HB Teheran. It was one elaborate thing with exquisitely carved decorations and ornate furnishings.

The door in front leads to the dining room. The walnut wood table in the centre was a lovely piece. Don't miss the classic old large radio on the left of the door under the vase - no, it did'nt work - no valves available nowadays I guess!

The door next to fridge behind me led into a long and narrow corridor in which there were three rooms with attached toilets and also to stairs leading to the roof of the boat.

We all had to take off our shoes before entering the main part of the house boat. The shoes are all kept on a rack in the front - verandah - of the boat. 'Bari te porar choti rakha chilo' for those who wanted to use some footwear inside the boat. Not required really since the entire boat had wall-to-wall carpetting.
'Josh dekh, babi chobi tul che - tara tari kheye nao!' Of course Josh could not be bothered and had to literally force fed here as well. This is a view of the verandah - a fantastic place to hang out and watch the Dal Lake and the rest of the house boats. As one sits, shikaras with chaps hawking literally everything from eggs, bread, jewellery, soft drinks, hard drinks (yes, and they shout 'hard drinks'!), kashmiri souvenirs, clothes - literally everything!

This guy had a studio on the shikara complete with the Kashmiri dress and plastic flowers. Photos would be delivered in a few hours at your house boat.

This is the front view of Teheran taken from a shikara. Teheran, Mr Ghulam claims, is often requisitioned by the J&K Government for state visits.

For those of my good friends who are wondering what the loo is like, here it is.
Now please do not ask me about the plumbing since I did not ask the owner. I assume that it would be similar to a normal house since the house boats do not sail. They just stay tethered to the shore and thus all facilities including electricity are shore-based. I was scared to ask about the plumbing since if they told me they dump it into the lake, I might not want to stay there any longer!
They had 24hrs running hot water and mixer and handshower et al. Pretty clean stuff.

A word about the Dal Lake. The Dal Lake is one crowded place with over 950 house boats. There must be at least 5000 shikaras on it. The place is buzzing with activity since thankfully, tourism is looking up now. The Shankaracharya Ghat and all the other ghats around the Lake were also busy with day trippers taking joy rides etc. A typical tourist destination.

Post-militancy, Kashmiris seem to be indulging in tourism with a vengeance. I tried to engage the locals in conversation and asked them about the security situation and all were unanimous - some too obviously so - in that there was no trouble and tourism was doing well. The stone pelters it seems avoid the tourist areas since any impact on tourism will have a negative impact on them.

So much for now...more follows.

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