ACROSS THE PALE PARABOLA OF JOY

Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, "Plum" to his countless fans, passed on to the other side on Valentine's Day, 14th February, 1975.

This was written in tribute, in July, 2015

ACROSS THE PALE PARABOLA OF JOY

P   Plum begins with this curvaceous line

A   And then leaves it dangling fine

L   Levitating, hanging, as it were

E   Enthrallingly suspended in mid-air

P   Pelham, yoo hoo! (PGW who you?)

A   Answer my call

R   Run to my rescue

A   And please tell me all

B   Break the flower pots

O   Overturn the tables

L   Landscape the blots

A   And open the stables

O   Ossify the owls, but please complete it

F   Fossilise the fowls, but finish it, dash it!

J   Jumpin’ Jenkins!

O   Ogling onions!

Y   You started it; pray end it, you Purple Bandit!

                

  © Shiva Kumar 

MY HOODED NEIGHBOUR

Monday, 31st January 2017, just after noon, I had collected my lunch box and was stepping into my car when a woman walking down the road came to me, pointed behind her and said in an excited voice "Haavu!" (Kannada for "Snake"). I didn't catch on immediately but then she turned round and pointed. Just across the street, less than 50 feet from my house. I walked across and looked. At first I couldn't spot him because he was so well camouflaged. But when I looked closer, I could see him, about eighteen inches of him that had emerged out of a rat hole, facing away from me. His half open hood was as large as my fully open palm, maybe even larger! The "Naamam", the distinguishing mark on the rear of his hood, of two circles joined by a U-line, like a pair of spectacles on the salt-and-pepper speckled scales, was clearly visible. Naja naja! 

Was he taking in the sun? Was he checking out his territory? Did something disturb him? He remained in that position for a good 5 minutes or so, not making any sound (that "hiss" can scare a person into immobility), not turning around, not moving at all, allowing my daughter and me to snap off quite a few pics on our mobile cameras from almost, but not quite, hand shaking distance. Then, perhaps satisfied that the sun was shining down brightly and all was well with the world, he downed periscope and slid back into the hole.

-      

Lightning Quick!

Quick Light (Tez Roshni)

How quickly time flies! They say it travels at the speed of light.

I am reminded of the good man, Olaus Romer, an Earthling who was born 372 years ago and died 306 years ago.

One balmy afternoon, when a weak sun was shining its light down and a light breeze was playing about, our friend, as the story goes, was lying under his favourite tree contemplating life. There were no apples hanging from the tree as it happened to be a jackfruit tree. He was fortunate that no jackfruit fell on his head, or else there would have been no telling what the gravity of the situation might have been, and the good man escaped by the skin of his teeth. Ah!

Just when he had begun to doze off and the opening credits of his day-dream began to roll, he was startled into wakefulness by a call from his favourite aunt on his smart phone. She asked him what he was doing and he replied somewhat testily, for he was forced to pause the dream, “Contemplating Life”. And Aunt Matilda, who was a little hard of hearing, misheard him and said, “What are you contemplating light for? Don’t just lie there and contemplate light. Do something about it. Light! Pah, bah and tchah!”

And Olaus was always in mortal fear of his Aunt Matilda for she was the one who, when he was a boy of four, scared him by switching off the light without warning during story telling sessions when she spoke of spooks and things that move in the dark. He always wished that he would be able to catch a fistful of light and keep it in his pocket so that he would never be in the dark. But, try as he might, he could not. It always managed to slip through and was too quick for him. Hah!

He decided to find out just how quick light was.

Now, he was familiar with the planet Jupiter in the sky. Among its sixty seven moons was one called Io (pronounced “Ayyo”, and rightly so). Io had a habit of playing hide-and-seek with Jupiter, going off every now and then into its shadow. Olaus started off by timing the eclipse when Io suddenly moved into the shadow of Jupiter and again when it suddenly moved out of it. Don’t ask me how, but with the help of a stop watch and by a clever mix of observation, logic, mathematics, trigonometry, some intrepid calculations on the fingers of his hand and remembering the carry-forwards in his head, he was able to derive a figure, rounded off to a hundred and forty thousand miles per second, as the speed of light. This was later discovered by other clever mixers to be off the mark by a slight margin of some forty-six-thousand-odd miles per second but it was close enough for everyone to pat him on the back during their next Friday club get-together. Wah!

(One intense trignomerist, or whatever you call those astronomers who use trigonometry to bring them up to speed, patted him a little too hard, causing him to exclaim, “Io”!)

It is already three hundred and forty years since Olaus was thus patted on his back. Since then, other noteworthies have sat down singly and jointly, gallons of coffee* at hand to keep them awake, and have calculated the speed of light to a nicety. And the conclusion they reached was that light travelled too fast. At the rate of two hundred ninety nine million, seven hundred ninety two thousand, four hundred fifty eight metres every second, to be precise! That’s mighty quick.

Sudden, what?



* I wonder if the coffee they had was the South Indian filter variety, strong, sakkare kadimeˊ !

© - Shiva Kumar – 07 Dec 2016

Courtroom Drama

The Face in the Court

Monday morning. The clock in my head said 10:23, which was more or less the right time because this clock is right most of the time (except on Sundays and public holidays). The Court Complex in the heart of the city. Bustling with activity. Black-coated and black-robed lawyers rushing to and fro, looking extremely busy, some looking like they had just been para-dropped into the court grounds, their black robes billowing behind them and hair carefully mussed up. Flustered assistants running behind them carrying piles of files and looking even busier, and clients with furrowed brows following close on their heels, hanging on to their every word and trying to get in that last request.

The court halls were starting to fill up with accusers and accused, plaintiffs and defendants, parties of the first part and parties of the second part and such like, and their relatives and friends. And, of course, their lawyers. Some are there out of genuine concern. Some are there because it is their duty. Some are there purely for the courtroom drama. And some, like me, are there without knowing why.

I was actually on my way to the city market planning to check out a fountain pen repair shop and a second hand book seller in the Avenue Road-Chickpet area and had just alighted from the bus at the stop near the court, intending to walk down from there to where the stationery stores, book shops, pen sellers and repairers, wholesale merchants and bargain shops are located, when I saw someone in a bright checked shirt waving at me from the court grounds just opposite. I couldn’t see his face but he looked very, very familiar. And that checked shirt too. Where had I seen it before? Curious to know who it was, I crossed the road and walked towards him. I could just make out the round face, the broad nose and full head of greying hair but couldn’t pin it down. As I neared him, he gesticulated and ran towards the stairs leading to the court halls on the upper floors. I ran after him and was just able to make out his form disappearing into the Court Hall No. 7 on the 1^st floor. Who was this gent in the bright checked shirt? Why did he run away from me? Curious.

I quickly entered Court Hall No. 7, but was accosted at the door by another gent with a handlebar moustache, looking official in white trousers and white half-sleeved shirt. He was obviously one of the court staff, the chappie who stands at the door and shouts out names of the parties to each case as they are called out by the clerk. He stopped me just inside the hall, his moustache fairly bristling as he looked me up and down three times sternly, making me feel like the party of the other part. But apparently he decided I wasn’t guilty until proven so because he told me to sit down quickly as court would be starting any moment and I should not make any “galaatta”. He made space for me between two aggrieved parties on the bench along the wall and I squeezed into it. The chap I had followed inside, the raison d’etre for my coming to this place, the gent in the bright checked shirt, was nowhere to be seen. Curiouser.

Just when I was thinking that I should get out from this place, the aforementioned white shirted official-looking gent walked up to the door behind the magistrate’s bench, threw it open smartly and announced in a loud voice, “OPEN COURT”. Every person stood up as a distinguished looking black robed magistrate walked in through the doorway, climbed up the steps to his seat, did a “Namaskara” to the packed Court Hall and settled himself in. The clock hanging on the wall facing the magistrate showed the time to be precisely eleven o’ clock. The clock in my head more or less agreed. I couldn’t very well leave at that moment, could I? So I sat down and waited.

There were lawyers everywhere. The early comers were seated around a U-shaped table below the bench. Those who couldn’t find a seat were standing behind the seated lawyers, hoping to take their places soon. Some more were standing behind the clerk. The benches along the wall were full with people waiting expectantly and there were more people standing near the door. ‘Jampacked’ is the word I am looking for.

As I looked around, I thought I glimpsed a familiar face craning around the neck of another just outside the door but it disappeared before I could zoom in and get a fix on the identity. He was there one moment and not there the next. The gent in the bright checked shirt checked out as suddenly as he had checked in. Curiouser and curiouser.

As the Court began proceedings, a hush descended on the hall. The magistrate uncapped a fountain pen, wrote something on the pad in front of him and nodded to the clerk who then stood up and called out the first case listed for the day. “OS numbar eks-woi-jed, Such and Such” (note that both are Such until one of them is proven Jhoot). The white-and-white gent, standing at the door, repeated the names called out in a loud voice, “SUCH, SUCH”. Two lawyers standing expectantly near the clerk with their ears flapping approached the bench and made a respectful submission that they were appearing for the plaintiff and the defendant, respectively. The magistrate quickly scanned the papers placed by the clerk in front of him, wrote something on the last sheet, said something to the two lawyers that I couldn’t follow, looked at a table calendar placed in front of him and pronounced a date for the next hearing. The two lawyers slowly backed off and retracted their ears. Next case. Similar action. And so it went on. Court was rushing through cases that were in the preliminary stages.

I sat through some ten or twelve cases and nearly dozed off. Then suddenly there was a lull as the clerk was getting some papers signed by His Lordship. I saw my chance. Before he could call the next case, I quickly stood up, thanked the two aggrieved parties for letting me sit between them, did a “Namaskara” to the Court and stepped smartly out of the hall. Mr. White-and-white glared at me but I was free and couldn’t be stopped. I glared back at him and walked off. And looked around. But could not see any sign of the gent in the bright checked shirt. He had vanished as if he had never been there.

I walked back to the bus stop ruing the fact that I had lost an hour for no reason at all. I was thinking that if I got hold of that checked shirt, I would wring the neck it encased. And as I was revelling in this thought, lo and behold, there it was! And there was the chap wearing it! I saw him waiting at the bus stop. I decided I would steal up to him and catch him unawares. But before I could cross the road, a bus rolled up, our man got in and the bus pushed off.

As I stood there shaking my fist, I suddenly remembered that I had a bright checked shirt identical to the one that chap was wearing. And a chilling realisation struck me amidships and sent me reeling – I knew where I had seen that face before. I had seen it in the mirror.

It was my own face!

© Shiva Kumar - Nov 2016

The Face in the Night

The Face in the Night

It must be some 6-7 or 8-9 years now after this singular incident took place. It happened when I was living in the first floor house where the ground floor was vacant, the inmates having escaped a couple of weeks earlier without leaving a forwarding address. No ground staff, only the flying squad.

As is my habit, I boo a dit of beading in red after dinner before nodding off to sleep. You know what I mean. By the time I bang the book shut, slam the lights off and quietly call it a night, the clock usually has slid past the twelve o’ clock mark. I generally manage to get my seven or eight hours straight and without a break, unless I have had that glass of water just before head hit pillow.

This night was no different. I read my constitutional twenty three pages till my eyes were barely able to stay open. My brain was starting to fog up and stray out of focus. I snapped the book shut with a snap, reached out and flicked the light switch off with a flick. As the room went dark, I closed my eyes, rolled over to my right and made a dignified exit to slumber-land. I think I went out like the light I had just flicked off. All had become silent in the household except for the odd snores emanating from time to time.

Suddenly I came awake. One moment I had been out as described above, in a state of suspended animation as it were, the next I came alive, into a state of animated suspension. I tried to reckon the time, but the clock in my head, which is usually reliable and correct to the minute, was on temporary leave of absence, its mainspring having broken off from its moorings. But I reckon it must have been close to three o’ clock. Very oily in the moining.

I blinked my eyes open but made no other movement. It was as well. My bed was right next to the window whose shutters were glazed with translucent figured glass with a kind of serrated design. There were no curtains covering the window. As my eyes settled on the window, I saw a face!  

Yes, I saw a face. It wasn’t a reflection of my own face; I know my face well and this wasn’t it. There was another face outside, trying to peer into the room through the glass! When my eyes slowly focussed, I could see the whites of the eyes as it tried to look inside. It was pressed close to the glass with the hands held on either side. It was fairly lit by the outside street lights but I could not make out the features. Whoever it was, was trying to look inside but not succeeding because the inside of the house was in darkness. Hardly four feet away from me.

I was fully awake now. I knew what I should do. I slowly sat up. I breathed in deeply but silently, inflating first my left and then my right lung to the full, put my head as close to the window as I could without moving my body and looked straight at the face. And I bellowed.

It came out as a deep roar, gathering force as it exited my throat, a boom of thunder rolling out and hitting the window pane with a fearful punch. I don’t know if it woke up the entire neighbourhood, but it certainly jolted my wife from deep slumber to wakefulness.  

“HOOAAAOOOOYYYY!”

My vocal performance produced impressive results outside the window. For a second after the reverberation died down and the window panes stopped rattling, nothing happened. Then the face disappeared from the window as if wiped off, there was a loud “THUD” of something heavy falling to the ground and I heard someone groan “AYYO”.

I realised then that that face was part of a head which had a thorax and an abdomen joined to it. In other words, there was a body below that head. And legs attached to the body. The blighter had been standing on the “chajja” (“chad ja” for him?) or sunshade of the ground floor window just below my window and trying to peer inside. Who was he? Thief? International spy? Peering Brosnan? I don’t know, but I do know that I had startled him and upset his delicate balance, causing his downfall. I had scared him right off his perch.

I quickly picked up the stout bamboo cane with the bent root like a hockey stick which I keep next to my bed and ran out on to the balcony, hoping he had broken a leg or something and was lying in the narrow passage beside the compound, unable to move. I was disappointed. The blackguard had disappeared.

My wife was sitting up, looking dazed. She found it difficult to believe what had just taken place but having been in the room while it happened, she had to.

All in all, a very satisfying bellow. I should use it more often.

-          © Shiva Kumar 2016

May Shri Ganesha clear all your obstacles!

The Story of Abdul Hamid

                                                                                        (image taken from Wikipedia)

The story of Abdul Hamid

My favourite radio station is Vividh Bharati service of All India Radio (Akashvani) which plays some of the finest old Hindi film music heard on radio. My car radio is always tuned to this station. Not for me the mindless chatter and commercial-filled private FM stations. Vividh Bharati does not have too many advertisements and its announcers speak in a composed manner. They are “announcers”and not “radio jockeys” as the others prefer to call themselves. In fact, these radio jockeys are most of the time unintelligible and seem to be always in a hurry to finish and go somewhere.

Vividh Bharati has been doing yeoman service to our armed forces by dedicating programmes specially for their listening pleasure. One such programme is Jayamala which is broadcast every weekday evening from 7:05 to 7:45. I cannot remember any other programme in this time slot. In the days when there was no mobile telephony or internet, the radio would have been only handy source of news, entertainment and solace from the outside world available to our brave jawans stationed on our borders, sitting in their tents or bunkers on some remote mountain top at temperatures below freezing or in the desert in scorching heat, away from their families.

On Saturday evenings, Vividh Bharati broadcasts Vishesh Jayamala, a special Jayamala programme in the same time slot of 7:05 to 7:45, where personalities from the Hindi film industry are invited to speak to the soldiers and play some of their favourite songs.

Last Saturday, as I was driving home from work, the Vishesh Jayamala programme was on and it was not someone from the film industry speaking. Instead, it was a run-up to our Independence Day celebrations and the baritone voice of the announcer was telling us the story of Company Quarter Master Havildar Abdul Hamid. Listening to the poignant account, my eyes misted over as I tried to feel and understand the sacrifice our soldiers made and continue to make.

Abdul Hamid was one such soldier. He hailed from a small village called Dhampur in Ghaziabad district of Uttar Pradesh. He was barely twenty one years old when he was enrolled in the Grenadiers infantry regiment. He was later posted in the 4^th Battalion of the same regiment where he served all his short life. Hamid’s battalion had participated in the Sino-Indian war of 1962. After five years in the anti-tank section of the battalion, Hamid was promoted and became the Quartermaster, Stores of his company. But he was reverted to his earlier charge as the NCO commanding his battalion’s Recoil-less Rifle Platoon as he was the best 106mm recoil-less rifle shot in the battalion.

On 8^th September 1965, the Pakistani forces launched an attack on India on the area just ahead of Cheema Village on the Khem Karan – Bhikiwind – Amritsar road. Though the enemy made repeated attacks, the 4^th Grenadiers beat them off successfully. That day, Abdul Hamid destroyed two Pakistani Patton tanks.

Just two days later, on the morning of 10^th September 1965, Pakistani tanks once again attacked the Indian 4^th Grenadier positions in the Khem Karan sector. Abdul Hamid who was in a gun mounted jeep, spotted a group of Patton tanks advancing on his position. Without flinching in the face of the enemy shelling and firing, he advance towards the tanks and was successful in knocking out three Patton tanks. By then the enemy had spotted him and started concentrating fire on his jeep. Before he could engage the fourth tank in his sights, his jeep took a direct hit and he was mortally wounded. He lost his life but inspired his comrades to put up a fight and beat back the enemy.

Abdul Hamid destroyed a total of seven Patton tanks before laying down his life for the nation.

The Battle of Asal Uttar was one of the largest tank battles fought in the Indo-Pak war of 1965.This battle is compared with the battle of Kursk in the Second World War for how it changed the course of the India-Pakistan war of 1965 in India's favour. (Battle of Asal Uttar - Wikipedia)

Within a week of this battle that cost him his life, Abdul Hamid was honoured by a grateful nation with the Param Vir Chakra, the highest military decoration of the Republic of India. The award was announced on 16^th September 1965 and presented to his wife, Rasoolan Bibi by the then President of India, Sri. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, during the Republic Day Parade on 26^th January 1966.

I salute our brave soldiers!

The Param Vir Chakra citation on the official Indian Army website reads as follows:

CITATION

COMPANY QUARTERMASTER HAVILDAR ABDUL HAMID

4 GRENADIERS (NO 2639985)

At 0800 hours on 10 September 1965 Pakistan forces launched an attack with a regiment of Patton tanks on a vital area ahead of village Cheema on the Bhikkiwind road in the Khem Karan Sector. Intense artillery shelling preceded the attack. The enemy tanks penetrated the forward position by 0900 hours. Realising the grave situation, Company Quartermaster Havildar Abdul Hamid who was commander of a RCL gun detachment moved out to a flanking position with his gun mounted on a jeep, under intense enemy shelling and tank fire. Taking an advantageous position, he knocked out the leading enemy tank and then swiftly changing his position, he sent another tank up in flames. By this time the enemy tanks in the area spotted him and brought his jeep under concentrated machine-gun and high explosive fire. Undeterred, Company Quartermaster Havildar Abdul Hamid kept on firing on yet another enemy tank with his recoilless gun. While doing so, he was mortally wounded by an enemy high explosive shell.

Havildar Abdul Hamid’s brave action inspired his comrades to put up a gallant fight and to beat back the heavy tank assault by the enemy. His complete disregard for his personal safety during the operation and his sustained acts of bravery in the face of constant enemy fire were a shining example not only to his unit but also to the whole division and were in the highest traditions of the Indian Army.