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.

THE DAILY OBSERVER-(56)

 😎THE DAILY OBSERVER-56😎

Sun 26 Dec 2020

      KISSAN ( LOG)-JAM

          It's the season of festivities, normally a time of rejoicing when one can hear the milk of human kindness literally sloshing around all over with pleasantries being exchanged on a large scale.One would have expected to find a similar clime to be prevailing in this group too as 2020 draws to an end and we await 2021 with cheerful anticipation. The same way we have done for so many years, cheer and bonhomie very much being the flavours of the season.

          But it looks like that is not to be, we are in for a time of strife and ill-will as the prevailing atmosphere around inevitably invades our homes. Suddenly, each one of us seems to be inescapably drawn into this boiling poison-filled cauldron full of intolerance, despite all our better sense,learning and training. We are becoming more and more inclined to forget the fact that the international boundary does not lie along the Bar Nala and the enemy forces continue to be Nark Desh and Chandal Desh. Neither is Akali dal the staple diet of sons of the soil in Punjab and Haryana.The IT warfare that has been unleashed by vested interests has made us all feel as if we are in a situation of eye-ball to eye-ball confrontation right at home. No wonder we find our Johny- come -lately in the group pleading for intervention of the " Admin ". So lost is he that he has not noticed that this is a grouop where " u have to bring the change u desire" as that by-now famous Gariahat bus- conductor quipped. We all are admin Sirji, each one of us, thanks to Alfie's wisdom !

           In such a CQB situation, GCs recalling their training have dashed into cover and many have started firing in the dark with all the arms and ammunition at their disposal at anything that moves i.e anything voicing a contrary viewpoint. As in all such situations , many shots find their targets at which there is immediate merciless retaliation. Pitamah made this observation yesterday and conveyed as much in a very sweet language which all of us seem to understand much better than the one supposed to be used in Parliament. Bur the battle rages on, seemingly endlessly. Any media house worth its salt would allow for a bloody genocide to take place without intervening and then enjoy reporting. Or even better still, fan the flames as our Tantrik friend from Didiland seems to so fond of  doing; and watch the fun. Reminds one of how we all once transformed into a real bloodthirsty crowd while watching boxing bouts between the Red and Blue corners.

         In these days of the Bhakti movement, the easiest way to draw fire is by dropping a A-bhakt bomb like Ultra-Sensitive-ji did, without naming anyone in particular. The guilty parties lost no time in identifying themselves by the speed and ferocity of their retaliation. Just when things looked to be summering down somewhat, the entire fiasco was kicked off anew ironically by an attempt at getting to the roots of the problem in a purely analytical non-partisan and logical fashion. 

      Having duly exhibited an overall ignorance of the ground realities of a situation much beyond their grasp,it is hoped that there will now be a lasting cease-fire and all forces will move back to their peace -time locations. Exercise Andhadhund has been called off Sirs .

    Notice how the Chief Signal 

Officer goes missing at the first sign of a communications breakdown ?

      On a lighter note - it is learnt that the UP Police has solved an old case of Love-Jihad which occured at Saharanpur in ' 85 and the culprit(s) is/are likely to be nabbed by this evening. There may be a re-enactment and re-construction  of the crime at the mauka-e-wardaat today .

THE DAILY OBSERVER-55

 😎THE DAILY OBSERVER-55😎

Mon 21 Dec 2020

Remembering those good old days when the first sounds in the early morning set the tone for the day. What fun to get up in the dark in total silence and slurp that first cup of tea in total peace ! One major difference was the absence of this gadget called the mobile. The maximum one could do along the lines of creating some artificial noise was to switch on the radio/transistor and fiddle/twiddle the knobs , hoping to hear something.

            These days, it is becoming almost impossible to keep away from checking out messages on Whatsapp first thing on waking up. And there lies the whole problem. There is no saying what kind of a message the eyes land upon first and the day kicks off on that note. Days lead on to weeks and months and before u can say " SAVDHAN " , a whole year has rolled by !

         Our daily Modern bread seems to have become unpalatable with  ESM butter and Kissan jam. While on the one side i feel sorry for the sons of the soil sleeping and roughing it out in the cold, i envy the jalebis and pakoras,foot- massages and SUVs on display. As if regular media coverage was lacking, our own fellow brethren came up with more than a hundred snapshots and videos to prove the point. It made one proud to see one favourite grizzly veteran of ours spouting slogans on-stage to the cheering of the crowd.

While yet others covered the event with videos from their cars.

           Not to be left behind, the opposing camp came out with its own narratives and videos and the sparks flew fast and furious. Also came the conciliatory messages begging for restraint. Videos of a Boxer mother playing around with and feeding her pups were thrown in for good measure in an attempt to spread the message of the milk of human kindness. The video of a bare-bodied sadhu ( some say it is actually Chandan Das in disguise) rolling around in the snow along with his dog ( rumoured to be yet another group member in disguise) was added by Naithani as compensation for his earlier strong remarks on the subject.

            Talking of all the remarks on the subject, the awards go to :-

RPS Kang for very diplomatically driving home the point that this is an issue close to the hearts of the Punjab farmers and so it should not be taken lightly.All should view the issue in an unbiased manner and then --- back the farmers.

Naithani for his comment that none of us are economists or agriculturists so we should refrain from commenting but…..  should support the government's efforts.

Rakesh Luthra for very cleverly touting the Govt line on the issue in sugar-coated words meaning nothing while objecting to the Andhbhakt remark. And adding that we should remain unbiased but……...support the Govt's efforts.

SBT for first letting off some atom bombs in the form of videos and then bringing in the humanitarian angle by posting the video of his Boxer with her pups.

Chandan Das and Vidur Nevrekar for the best on-field umpiring.

Sanjay Soi for OUT-STANDING performance as third umpire.

Amarjeet Singh for best expert commentary.

Prithvi Ranjan Das for threatening to quit.

Gurvinder for encouraging debate and free speech.

All the rest of the group for remaining by and large non- commital and ideal non-partisan spectators.

Special prize to UnServicable Gill for starting the Atishbaji with his remarks on Andh-Bhakts and one for Manjeet Singh Sidhu for stoking the fire with inflammatory videos.

NOTE : The above awards are mere suggestions. Readers are most welcome to come forward with their views and final proposals

for the awards to be presented on 26 Jan.

Remembering Ramu!

I would not have been commissioned if it was not for Ramu!

Everyone knows that in final term I had lots of difficulties in passing my 10 mile test. Many of my course mates still call me Langda Tyagi for this reason! At the fag-end of second term and before the POP, most of the time I was limping!

Only few know that during the WT competition I had a fall from the high beam and suffered shin bone fracture. This injury takes about 15 days complete bed rest to properly heal up. But if anything, time was the commodity which was at the highest premium! Everyone was preparing for passing out parade and instructors were hard pressed to see that every cadet passes all the tests. Our DS was also under tremendous pressure and got me discharged only after 3 days.

Soon 10 mile test started and I ran with heavy dose of painkillers and crepe bandages. When everyone was running I was barely able to crawl! Soon entire course was running ahead of me and I could see many of them taking rides. I also got tempted but kept on assuring myself that with will power I can do it. Slowly the effect of painkillers was reducing and my shin started paining like hell. It was such a surprise for me to see myself crossing the finishing line. But determination can take you only this far and when I opened my eyes, I saw myself on the same bed of MH which was vacated by me 3 days back.

Our DS appeared to me like the Messenger of devil when I saw him again in the MH to get me discharged. Two days later there was another test for 10 miles run. This time I was prepared with double the dose of painkillers and extra crepe bandages. Few of my advisors also suggested to take a 'Joint' before running which I declined.

Halfway through, Late PR Deshmukh, who was running alongside me took ride on cycle and cajoled me also to do likewise. I shouted back to get down and warned him that he will get relegated if caught. Deshmukh was with me in SSB and I had good bonding with him. At the turn when he was still on the career of the cycle and I was struggling behind him on foot once again I shouted for him to get down or else he will be relegated.

Hardly I took the turn that I saw our DS on horseback and Priya Ranjan was standing in front of him with his head down.

Oh my God! He got caught red handed!!

I was also asked to stand by his side but I refused telling our DS that I will fail in the test if I stop. he shouted back that in any case, "You are going to fail because you are running very late and cannot reach finishing line in time".

I don't know what did I say? Maybe I mumbled few words that I don't care failing... at least I will try my best...or something thing like that.

I was at the culvert of river Adyar wherefrom we used to enter OTA for reaching the finishing line. In the middle of the culvert I stumbled and fell down. The last ounce of the energy I had was drained out of my body. My legs were hurting and I was unable to focus.

From distance I could hear cheering-up sounds... "Last hundred metres, buckup... you ass hole, get up...you would complet 10 mile even if you just crawl!"

And I did crawl few meters...got up with what ever energy I had and fell unconscious at the finishing line.

Deja Vu!

Same bed again was waiting for me and I was waiting for our DS as I was sure he will get me discharged soon. Did he disappoint me?

Cut to my barrack...getting up in the middle of night 'cause of bad dream...some one was plucking my stars! Same dream I had in hospital also.

Early in the morning Ramu came to me. Before joining OTA, I did my LLB from Agra College. He was also from Agra (Bah Tahsil), though I do not remember name of his village...may be Bateshwar or some thing.

So both were from Agra and that was my spacial connect with him in the begining. I called him Daddu (Elder Brother) and till last he remained to me - Elder Brother!

His purpose of early morning visit was soon known to me. He told me that he will run with me tomorrow. I was shocked! Why would some one bother to run 10 miles when he has already passed his own test. He also could have enjoyed his free time. At that time, there was supposed to be only POP practice.

He insisted and explained that as pace-setter he will run alongside so that I pass the test. He encouraged that there was nothing wrong with me so far as stamina and will power is concerned and that only issue was the timing. His inimitable style of argument and comforting did motivate me.

Next day morning very few cadets, may be not more than six were to run for the test. Ramu was there, away from start line but in battle order minus his rifle.

Soon we were halfway through and Ramu was in his abusive best! I was at receiving end. He kept on showering his choicest best and were those stinging...nay, those were blistering!

Few pushes and shoves for good measures....and I was also giving him back as good as I was getting. I was in pain, I was angry and I was delirious. But did I finish the test?

I was laying at finishing line of 10 miles test and I got I kick...Ramu, who else...shouting to get up and do fireman race. I managed to do that and do not know whom I was carrying? I threw him at finishing line and passed out!

If it wasn't for Ramu, I don't know if I could pass my ten miles test. Who knows, I would have been a civilian and not a veteran today?

I owe so much to Ramu, specially my commissioning!

Rest in peace Daddu!

THE DAILY OBSERVER-54

 😎THE DAILY OBSERVER-(54)😎

🕉🙏🕉🙏🕉🙏🕉🙏🕉

 

            RAMU

Thursday 03 Dec 2020

           Why is it that the news about yet another brother-in-arms passing away into eternity comes as such a shock ? Though we are all aware of the stark truth that what passed out of the OTA Drill Square on 13 Mar'82 must pass out once more, the event  comes like a bolt from the blue when it occurs.

         Rajendra Tripathi was the first to inform all of us about the serious condition of Col. RK Mishra in Base Hospital, Delhi Cantt. yesterday afternoon. But before all the get-well-soon messages could trickle in came SB Tyagi with the news of his passing away. The flurry of heartfelt condolence messages that kept flowing on this site till this morning bear testimony to the great love and respect this noble soul inspired in all of us,his batchmates.Some of us knew him from College and SSB days while others got to know him during service in the Army and later after hanging up the uniform.Both in and out of uniform, Ramu did us proud  in whatever he took up. It is the personal touch and endearing qualities he brought to this group despite post-operative health conditions for which he will be remembered most by all of us.The tributes that still continue to flood this site speak for themselves.

        Our heartfelt condolences to the bereaved family along with prayers for their well-being.May they find the strength to bear this loss.

    What a swash-buckling innings !  Well-played Ramu, and Long Live ! A big salute to Col RK Mishra .Long Live Ramu !

Jai Hind !

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