THE DAILY OBSERVER-58

 😎THE DAILY OBSERVER-(58)😎

Tues 29 Dec 2020

ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN         FRONT

         One is beginning to get a small glimpse of the scenario that must have presented itself to Pitamah after the Mahabharata was done with. From his vantage OP position, lying on his  bed of arrows and surveying the carnage, he started expounding the Vishnu Sahasranama. Others joined in and shared their opinions, notable amongst them being the Naga sant and the sage with the Sword. For reasons best known to himself , Naga Sant equated the knowledge of the protagonists to a Bell and the other concurred. Probably, in the din of battle, they had missed out on learned discourses on the subject by Gyanis Prithvi and Rimcowallah. The SOC in C, true to form, contented himself by sending an " early morning " relevant quote of Swami Viveka late in the afternoon..Rishi Vish(wamitra) tut-tutted and laid the whole blame for the conflagration squarely on the shoulders of Lamboo Sant.Yet others were of the opinion that utterances of someone who can't even remember his own Wedding date are not to be taken so seriously.Lamboo Sant even tendered an apology for rattling out a Nursery Rhyme in the heat of the moment..The great Sacrificer & Big Thinker patted himself on the back for displaying supreme valour by taking off for a hot shower in the midst of it all and thereby preventing further bloodshed.The Fearless One played his own role along with some other members of the UN peacekeeping forces. Dodging heavy fire, they ran between the battle lines, singing songs of Shanti . The two 8 pm die-hards, Rajasekaran and Soma (shaker-an)  kept close watch over the entire proceedings, making vain attempts at halting it while reserving their comments for later. 

The Truthful Brave Lion kept roaring for peace on earth.The Usually Smiling Guru retreated after shooting from the hip at known and unkown targets. The Highland Sadhu conferred the highest meritorious certificates he could think of upon all participants in particular and SS 33/24 in general on this landmark event for the splendid display of vocabulary.

Unable to bear the sight of so much bloodshed, the saint from overseas proclaimed - Yes , i Kan(g)o and withdrew into the deep meditation from which he had emerged for a short while. The tantric Yogi from Didiland took turns at alternately fanning the flames of battle and dousing the fire.That he is able to perform both these roles simultaneously like a juggler is further proof of his dexterity. In the morning the very same Maharishi Chandanananda looked at the devastation  with great satisfaction and philosophically proclaimed that What will be will be. To confuse issues further, he added that the eye which sees has to bacome that which is seen, after which all will become clear. Befuddled ? That's what tantriks are meant to do, befuddle all.

          Running the grave risk of getting labelled as being ignorant of the sacred texts by our Parambhakt Pandit Tripathiji, the Observer now proceeds to the closing scenes of the original great epic. Yudhishtra and a Black Dog ( u can read tantric yogi and his Black-Dog batchmate) are the last ones left as they go up the Himalayas. The Black Dog is the first to go and then Yudhishtra also finds himself in Heaven.To his surprise, the entire cast of the Epic is there to welcome him.. They are all there because they all played their respective parts faithfully and sincerely to the hilt.

Well done Red, Blue is the winner.Now get ready for the next event.Shera-Shera Naushera; Hima-Hima Kohima. Go have the chay-pakodas and relax.There are many more trophies and awards left for those with competitive spirit.

   Not at all suggesting that this entire group is going to end up in heaven, it is most likely that we would find ourselves in the other place.Remember, wherever we may claim to have arrived today, there was a time when we readily and voluntarily deposited all our gray matter in the Kot at OTA. Having since lost the Diks, there is no way of claiming it back from the Jatram Kot NCO.So relax in this Pagal Gymkhana and enjoy the roller-coaster ride with no hard feelings.May we all rot in Hell together for all our wrong- doings. Nobody is going elsewhere.Maybe that is why the Evervictorious One has suggested that we should have more of "Mess-Commando " type videos here and leave the omnipresent Gyan from social and other media out. Point to ponder.

       Has anyone noticed that this write-up has successfully come to a conclusion without using the wotd -

"F……..er " even once ? I mean the one rhyming with charmer and not the one doing so with chucker. That is not accidental.

Enjoy the year-ending.

THE DAILY OBSERVER-57

 😎THE DAILY OBSERVER-(57)😎

Mon 28 Dec 2020

            OH KOLKATA

         Something simply had to happen on this site yesterday after all that build-up and it did. The volcano errupted and hot lava spilled over. Inevitable.And the "collateral" damage- also inevitable. A Board of Officers shall assemble soon for the purpose of assessing the Storm ( in a Kissan Squash- cup) damage and submit its report to all concerned (if any).

           In the meantime, for some strange reason, the spotlight seems to be shifting to the City of Joy. Last night, when the fireworks were at their best,flying fast and furious, my hand instinctively reached out for that comforting liquid nourishment. That brought me back to mother earth and stark reality. I still remember that fateful day in 2016 when i was discharged  from Apollo Hospital Kolkotta on Dec 25. I was still smiling when Dr. Roy informed me that my drinking and smoking routine had to come to a stop. " OK Doc , " i answered cheerfully,  " for how long would that be? "  There followed the  chilling proclamation that this was virtually a life sentence. Talk of an excellent fun-filled life being smashed to smithereens in a second. But what about all those poor cigarette and liquor manufacturers losing such a steady customer, Doc ? Not to talk of the loss of revenue to the State and the effects thereupon on the lives of the poor and needy multitudes?But he was firm and merciless in his insistence that i could consider that particular chapter of my life as closed for good ( pun not intended).Whatever little hope i had that my better half would lend a sympathetic ear and help me out in that hour of need was dashed the minute we reached home. All the liquor and tobbaco including various types of hookahs and pipes i had so painstakingly collected during my sbort but eventful stay in the city had vanished. Looked like there was nothing left to look forward to in life. It still pains even to talk of that fateful day. Turning towards better memories.

          Anyway, it was not long after i joined duty in the City of Joy that i learnt about the Black Hole of Kolkata too.More of that also later.

       One of the first things i did on arrival at this great city was to make a serious attempt at getting to know the Bhadralok there. A friend in Chennai had helpfully given me the phone number of a gentleman who was a direct descendant of the ertswhile royal family of a Northeastern State. On contacting him, i was invited to his place for dinner. After a long drive i reached his place with some difficulty in locating it. The road on which it was located would be the last one where one would expect a palace to be located. Anyway, i was given a warm welcome after i entered the hall through a corridor with ivory on both sides providing an arched walk-way. After loads of excellent whiskey, dinner was served . Now came the rub - firstly fish is not something i am overly fond of. Still, after being sufficiently warmed up, i do not mind staring at a fish-head on my dinner plate. But no amount of whiskey can make me enjoy the experience of a fish staring at me from the plate. Unsettling, definitely, to say the least. But it was served with so much love and affection that it would become rude not to accept. In fact, the rest of the night was spent between pretending to relish it on one side, while politely and firmly seeing to it that there was no chance of a second helping finding its way on to my plate.Needless, to say , i woke up the next day with the mother of all hangovers and was struggling hard to stop the world whirling around me. I was sitting in the balcony of the tbird floor of my office where i had my temporary residence in the guest-room, trying to smoke away the memories of the staring fish. Matters came to a head when i almost fell off the steel chair on which i was sitting. Time to hit the nearest bar and get outside of a couple of cold beers, i decided. On walking out of the office,i noticed a crowd collected outside the Airport Authority building on the other side of the road but paid scant attention.Oñ  reaching a roadside bar, i was surprised to find it totally empty and everyone standing outside. I shouted loudly for a beer.Guys slowly started trickling in and in answer to my puzzled looks, one of them pointed to the TV Screen. It was being announced that there had been a severe earthquake in Nepal, tremors of which had been felt in the City of Joy. The crowd collected outside the Airports Authority office  was being shown on screen.i had not almost fallen off my steel chair for nothing. Oh, Kolkata. This was only the beginning of a series of colourful bhalo-bhasha episodes at the fag end of my official life.