😎THE OBSERVER-(M-18)😎
……….contd from M-17……….
Sun 23 Aug 2020
A bit of recapitulation to catch up with the thread(s). This narrative is an exercise by the Observer to relate his experiences as he proceeded on his life's journey. The attempt has been to do this in as objective a manner as possible. But all the same - thoughts and feelings do crop up every now and then as the locales, happenings and personalities come popping into the picture.The endeavour is to let the drive down memory lane be as natural and true-to-life as possible, at the same time including the afterthoughts that inevitably come into play.How much of a role is played by fate/free will in our lives ? What took place is now history and there is no changing it. It is what it is. Some of it happened by itself and some due to conscious self-choices .From school to college to OTA to BEG to CME. The YO's Course had a lot of Classroom activity and most of the time i found myself dozing away as i did not find things very interesting. The practice of hitting the bar sharp at 19.30 hrs without fail every evening was the one thing i really looked forward and adhered to religiously.This had become the most important part of my daily routine from the day i first reported for duty in B.E.G. after passing out from OTA. So had the Beer on Sat and Sun afternoons. I did try hard to pay close attention to all that was being taught in Class and to do well in the tests that followed, but the results on both counts were dismal. Right in the beginning of the Course, we were introduced to the excellent facilities for Adventure sports like sailing and rowing freely available in C.M.E. but i was just not interested . Maybe the fact that i was a weak swimmer played a role in this. One evening, after the games-parade fall-in, all the offrs who had given their names for taking part in the rowing championship were asked to fall out. On taking a head-count, it was discovered by the Course Offr that two of those who had been listed had not fallen out. Repeated warnings produced no results. The original list was located with some difficulty and it turned out that Pratap Ghosh and i were the culprits. I had absolutely no idea when he had enrolled our names for this without informing me. On being confronted, Ghosh dada first claimed innocence and then gave one of his sheepish mischevious grins ( anyone who has spent time with him would be familiar with that). He even tried to convince me that it was actually a great idea. My protestations were to no avail. We got a real dressing-down from the Course Offr and were marched off to the Rowing Club. Once there, we discovered that all the fancy modern Olympic-style fibre-glass rowing boats had been already taken. We would have to compete as a pair in the "Kamala Class " - a rickety old, wooden leaky two-seater rowing boat. Left with no other option, we started off on our first practice voyage across the dirty Mula river. It did not take long to realise that we had zero individual rowing skills, leave aside the kind of co-ordination required for actually competing as a pair. With great difficulty, we somehow managed to steer the boat back to somewhere near the point from where we had started after an unsuccesful attempt to cross to the other shore.Over and above that, we got so delayed in getting back that i got late for my bar session that evening. i don't think i ever forgave Pratap Ghosh for that incident.Till then, i had been quite succesful in camouflaging myself in the crowd of YOs & being inconspicuous but this brought me sharply into the radar of the Course Offr, who was particularly loud and insulting towards SS offrs. Which brings me to another major issue- the kind of discrimination shown towards SS offrs during all courses.It started right there during the YO's Course. Disppointment at having joined the Corps of Engrs where i was junior to our techie batchmates turned to dismay when it was further disclosed that we would lose six months seniority on getting permanent commission. Meaning we would end up being junior to the YO's from IMA who had passed out about three months after us. There seemed to be no end to this piling up of wounds ! So the course seemed to drag on and on relentlessly. Luckily,in-between all this, i happened to come across Chandan, from IMA, who played the guitar and we enjoyed some good sessions of music together. While we were on a training camp at Marve ( Mumbai), one evening, the two of us were trying out some Hindi filmi numbers together on the beach after dinner, taking turns at swigging from a bottle of rum. Suddenly, during a gap in the proceedings, we heard a voice behind us singing the same number. We were surprised to find that it was our Srilankan Coursemate. It so turned out that this guy was very fond of old Hindi numbers though he had never sung in public.We coaxed him to sing some old favourites and played along with him.In no time, we were on to some Sri Lankan Byla numbers in front of a small audience suddenly sprung out of nowhere.
This lovely full-moon night on the beach was all of a sudden filled with cries of alarm and whistles blowing. The raft we had earlier constructed on the sea was in danger of getting washed away with the high tide & stormy winds. There was a duty-section detailed officialy for just such unforseen eventualities but everyone was asleep and we guys were the only ones readily available. We quickly changed into dungarees and rushed on board .We slogged through the night, hauling anchors here, tugging at the steel ropes there to save the raft from drifting into the ocean. Later, during the campfire, we played all the Hindi & Sri Lankan numbers which by now had become quite popular. This and another incident were probably the major turning points for me during the entire Course which till then was like a nightmare. As part of trg, each one of us was given a go at " surfboarding " behind a motorboat on the sea. When my turn came, i was tied with a
rope around my waist to a rectangular fibre-glass board to which i held on with my hands. The motorboat speeded up with a sharp tug and i held on to the board for dear life , while people on the shore cheered . Suddenly i realised there was something wrong in the way i had been tied up and that i was suffocating. When i tried to scream, it dawned that there was no way of getting heard above the noise of the motor and cheering. My attempts at waving to the guys on shore for help only brought louder cheers. i simply gave up and left my fate to the powers-that-be. After what seemed to be ages, i was surprised to find myself on shore and still alive. i was all set to curse the daylights out of the on-shore crowd, particularly the ones who had tied me up that way. But before i could gather my breath to do any of that, i was overwhelmed with congratulatory cheers. People were asking me why i had never revealed my surfboarding skills earlier. I just kept quiet then and thanked my stars that this was the last part of our trg at sea and i would not have to carry out a repeat performance. The very same YO's Course seemed to be not so bad at all now. Same went for the Corps of Engrs.
…...to be contd………….
