Super Woman!

A Tribute to My Mother and All The Women Behind The Soldier.

Jai Hind Saab 4 JCO 80 other Rank Hazir Hain Shriman!

Sorry Saab .....

Ek Fauji Wife/ Ma /Party Planner /Counselor/ Friend/ Accountant / Investment Banker / Real Estate Agent /Daughter/Daughter in Law/ Packer and Mover in Short Ek All In One Hazir Hain Shriman!!

The woman behind a warrior  the most unrecognised and unappreciated part of the fighting forces family (unless receiving a posthumous medal on behalf of her brave husband)

A Special Ops operative albeit without the Uniform or Medals.

She is trained in

Supply (Food on the table all the time at any time, for few or a whole regiment)

Logistics (Moving houses, Cities, Short travel, Long travel)

Survival Skills (Making a home out off nothing at all)

Medical Skills (Bruises,Stitches, Appendices, Fractures all routine)

Signals Expert (Short sweet letters, One minute Hello Roger and Over conversations)

Jungle Warfare (Keeping Children busy in unheard of scenarios)

Behind all the Battles and the Medals, behind all the Pomp and Pagentry....with complete focus and resolve be at sea level or high altitudes in barren lands or dense jungles a Faujis wife is a support and combat arm like no other. 

Any tribute one pays to these silent warriors and home makers is little.

I am proud to have had a Fauji mother..one who faced all odds with a smile.

Laughter The Only Medicine!

In memory of my Mum, my oldest girlfriend. Miss you dearly!

If God wanted to appoint a brand ambassador for laughter in this world, it would have been my mother, no doubt.

From the time I remember my mother would laugh and try to make others laugh with her irrespective of the situation.

There are few who knew her and do not remember her laughter.

I do not know when she attained this nirvana and how she would be able to hide the darkest of moments behind this laughter.


The roar of her laughter was no less than that of a powerful engine driving all around her.

What a wonderful way you have left for me to keep remembering you Ma, am sure wherever you are there's lots of  Laughter and a lot of warmth of your love.

The Unsolvable Mathematical Equation of our Nation

(Warning : Satire on the One Rank One Pension Demand.)

I am no mathematical genius and algebra with all its, x's, y's α's & β's was a nightmare even in my 9th standard.

So imagine the plight of our Bureaucrats who by all right consider their entrance exam as the last milestone before getting into the corridors of power and of course our Political class most of whom thought they would never need to know the A of Algebra and hence got into politics, when they have to come across such a complex formula of proving

OR ≠ OP as opposed to OR = OP.

The formula is very close to my heart , but come on even a child in the kinder garden can find an anomaly in this without referring to Google or some App on a smart device.

How can OR be equal to OP????

O=O and R=R so by logic only OR = OR and where the hell did this "P come from???? 

Has our million+ strong Armed Forces who shoulder such great responsibilities of guarding the nation in PEACE & WAR not even got their basics in English or Maths correct?

There are a few interesting theories being floated,  

Theory 1 : Maybe a close friendly neighbour whose existence depends on the alphabet "P" has brainwashed and conspired to make "P" an all important alphabet for our country as well.

Theory 2 : Maybe it is just the Armed Forces way of using alphabets, any one close to the Forces knows that they skip alphabets as a habit. I mean its is a rule for them to write, A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,J and conveniently skip I, so maybe they skipped R and wrote P instead.

Theory 3: The Armed Forces are used to using code, P is actually code for R and because they need the formula to be secret they have written it in its current form.


Theory 4: Just correct the formula by making OR = O {(P-Q)=R}

With all the bright minds at work the list of theories is getting longer, a suggestion to ask the Armed Forces the answer to the formula directly has been denied as it is considered as grave treason and would involve meddling in affairs of national security.

The policy makers assure the Armed Forces of a solution soon, they are considering investing in a supercomputer to be made locally for an undisclosed amount of money , they cant disclose the sum as it maybe many times the sum needed for OROP itself, they however are sure that it will take care of all further such anomalies in algebraic equations thrown at them.

I just hope the policy makers have ordered enough cooling fans as well, no not for their new supercomputer, but for the thousands of Veterans' whose voices are being ignored and needless to say the temperature is rising very fast.!!

Jai Hind!

भारत माता तेरी कसम, तेरे रक्षक रहेंगे हम

कोई दुश्मन कभी अगर भूले से भी देखले इधर

दीवारें हम बनेंगे माँ ,तलवारें हम बनेंगे माँ

छू ले तुझको किसमें है दम !

वन्दे मातरम , वन्दे मातरम !! 

(Song at the IMA)

ShoorVeer!

Shoorveer! (: बहादुर, साहसी). brave { adj. }.

This title was bestowed upon me by a wise old man. It felt nice to have been knighted gave me a sense of belonging in an alien land.

Over the years I formed a silent bond with the wise old man as he showed me how it was to age with grace, keeping his mind busy and body active till the moment he could.

Sharing his experiences, memories and thoughts without being imposing or judgmental. His witty one liners would provide encouragement and motivation when needed and kept our spirits high.

Cheers to your wonderful life and legacy, you will be celebrated and missed by this Shoorveer forever....and the atmosphere of your wonderful painting says it all.

The Grand Shave!

Last night my wife noticed her grandfather sport an uneven shave. One would imagine that @ the age of 99 and a few months away from his centenary, this would not matter!

However my better half's recent and not so recent exposure to military life has honed her inspection skills (also the fact that my dad shaves every day at 4:30 am be sun,rain,storm, I get away as I have her thinking of me as of one of the special forces kind and sporting a stubble every now and then)

Why not a clean shave? Whats the matter? A General inspecting his men would have missed out on noticing but not my better half.

But sharp that he is @ 99 , he softly explained that Philips had let him down. They apparently have not yet perfected the electric shaver with heads that can outlive him, (yes Philips you have 99 old users ,kindly inform your R&D team at the earliest)

In the back of his mind, he was probably calculating the amount of money he has spent shaving till date or thinking why he does not have at least a board position or a say in R&D in any of shaving industry majors with his experience of the perfect shave? Then there is the whole after shave market!!

Anyway the General was quick to react and special forces are not special without skills, Amazon it was , a quick confirmation by the end user to a model and on its way is a new Philips Electric Shaver  (How i wish an army was actually able to react and acquire inventory so quick with end user approval).

And it is with admiration that I got out of bed this morning, having hope that even @ 99 one can look forward to the day and in the case of the Good Old Chap , a GRAND SHAVE!

God Speed Amazon, this is one delivery I hope you don't delay.

"Tender" Me Slow!

"TENDER" : 
Adjective : Easily chewed or cut
Noun: A formal offer, as a written offer to contract goods or services at a specified cost or rate; a bid.

"Tender" is a word i am being reintroduced to time and again in my line of business as days go by. 

I do not understand how a word meaning easily chewed or cut can be used in the commercial sphere as a legal term to find the best vendor  for purchase of supplies or services.

I presume the person who coined the term belonged from a culinary background ...he or she probably thought that the best way to get the desired result to any activity was just to cook the vendor on a slow fire..till he was TENDER enough to be served, just like a nice tender chicken.
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The whole process of Tender Notices, EMD's, Technical Specifications, Financial Bids....etc, resemble a bouquet of spices a chef would use to prepare a marinade.

The Negotiations,Formalities,Re-negotiations, The movement of the file form here to there... the endless wait ..imitate the chef grilling his dish on a slow fire waiting for just the right tenderness in it before being served.

The only thing common in both, the Cooking and the "Tender" process, is the end, the vendor eventually is left  resembling a pile of bones.... just the way a Chef would expect one of his tenderly cooked chicken dishes at the end of a meal.

Mother!

Just read this thought provoking post on facebook and thought it would be good to make it part of my blog:

In a mother's womb were two babies. One asked the other: "Do you believe in life after delivery?"

The other replies, "why, of course. There has to be something after delivery. Maybe we are here to prepare ourselves for what we will be later.

"Nonsense," says the other. "There is no life after delivery.

What would that life be?"

"I don't know, but there will be more light than here. Maybe we will walk with our legs and eat from our mouths."

The other says "This is absurd! Walking is impossible. And eat with our mouths? Ridiculous. The umbilical cord supplies nutrition. Life after delivery is to be excluded. The umbilical cord is too short."

"I think there is something and maybe it's different than it is here." the other replies,

"No one has ever come back from there. Delivery is the end of life, and in the after-delivery it is nothing but darkness and anxiety and it takes us nowhere."

"Well, I don't know," says the other, "but certainly we will see mother and she will take care of us." "Mother??" You believe in mother? Where is she now? "

"She is all around us. It is in her that we live. Without her there would not be this world."

"I don't see her, so it's only logical that she doesn't exist."

To which the other replied, "sometimes when you're in silence you can hear her, you can perceive her." 

I believe there is a reality after delivery and we are here to prepare ourselves for that reality....