NAVY COUPLES – MADE FOR EACH OTHER (A VALENTINE’S DAY POST)

Part I

The title of this post sounds a bit parochial since it doesn’t include the other two services. Well, there is a reason. Read on.

When I was undergoing the Staff Course in Wellington (Nilgiris), in the Castle Quarters that we stayed in, there were three other houses: one belonging to an IAF officer and the other two to army officers. The IAF officer Thakurdesais and us occupied the ground floor whereas the Army officers, as always, were the upper-crust due to sahayaks that they had at their disposal. So, whilst Lyn and I did everything with our own hands, the army sahibs and ladies had a number of flunkies helping them. When the rations were delivered, for example, we stood in the queues with their sahayaks whilst they looked down on us from their balconies, sipping Nilgiri tea and biting on cocktail idlis.

I got posted to Naval Headquarters after that and after a few months of waiting, we were allotted a flat in SP Marg defence quarters. Our immediate neighbour was an Arty Colonel Surinder Singh.

Once, we were getting ready to go for an official party, when the door-bell rang and there stood Nachhinder, Col Surinder’s wife. Both Surinder and Nachhinder were very genial and excellent neighbours and we had a great thing going as neighbours and friends.

When Lyn opened the door, she had my uniform shirt in her hand since she was in the process of fixing stripes and other paraphernalia.

This gave Nachhinder an opportunity to rag me though I was not present. “Look at yourself, Lyn” she said in mock horror, “Your good for nothing husband has converted you into a flunkie. Call him. I shall teach him not to ill-treat the lady of the house”.

I was in an inside room but could clearly hear the conversation.

“He can’t come out now” replied Lyn with great finality.

“Aha” ejaculated Nichhinder in mock scorn, “The laat-sahib is resting whilst you are doing all the menial work for him….”

“No” said Lyn, “He can’t come out now because he is ironing my saree”.

(Pic courtesy: imgkid.com)
(Pic courtesy: imgkid.com)

P.S. Now, do you understand why navy couples are meant for each other?!

P.P.S. We also didn’t have much though in our hearts we were rich and still are. On one of our early anniversaries, we bought a plaque and hung it in the house. It gave us enormous happiness and satisfaction. It read: “We don’t have much but we have each other”. We tried to make up with Love what we lost because of not having flunkies and riches.

Part II

“SPECIAL” WEEKEND BREAKFAST

What is so “special” about a breakfast of Parathas, Sooji Halwa, Aloo Bhaaji, Dahi; you may ask?

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Well, only this that my wife and I made it together with our kitty Minnie helping as much as she could by excitedly jumping all around the kitchen.

Laajwaab?

When a meal is made together
By a husband and his wife
It is full of Love and Sweetness
The meal itself has Life.

What we make is not so important
The process is full of fun
Too many cooks spoil the broth, they say,
But, what if they cook like one?

It is the best way to start the day
Making a meal that’s so rare
It is a treat not just for the mouth
You pair, you care, you share.

Thanks Lyn for making life as beautiful as this breakfast together.

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LEARNING BY POWERPOINT AND DEMONSTRATIONS

Though Microsoft PowerPoint was officially launched on 22nd May 1990, in the armed forces in India, it hit us with the force of a Tsunami much later. I think possibly it was in 1997-98 that we shifted from OHP slides to PPTs in a huge manner.

PPTs made a paradigm shift in the way we looked at things. It killed all imagination and concentration totally. Earlier if we had to tell someone that ship Alpha was to proceed to area Kilo, he (the target of our instructions, that is) had to concentrate to find ways and means. Nowadays, we show him the entire thing in animation on a PPT slide. The adverse effect is so much that people, these days, can’t concentrate on a talk using their own imagination unless PPT depicts to them exactly what is being spoken. The only imagination is that of the speaker or more specifically that of the ‘author’ of the PPT.

PPTs also mushroomed innumerable speakers who thought of innovative ways to kill your imagination; they had their complete spoken text written on the slides. In these talks cum presentations, in case they ever fumbled for a word, the audience would tell them. They, at the end of their ‘talks’, could proudly tell as to how they ensured ‘audience participation’.

It was only a matter of time before military ‘excesses’ in PowerPoint presentations became the subject of spoofs, parodies and farce. A new breed of officers came to limelight. These were called “PowerPoint Rangers”. Their mastery over PPTs made them climb rung after rung in the military hierarchical ladder. Once they reached the higher and top levels, their lofty example was emulated by others who became PowerPoint Rangers-in-the-making. The military succession planning was thus in good hands – the hands that made innovative PPTs possible. They and Microsoft laughed all the way to the bank.

(Pic courtesy: honored2serve.com)
(Pic courtesy: honored2serve.com)

Before this era was the era of demonstration. So, if you as leader wanted your subordinates to emulate, you demonstrated. Many a times, such demonstrations resulted in hilarious situations. For example, during that era, a married sailor even after attending a family planning demonstration kept producing kids. When enquired he feigned helplessness saying that he was following the instructions in toto; whenever he and his wife had sex, he had a new condom rolled out on his right thumb!

During the demo era there was this Time magazine cartoon of a Jehadi Suicide Bomber fitted with self-destructive bombs tied to his waist with wires leading to a detonator in his hand. He is about to press the plunger and tells the class of would-be suicide bombers: “Now, pay attention; I am going to demonstrate only once.”

 

 

(Pic courtesy: thecanadiansentinel.blogspot.com)
(Pic courtesy: thecanadiansentinel.blogspot.com)

Despite all the faults and adverse fallout of PowerPoint, how I missed it when I was on the minesweeper Karwar and after a refit, sailors’ WCs were shifted from Indian style to Western style? It was left to our CO to ‘demonstrate’ the advantages to the sailors so that they would sit doing their job “as if watching a movie in a cinema” rather than squat as in the Indian invented game of Kho-Kho.

This demonstration on the ship’s minesweeping deck (the only deck large enough to have a complete and attentive ship’s company), took almost an hour complete with a detailed question and answer session wherein sailors were encouraged not to feel shy but to “come straight out with” what was bothering them. A cane chair was used to demonstrate. Fortuitously, most of the tubular cane chairs of that era had a large hole in the centre due to the cane having worn out and tattered.

Anyway, you got the picture, didn’t you? Well, I helped you use your imagination without a PPT! Eureka, it can be done!!

As we ambled back to our cabins after the demonstration, all of us, without exception, felt that this was mother of all demos and even left mouth-to-mouth resuscitation miles behind.

‘Be Kind to Your Behind’ could very well have been the innovative title of the PPT; but:

In days of old, when knights were bold,
And PPTs not yet invented,
They explained with demos,
Written orders and memos,
And they were quite contented.

IS COMMUNAL DISHARMONY A CHALLENGE TO INDIA’S MARCH TO GREATNESS?

Historically, and I am talking about many hundred years ago or so, the Indian record of racial and communal indiscrimination had been better than the world’s average. At one time in our history, we didn’t require the kind of advice that the US President Barack Obama gave to Indians through his talk to the Delhi students recently when he visited us as the Chief Guest for the Republic Day Parade. Obama reminded predominantly Hindu India about the rights of minorities and the challenges the developing nation faced about religious pluralism.

“No society is immune from the darkest impulses of men,” said Obama. “India will succeed so long as it is not splintered along the lines of religious faith.”

For many painful years the Europeans and Americans suffered the adverse and in case of Europe horrible effects of racial discrimination. The German concept of Master Race (die Hessenrasse) was adopted as a Nazi ideology. The German ubermensch (overman or superman) was a concept in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzche and finally adopted by Adolf Hitler as one of the significant thoughts behind his desire to purge the world of other than pure white Nordic race. The end result was the Holocaust in which approximately six million Jews were exterminated by the Nazis. The “Final Solution” was a Nazi term used to refer to their plan to abrogate the Jewish race during World War II. The race extermination of the Jews was the summit of the Nazis anti-Semitic hatred. The massacre of the Jews was invoked in stages. Here is one of the many horrible pictures of the pogroms carried out by the Nazis:

(Pic courtesy: www.kalleiceberg.blogspot.com)
(Pic courtesy: www.kalleiceberg.blogspot.com)

Barack Obama’s own country, the USA, had the concept of Master Race in the context of Master – Slave relations and even provided a pseudo-scientific justification for slavery based on superior race’s relations with an inferior race. During the colonising period, anti-Catholicism was at its peak. In 1915 the Ku Klux Klan re-emerged on a national level, preaching anti-Semitism and anti-Catholicism; it amassed more than 4 million members. In American history, it was as late as in October 1964 that Martin Luther King received the Nobel Peace Prize for fighting the racial inequality prevalent in the American society. Nevertheless, the immediate after-effect of 9/11 was that anyone of Asian origin and supporting a beard was targeted simply because the 9th September 2001 attacks in New York and Washington DC that killed nearly 3000 people were coordinated by an organisation called Al-Qaeda that had roots in Afghanistan and whose leader Osama bin Laden and many others in the organisation supported free-flowing beards. It is only later that it occurred to America not to alienate an entire community in reprisal for attacks by a handful.

Ku Klux Klan (Pic courtesy: www.time.com)
Ku Klux Klan (Pic courtesy: www.time.com)

The European record of Wars based on religion is quite pathetic and indeed violent. From the 7th to 8th centuries of Muslim Conquests to Christian Crusades and finally Wars of Religion of 16th to 17th centuries killed millions of people. The Christians even fought a Hundred Years War between themselves, euphemistically called Wars of Reformation.

India, on the other hand, had a great tradition of religious and racial tolerance. For the first time in our history, we were exposed to large scale religious intolerance by the Muslim kings that ruled over us. It started sometime in the 11th century. These rulers, unlike others from Central Asia retained their religious identity and created legal and administrative systems that superseded the systems in India based on religious and racial tolerance. They, for the first time in the history of India, also indulged in the hated and much bandied about word: Conversions; that is, forcing, inducing, facilitating and motivating people of indigenous religions to convert to Islam. The cruel and violent exploits of the Afghan warlord Mahmud of Ghazni (early 11th century), Muhammad Ghori (from Ghor in Afghanistan), Mamluk, Khalji, Tughlaq, Timur, Babur, Aurangzeb and Nadir Shah are only too well known for their cruelty and atrocities. Even at that, some of the rulers such as Akbar the Great (11 Feb 1556 to 27 Oct 1605) found a way of merging their religion with the religion in India. He was as orthodox a Muslim as any of his predecessors. However, so impressed was he with the Sufi practice in India and the good in various religions that he integrated them all into a common belief called Din-e-Ilahi.

The Ibādat Khāna (House of Worship) was a meeting house built in 1575 CE by the Mughal Emperor Akbar (r. 1556–1605) at Fatehpur Sikri to gather spiritual leaders of different religious grounds so as to conduct a discussion on the teachings of the respective religious leaders. (Pic courtesy: en.wikipedia.org)
The Ibādat Khāna (House of Worship) was a meeting house built in 1575 CE by the Mughal Emperor Akbar (r. 1556–1605) at Fatehpur Sikri to gather spiritual leaders of different religious grounds so as to conduct a discussion on the teachings of the respective religious leaders. (Pic courtesy: en.wikipedia.org)

Therefore, if we really trace the seeds of modern-day religious Intolerance in India, these were laid during the century and a half leading to India’s independence on 15th August 1947. As is easy to visualise these were politically exploited for vested interests. The British openly propagated a policy of Divide and Rule, which served their political and military aims quite well. We were puppets in their hands. However, just as we learnt the system of dowry from the Europeans and then left them far behind in its practice; similarly, as soon as the politicians of the sub-continent realised the political advantages to be gained from dividing people along religious lines, they left their original exponents the British far behind. Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the founding father of Pakistan excelled in it before independence and the Indian politicians learned to stay in power through this after independence.

For several decades after independence the only ruling party in the country, the Congress, learnt to exploit the minorities and dubbed this appeasement of minorities as Secularism. It was so successful in this game of exploiting minorities that any voice even remotely critical of this pseudo-secular approach was promptly dubbed as anti-secular. It very often rallied all so-called ‘secular’ parties behind its plank in order to keep at bay any opposition to its rule.

Lets, for example, take the infamous Shah Bano Case of April 1985 in the regime of Rajiv Gandhi. Shah Bano Begum, mother of five children and an old woman (62 years old) was divorced by her husband in 1978 as per the Islamic practice prevalent in the country. She filed and won a criminal case in the Supreme Court of India. The court ruled that she was entitled to alimony from her husband as per the law of the land. However, since Muslims were an assured vote-bank for the Congress, the Indian Parliament reversed the judgment of its highest court buckling under pressure from Muslim orthodoxy. Since the Congress enjoyed absolute majority in the parliament, it caused to pass the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986 and diluted the intent of the Supreme Court in yet another act of appeasement of minority, in this case Muslims.

The infamous Shah Bano case (Pic courtesy: www.youtube.com)
The infamous Shah Bano case (Pic courtesy: www.youtube.com)

The main opposition to Congress came from a splinter party formed in 1951 by Shyama Prasad Mookerjee and called Jana Sangh that was in response to Congress’s pseudo-secularism. The leaders of the party in succession after the death of SP Mookerjee were Deen Dayal Sharma, Atal Behari Vajpayee and then LK Advani. The party was widely regarded as the political arm of Hindu nationalist organisation called the RSS or the Rashtriya Swaymsevak Sangh. After Indira Gandhi imposed Emergency in the country in June 1975 when her election was set aside by Allahabad High Court on the ground of misuse of official machinery in her election campaign, in 1977, Jayaprakash Narayan led a successful campaign and a collision of parties under the banner of Janata Party came to power in 1977. This experiment didn’t last long and the Janata government collapsed in 1979. Bharatiya Janata Party emerged in 1980 from the break-up of Janata Party.

The formation of BJP was followed by a longish period of communal violence and it was widely perceived by the party under LK Advani that its Hindu revanchist strategy directly led to its forming the government at centre under Atal Behari Vajpayee. LK Advani, of course, was the mastermind of Ram Janambhoomi movement that eventually led to the Babri Masjid demolition in Ayodhaya on 6th Dec 1992. Waves of violence emerged in the country following this and over 2000 people were killed, at least half of them in Bombay riots of early 1993 that became, amongst others, the subject of Mani Ratnam’s famous 1995 movie Bombay starring Arvind Swamy and Moinisha Koirala.

Babri Masjid just before its demolition by Kar Sevaks (Pic courtesy: indiatoday.intoday.in)
Babri Masjid just before its demolition by Kar Sevaks (Pic courtesy: indiatoday.intoday.in)

Before that, the so called secular party Congress masterminded anti-Sikh riots in the capital New Delhi itself for four days after the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in her residence at the hands of her own Sikh bodyguards Beant Singh and Satwant Singh. By an independent estimate approximately 10000 Sikhs including women and children were mercilessly massacred by frenzied mobs incited by Congress leaders. The worst was that her son Rajiv Gandhi was anointed as the Prime Minister and he tried to justify the massacre by his now infamous utterance, “When a big tree falls, the earth shakes”. Thirty years later the victims of this pogrom are still to find justice.

A scene of 1984 massacre of Sikhs in the capital of India (pic courtesy: www.en.wikipedia.org)
A scene of 1984 massacre of Sikhs in the capital of India (pic courtesy: www.en.wikipedia.org)

And then, of course, the Feb 2002 Godhara Riots took place. The initial cause was reported to be the burning of a train on 27 Feb 2002 in Godhara, Gujarat that caused the death of 58 pilgrims returning from Ayodhaya. The resultant riots in reprisal resulted in the massacre of approximately 1000 people, mostly Muslims. The case has been widely used as the cause of Muslim terrorism both indigenous and from across the border. In a game of pot calling the kettle black, the Congress took the government of the then Chief Minister Narendra Modi (now Prime Minister) to task for allowing the rioters free hand over the next 72 hours or so to settle scores.

Godhara Riots (Pic courtesy: inewsindia.com)
Godhara Riots (Pic courtesy: inewsindia.com)

The fact of the matter is that political parties of all hues and leanings have found it expedient to play the communal card or the so called secular card in direct or indirect attempts to garner assured votes. Therefore, after coming to power, even though the Prime Minister Narendra Modi has assiduously steered clear from the manifestation of religious ideology of his party BJP or its ideological parent organisation RSS, the Hindu revanchists have started the process of Ghar Wapasi (Reverse Conversions of those Hindus who had earlier converted to Islam or Christianity) and many other controversial movements that have actually called to question our secular leanings. Recently, Prakash Javedkar, a BJP MP from Rajya Sabha and BJP official spokesman mooted the idea of dropping the two words ‘Secular’ and ‘Socialist’ from the Preamble to the Indian Constitution. These words were incorporated in the Preamble in the year 1976.

It is in this background that Barack Obama said: “The peace we seek in the world begins in human hearts; it finds its glorious expression when we look beyond any differences in religion or tribe and rejoice in the beauty of every soul,” said the president, who namechecked prominent Indian Muslims, Sikhs and sportswomen. “It’s when all Indians, whatever your faith, go to the movies and applaud actors like Shah Rukh Khan. When you celebrate athletes like Milkha Singh, or Mary Kom,” he said.

The present Prime Minister Narender Modi came to power as the 15th PM of the country in May 2014 with BJP winning 282 of National democratic Alliance (NDA)’s 336 seats of the Lok Sabha’s 543 seats. This means that not just the NDA, but even the BJP has absolute majority (272 seats required) in the Lok Sabha. During Obama’s recent visit, the media (both India and American) went ballistic about the growing personal relationship between the two leaders. However, Modi is the same leader who was previously denied a US visa following accusations that he tacitly facilitated the Godhara anti-Muslim riots in his state Gujarat in 2002  wherein he was the Chief Minister.

A series of attempts by rightwing Hindu groups to hold mass conversion ceremonies and somewhat mysterious fires at churches have sparked controversy in recent months. Last week the hardline Vishnu Hindu Parishad group claimed to have “re-converted” more than 20 Christians in the southern state of Kerala. The organisations come from the same broad political family as Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party.

In this background, lets ask the question again: Is there real danger of the latent communal disharmony blowing over into large scale unrests and violence that would undermine India taking its rightful place as an emerging economic and political power? The answer to this is sadly in the affirmative due to several counts.

The first is the tacit policy being adopted by Pakistan’s terrorist organisations supported both covertly and overtly by those in power to bleed India by a thousand cuts either by themselves or in collusion with home-grown terrorists and supporters to their cause. It is in their interest to cause as many communal unrests as possible and weaken India. Just like the 2002 Godhara Riots, every communal violence in India helps their cause.

The second is the success rate of using the religion and caste cards by political parties. They have tasted the blood of vote bank politics by exploiting the communal passions and are unlikely to see reason in a hurry.

The third is the revanchist attitudes by communities to undo the historic wrongs done to them. In this we would do well to keep in mind what Obama said: “No society is immune from the darkest impulses of men”. It won’t do any good to revert to a selected point in history when the others were on the wrong foot. Take the track record of both the major parties. The Congress, for example, has been calling BJP communal on the basis of such acts as Babri Masjid demolition and Godhara Riots. The BJP has been equally strident in pointing out the track record of communal riots in Congress ruled states including the national shame of Sikh Riots in the capital of India post the assassination of Smt. Indira Gandhi. Similarly, any attempts to alienate the Muslim community on the basis of historic wrongs done by Muslim rulers of erstwhile India are intrinsically wrong. Just as USA quickly realised post 9/11 that alienating and isolating indigenous Muslim community was not in the interest of America; similarly, sane thoughts should prevail in India.

The fourth is the emotional nature of religion as is practised in India. Every religion believes in one God but it has to be their God only and no other God. Surprisingly, even though our religion is decided for us by our parents at an age when we don’t even understand what religion is, when we grow up we are prepared to (somewhat blindly) give up our lives for it. A quote from my Facebook page ‘Make Your Own Quotes’ brings this out succinctly:

Religious Sheep

The fifth is the current situation. From all accounts, after nine months of being in government, Narendra Modi and to some extent his party have earned people’s appreciation for doing everything within their means to restore governance and India’s image abroad. In this scenario, Congress, that had been so far in India’s independent history triumphantly proclaiming that there is no alternative (TINA) to Congress, seems to be realising that it is headed for oblivion. There is only one hope and that is if BJP falls prey to communal machinations, riots and violence. This actually increases the probability of such engineered communal disharmony.

In the light of this, rather than brushing aside what Obama said, we should take it rather seriously and see to it that nothing comes in the way of India’s march towards progress. Neither political parties, nor ideological and militant organisations, nor even forces from across the border can do much harm without the help of people at large. If we as people resist being manipulated, we can yet make India into a great country, as visualised by Nobel Laureate Rabindra Nath Tagore as early as in the year 1910:

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

COMMUN ICATORS’ WOES

There was a time, and times have not changed even now, when the Israelites found themselves in constant battle or war for survival with their neighbours. During one of these, a battle weary Israelite with bombs and shells falling all around him, his house and town in shambles, his clothes in tatters, looked skywards and asked, “God, are we your chosen people?” God’s voice, from the heavens was heard by him over the crescendo of shells and splinters, “Yes, son you are.” At this, the Israelite, unable to stop his tears asked, “God, isn’t it time you chose someone else?”

Communicators were perceived by officers of other branches in the Indian Navy as the chosen people. They were, hence, not only constantly slanged but held responsible for anything and everything that went wrong with naval operations. Today’s generation of people, with world-wide means of communications in their pockets, would find it difficult to perceive the bad and ugly world of communications that I went through as a professional Communications and Electronic Warfare officer. Since this is a humorous article, let me give some light-hearted examples:

One, there used to be a Very High Frequency (VHF) portable set called VM25C (pronounced as Vee Em Two Five Charlie). It was called portable but as big as a Murphy radio set complete with an antenna sticking out from one side and a hand set like that of a telephone. One had to press the prestle for speaking and release for listening. In a scenario, say, a boat being sent to 5 – 7 miles away, in order to make sure that it would work when required, extensive pre-testing and pre-trials used to be done with the set having been lowered into the boat whilst still alongside and another one on the quarterdeck of the mother-ship. This testing would go on something like this:

Mother: Baby this is mother, over.
(No response from baby)
Mother (a little louder now): Baby this is mother, over.
(No response from baby)
Mother (at the top of his voice now): BABY THIS IS MOTHER, OVER.
Baby (feebly): Mother this is baby, over.
Mother (Still shouting): BABY THIS IS MOTHER, HOW DO YOU HEAR ME? OVER.
Baby (feebly): Mother this is baby, I hear you loud and clear, over.
Mother (For the first time conscious of the phenomenon being unfolding): BABY THIS IS MOTHER, NOT DIRECTLY BUT OVER THE SET, HOW DO YOU HEAR ME? OVER.
Baby (Realising this himself): Mother this is baby, directly loud and clear. But, over the set nothing heard, out.

We were, therefore, relieved when a “quantum jump in communications” was achieved with the help of PUNWIRE (M/s Punjab Wireless Systems Ltd) sets both for portable and tactical communications. These PWSL sets had to be synchronised before sailing out and repeatedly during the sortie at sea. Choicest abuses were hurled at the communicators of those ships that went out of Sync and were to be re-inducted into the fold. As far as portable communications were concerned many times the loud-hailers worked better than the PWSL sets.

Most exercises at sea turned out to be communications fiascoes (Read ‘Orphanage In Naval Dockyard Mumbai’, ‘Poor Communicator Had The Last Laugh’, ‘Phew – What Signals!’, and ‘Anything For Me?’) and in the debrief of the exercises officers of the other branches would bring out how they could have performed miracles at sea had the communications behaved properly.

Communicators everywhere, like the Israelites in the opening paragraph, after getting confirmation from God that they indeed were the chosen people were most likely to tell God, “Please do us a favour and choose someone else for a change.”

At the end of the sea sortie, when their other counterparts merrily went home, communicators were seen establishing shore telephone lines. If the communications at sea were awful, you have no idea of what communications in harbour would be like. Most of these shore telephones produced only noise and sometimes wrong numbers. Those who eventually obtained the dialed numbers ran through naked like a certain Greek gent named Archimedes and shouted the equivalent of Eureka in Hindi, Punjabi, Tamil or Bengali.

One forenoon, on my ship INS Ganga, I was working at the writing table when suddenly on my bunk-bed a shore telephone unit landed with a crash. I don’t normally swear but since this crash was precipitously close to my head I nearly uttered what is common expression these days amongst youngsters: “WTF”. But, before I could do so I heard the booming voice of my Captain KK Kohli, “Call this shore telephone, do you, SCO? It is the shame of @$%*##& communicators.” With this spitting of contemptuous venom he left. There is no sky in a cabin. Indeed, the cabin being luxury of 7 ft by 7 ft, it hardly has any room. Even at that, I looked upwards, the general direction of God and repeated to him what Pandit Kedar Sharma had penned for Bawre Nain, “Teri duniya mein dil lagata nahin waapis bula le..” (I am not finding it worth amusing my heart in your world, recall me to you.)”

Shore Telephone - A hateful object for practising communicators
Shore Telephone – A hateful object for practising communicators

In the midst of endless woes as communicators, the Director of Naval Signals (DNS), that time Commodore VK Malhotra, decided to visit us on INS Ganga. He was a course mate of our Captain KK Kohli and he was visiting us in connection with the first ever installation of SATCOM (Satellite Communication) system in the Navy. Charity begins at home and hence as DNS nothing better than fitting the system on a course-mate’s ship. In any case, Ganga was the latest ship in the Fleet and deserved this honour. Our Captain had asked us (self and SCO II) to look-after him in Captain’s absence and we dutifully left no Heineken can unopened (the naval equivalent of no stone unturned) to make him feel at home. Several Heineken cans later and post a sumptuous lunch, the decision to install the SATCOM system on Ganga was sealed. The complete party went to see the site of the fitment, ie, atop the helo hangar.

After Vijji Malhotra left, the squeals of glee and mirth of my SCO II (an outstandingly brilliant officer in various respects but totally naive in other respects) could be heard all the way to Okinawa, Japan. However, I was finding it hard to match his glee. He asked me the reason. I narrated to him the incident of the Captain chucking the shore telephone on my bunk-bed in harbour. “Imagine” I told him somberly, “We were to be free from the taunts about shore telephone at sea at least. Now, with SATCOM being fitted, we would have to be on guard at sea too.”

INS Ganga at sea
INS Ganga at sea

My utterance was prophetic in two different ways. When the bally thing didn’t work at sea, the complete communication department’s efficiency was suspect. And when it worked, the Fleet staff merrily kept making urgent calls from at sea resulting in Lakhs of rupees of bills (since at that time, SATCOM calls were to the tune of Rupees 540 per minute or so).

A communicator used to be the most god faring person in the Navy. Whilst everyone else blithely used communications, the SCO, in the silence of the nights, often communicated with God…….totally free of cost. I wonder if things have changed now.

PHIR YAAD NE TADPAAYA…..

आज फिर तसव्वर में उनका दीदार हो गया
खुदा की रहनुमाई पे फिर से ऐतबार हो गया
ना मेरे करीब हैं वो ना मुझसे दूर रहते हैं
फिर से दिल की अफरा तफरी का आसार हो गया

ज़िन्दगी सेहरा बनी थी उनकी अलैहदगी में
उनके मिलते ही आलम गुलज़ार हो गया
हमने माना करामात-ऐ- ख्याल ही था लेकिन
चंद लम्हों के लिए दिल खुशगवार हो गया

मुझे यकीन है तग़ाफ़ुल मुझे वह नहीं करते
उनकी खामोशी से ही इश्क़ का इज़हार हो गया
हैरत तो उनको खूब होगी मेरे अंदाज़-ऐ-वफ़ा पे
अब मुझे अपनी तन्हाई से भी प्यार हो गया

(Pic courtesy: www.flickr.com)
(Pic courtesy: www.flickr.com)

Aaj phir tasuvvar mein unaka deedaar ho gaya
Khuda ki rehnumaai pe phir pe phir se aitbaar ho gaya
Naa mere kareeb hain vo naa mere door rehate hain
Phir se dil ki afraa tafri kaa aasaar ho gaya.

Zindagi sehra bani thi unaki alahaidgi mein
Unake milate hi aalam gulzar ho gaya
Hamane maana ke karaamaat-e-khayaal hi tha lekin
Chand lamhon ke liye dil khushgavaar ho gaya.

Mujhe yakeen hai taghaful mujhako woh nahin karate
Unaki khaamoshi se hi ishq kaa izhaar ho gaya
Hairat to unako khoob hogi mere andaaz-e-wafa se
Ab mujhe apni tanhaayi se bhi pyaar ho gaya.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY WAHEEDA REHMAN 03 FEBRUARY

This is the second year in succession when I forgot her birthday. Could there be a hidden mental process involved in my repeatedly forgetting her birthday besides the fact her famous book by Nasreen Munni Kabir titled ‘Conversations With Waheeda Rehman’ is always at my bedside table? Perhaps the hidden mental process is secretly wishing for her not to become older!

20150204_155516

Her films have a great association with my childhood and boyhood days and even later days. For some reason, until about three years back, I thought of her as a Telugu origin actress. This was because, at the age of 17 years, she was the find of Guru Dutt in his movie C.I.D. to be directed by Raj Khosla and she was discovered by him in Hyderabad? 

Waheeda in C.I.D. performing the famous number Kahin Pe nigaahen (Pic courtesy: myhindiforum.com)
Waheeda in C.I.D. performing the famous number Kahin Pe nigaahen (Pic courtesy: myhindiforum.com)

Anyway, the other night, I was listening to Annu Kapoor in the late night Mastii.. show and he brought out how she refused to act in the movie with revealing clothes as expected by the director Raj Khosla and how despite that, because of her superb histrionics, her career still progressed to the extent of making her the finest actress in Hindi movies.

(pic courtesy: www.youtube.com)
(pic courtesy: www.youtube.com)

 What is so special about her? Could it be just the innumerable awards and honours that have been conferred on her; including the Living Legend Award conferred to her by the President of India in Dec 2013 on the occasion of 25th anniversary of NDTV when they honoured 25 Living Legends?

(Pic courtesy: www.ndtv.com)
(Pic courtesy: www.ndtv.com)

 C.I.D. was not the first movie in which I saw her. I saw it many years later. She was a vamp in the movie and one of her songs: Jaata kahan hai deewaane was banned due to its suggestive double entendre’. I saw her other song: Kahin pe nigaahen kahin pe nishaana and was instantly captivated by her; her eyes speak, she had that intrinsic innocence even as a vamp. 

In my later life, speaking with her eyes and her likeable elegance and grace are some of the attributes that I associated her with. She is a superb dancer; not of the same class as the other Tamil origin actress Vyjaynthimala (who is to be seen to be believed in Hontho pe aisi baat (Jewel Thief) and Jisse tu kabool karle (Devdas)). However, the overall effect of her dances comes out even better than Vyjaynthimala’s. Some of my favourite dance numbers of hers are: Piya tose naina laagi re, and Mose chhal kiye jaaye (boh from Guide), Raat bhi hai kuchh bheegi bheegi (Mujhe Jeene Do; which is her first movie that I saw. She was a courtesan who falls in love with a dacoit Sunil Dutt. This is the first scene in the movie where he sees her. She did with her full clothes on what actresses of today won’t be able to do with revealing clothes); Paan khayo sainyya hamaro (Teesri Kasam) and a difficult dance number when she was drunk in Prem Pujaari: Rangeela re tere rang mein youn rangaa hai mera man. 

(Pic courtesy: www.youtube.com)
(Pic courtesy: www.youtube.com)

I also am indebted to her for being the heroine of my favourite singer Hemant Kumar’s song: Ye Nayan Dare Dare and my favourite lyricist Shakeel Badayuni’s best-in-Hindi-movies-song describing the beauty of a woman: Chaudhvinh ka Chand ho yaa aftaab ho, job hi ho tum khuda ki kasam laajwaab ho.. Waheeda-Rehman-5

Waheeda in sad roles? Well, her acting in sad roles makes you feel for her and her situation in the movie to an extent that you feel personally involved to rescue her from the situation. Some of my favourite numbers in this respect are: Badale badale mere sarkaar nazar aate hain..(Chaudhvinh Ka Chaand), Jhoom jhoom dhalati raat (Kohra), Kahin deep jale kahin dil (the song that won Shakeel Badayuni one of his four Best Lyricist awards in Bees Saal Baad), Meri baat rahi mere man mein (Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam) and Rangeela Re (Prem Pujari).

Waheeda acting on Shakeel's Aye mohabbat meri duniya mein tera kaam naa tha, in Bees Saal Baad
Waheeda acting on Shakeel’s Aye mohabbat meri duniya mein tera kaam naa tha, in Bees Saal Baad

One reason why I keep forgetting her birthday is because I am still intensely in love with her girlhood songs: Sapane suhaane ladakpan ke..(Bees Sal Baad), Kaanto se kheench kar ye aanchal (Guide); Kaisa jaadu balam toone daara (12 O’Clock, another Guru Dutt movie) and Rimjhim ke taraane leke aayi barsaat (Kaala Bazar).

Waheeda performing on Kaisa jaadu balam toone daala...
Waheeda performing on Kaisa jaadu balam toone daala…

So, happy birthday Waheeda Rehman. Thank you very much for bringing enormous happiness, joys, enchantment, and wonderment into our lives. You are a Living Legend and we are proud of belonging to the same era that has been made more beautiful by your eternal grace and elegance.

Let me end by giving you her duet with Dev Anand in the 1960 movie Kaala Bazaar. The song has been put together by Shailendra, Sachin Dev Burman, Geeta Dutt (who sang many of her songs both in Dev Anand and her (Geeta Dutt’s) husband Guru Dutt’s movies.

Please enjoy: Rimjhim ke taraane le ke aayi barsaat….

(giitaa: rim jhim ke taraane leke aayii barasaat
rafii: yaad aaye kisii se vo pahalii mulaaqaat ) – 2

(giitaa: bhiige tan man pa.De ras kii phuhaar
rafii: pyaar kaa sandesaa laayii barakhaa bahaar ) – 2
giitaa: mai.n naa boluu.N, mai.n naa boluu.N aa.Nkhe.n kare.n a.Nkhiyo.n se baat
rafii: rim jhim ke taraane leke aayii barasaat

(rafii: sunake matavaale kaale baadalo.n kaa shor
giitaa: ruum jhuum ghuum ghuum naache man kaa mor ) – 2
rafii: sapano.n kaa saathii chal rahaa mere saath
giitaa: rim jhim ke taraane leke aayii barasaat
rafii: yaad aaye kisii se vo pahalii mulAqaat
dono: rim jhim ke taraane leke aayii barasaat

(giitaa: jab milate ho tum to chhUTe.n dil ke taar
rafii: milane ko tum se mai.n kyo.n thaa beqaraar ) – 2
giitaa: raha jaatii hai, raha jaatii hai kyo.n hoTho.n tak aake dil kii baat
rafii: rim jhim ke taraane leke aayii barasaat
giitaa: yaad aaye kisii se vo pahalii mulAqaat
dono: rim jhim ke taraane leke aayii barasaat!

 

ANJAAM-E-MOHABBAT HAMEN MANZUR HAI

मेरी आरज़ू-ऐ- मोहब्बत के जनाज़े पे वो भी उदास थे
कहीं मरने वाला उनका कोई हबीब तो नहीं?
यह हालात-ऐ-वफ़ा का ही कोई अंजाम लगता है
वरना ज़ालिम तो वह हैं पर कोई रकीब तो नहीं

क्या खून-ऐ-जिगर के बाद कोई अफ़साना बाकी है?
इस बद नसीब के कहीं ऐसे नसीब तो नहीं?
उनके नक्श-ऐ-कदम से कहीं ये फिर ना धड़कने लगे
इतना तो यह बेचारा नजीब तो नहीं

लटके हुए थे आज तक उनकी उल्फत के फंदे से
वह फिर भी कहते थे कोई सलीब तो नहीं
हमने दो जहां उनके किये एक कर दिए
उन्होंने फरमाया आम है, कोई अजीब तो नहीं

जलते गए, सहते गए, बहते रहे यह अश्क़
फिर भी तेरे रुखसार के करीब तो नहीं
तेरे दौलत-ऐ-ग़म मेरी बज़्म में ही तो रहते हैं
दिल तेरे बाजार-ऐ-इश्क़ में इतना गरीब तो नहीं

(Pic courtesy: www.galleryhip.com)
(Pic courtesy: www.galleryhip.com)

Meri aarzoo-e-mohabbat ke janaaze pe who bhi udaas the
Kahin marne waala unaka koi habeeb to nahin?
Yeh halaat-e-wafa ka hi koi anjaam lagata hai
Warna zaalim to who hain, par koi rakeeb to nahin.

Kyaa khoon-e-jigar ke baad bhi koi afsaana baaki hai?
Is badnaseeb ke kahin aise naseeb to nahin?
Unake nakshe-e-kadam se kahin who phir naa dhadakane lage?
Itana to yeh bechaara najeeb to nahin.

Latake huye the aaj taq unaki ulfat ke fande se
Who phir bhi kehate the koi saleeb to nahin
Hamane do jahan unake liye ek kar diye
Unhone farmaata aam hai ajeeb to nahin.

Jalate rahe, sehate rahe, behate rahe yeh ashq
Phir bhi tere rukhsaar ke kareeb to nahin
Tere daulat-e-gham meri bazm mein hi to rehate hain
Dil tere bazaar-e-ishq mein itana gareeb to nahin.

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