Idhar Udhar Ki Baat

    For the last two weeks I have been remembering my grandmother a lot. On starlit summer nights she would lie on a charpoi on the roof and narrate stories before we slept. One story I remember very clearly. It was about a monkey and a bear who entered a sugarcane field to enjoy a free feast. Suddenly the farmers arrived with sticks. The monkey jumped to the nearest tree and watched the drama from above. The bear, poor fellow, had no such option. His hips turned red with the beating.     The story ended with the famous Punjabi line: “Khan peen nu bandri, dande khan nu richh.” (The monkey enjoys the food, the bear receives the beating.)     Watching the current war in West Asia, I cannot help remembering that story.     Some countries resemble the richh (bear). Their ports closed, refineries threatened, desalination plants under danger, food supply uncertain because imports stop, expatriates leaving in panic and missiles and drones raining over ai...

  I handed over a plate of samosa to the old beggar and sat next to him on the steps of a shop near a Gurudwara to have my samosa. I had seen that longing or greed in his eyes while I was buying it for myself. We ate in silence. I was relishing the snack after ten kilometres of walk.  I no longer wear the presence of being a 'bada admi' after my sixtieth birthday so I love to mingle with the crowd.  As we finished I could see a well dressed man alighting from a jazzy chauffeur driven car. He took a selfie with Gurudwara in the background and started walking. I told the beggar, "He is your man. Hurry up." With least amount of concern he said, "he is not going to give anything." I asked, "Why?" "People who take selfie here are highly selfish. So no waste of time." I wondered, beggars also don't waste time .  By then an old couple came  to their Alto car parked. The man shot a couple of expelatives in thin air on seeing a flat rear tyr...

  “What happened?” my senior asked, noticing that I was sulking. “I got a proper dressing down from the Commander today,” I replied gloomily. “He called me an imbecile.” I was only twenty-three then—though I had already spent eighteen months in hard combat in Sri Lanka and Manipur. In my young mind, that qualified me as reasonably battle-hardened. Apparently, however, battlefield experience did not automatically translate into wisdom about guest rooms. “Why?” my senior asked, trying not to smile. “I’m in charge of the guest room where the General and his wife are going to stay,” I explained. “The Commander came for inspection and scolded me for not ensuring that a packet of sanitary napkins and… protection… was kept in the room.” I paused, still baffled. “I found the instruction rather irrational,” I continued. “After all, the General and his wife must be at least fifty-five years old!” My senior burst into hearty laughter. “It’s good you didn’t present that bri...

  “At four-thirty we give bed tea, and even then one odd fellow is still trickling in for PT parade at six-thirty. How do you expect us to be ready for operations in two and a half hours in the operations area?” The Subedar Saab said in disbelief. His remark came after I explained that our formation commander had announced during a sand-model discussion that we can mobilise in half the time. Perhaps he wanted to impress his superior. Or perhaps he wanted to show down the neighbouring formation commander in front of his boss, who happened to be a strong proponent of the fashionable doctrine of the day — Cold Start . But the Subedar knew soldiers better than any of us sitting around that sand model. “Saab, our Tambhis are very hygienic people. They like to bathe properly, shave carefully, brush their teeth and freshen up before stepping out. Some of them spend five minutes just cleaning their tongue, making all those guttural sounds. Only after that do they feel ready to fa...