Once upon a time, in the bygone decade of 90s, yours truly was posted to Mumbai. We were staying in the Officer’s transit accommodation pending allotment of a house. My wife was in the family way – in her last trimester. I was posted onboard a ship which sailed frequently but then, this was not a bother since we were staying in the cocooned safety of naval environment. The naval community is close knit and there is never a dearth of assistance.

Meticulous planning is the hallmark of a naval officer! So I had studied the delivery date given by the Gynecologist and planned my annual leave so as to optimize my home stay post baby’s arrival. Any layman would immediately point out the flaw in my ‘meticulous’ planning – it was based on the assumption that my wife delivers the baby on the exact date predicted by the Gynecologist. So, my wife’s going into labour coincided with my ship being at sea!

The wise and the old amongst us may recall a world sans mobiles. In the early 90s, there were these ubiquitous black telephone instruments which were highly temperamental. Unable to get in touch with any friend, she went down the mess parking area looking for someone to give her lift to Asvini, the naval hospital. She found a young naval officer standing next to a car and requested him for a drop to the hospital which is less than a kilometer away. Ordinarily, such request would have elicited a response marked with alacrity and concern. But horror of horrors, the officer actually demurred. He seemed reluctant and tried to stall the trip. He even suggested that at times the labour pains are false and hence there is no urgency to go to the hospital. After a bit of politeness and time, my wife’s patience was running thin and she demanded that she be dropped to the hospital immediately.  The officer reluctantly went over to the driver’s seat, started the car and drove slowly to the hospital. After what seemed like an eternity and zillion jerks, they reached the hospital. My wife was whisked away to the maternity ward. We never met this officer again for a long time and so, I could not, out of politeness, express my gratitude. At the same time, we were appalled at the indifference shown by him.

About 5 years later, we were posted to Goa. We ran across this officer at a naval party. This time, the officer shed his reluctance and proactively came to meet us. After the usual small talk, he turned to my wife and said “ Ma’am , I am sorry about that day. Actually it was not my car. And I had never driven a car before in my life so I was petrified to drive one – that too with you inside”

Anti corruption drive is the rage of the season. Media is going ballistic over errant ministers and bureaucrats while the common man derives voyeuristic pleasure at the discomfiture of hitherto untouchables’ thereby increasing TRPs of the channel.  In saner and sober moments, I think of myself as a member of moral –keeping middle class and enjoy the discomfiture of the mighty and the corrupt when they have the mike thrust into their face.  I regard the whore soliciting customers upfront on the roadside more honorable than these morally decrepit souls justifying their self serving ways in well phrased language.

Sitting in the salon, these screen events seem remote, kind of removed from personal life which goes on in its unassuming middle class way.  However a recent happening demonstrates that we all do get touched by the monster one way or other – and therefore its mandatory that we stand up and fight against corruption.

I had just resigned my commission as a naval officer – from serving at the pleasure of the President of India I was now to serve at the whims and fancy of the Company Director! Being in the navy has its plus points – stay in South Bombay, Naval school for children, clubs, golf etc. When I shifted to the big bad civilian world, the major hurdle was getting the kids admitted to a good school in Mumbai. We tried our best; we were booted out by some principals whilst others made vague promises. In desperation, we decided to shift to a nearby city and get the kids admitted to the Army School where I expected some kind of preferential treatment. Unfortunately, the admission picture was not too rosy there either.

Now I am a principled kind of a bloke who does not like to subvert the system for personal gains. But I am also a doting father – a role which over rides all other roles. At this juncture of life, I was lucky enough to have a  friend who was a close relative of the army top brass in Bombay – General Bones. A phone call from the General to the Principal of Army School would have ended all my woes.

My friend obliged by putting up my case to her Uncle. However, he declined saying that it was against his principles to subvert the system and that her friend (me) should know better than to request a serving army general for such favours. Duly chastised, I accepted the General’s logic and admired his moral stance. I also tried to realign my moral compass since I felt I had lost ground on the moral front by trying to take undue advantage of my friendship. Unfortunately, I could not or did not set off on a pilgrimage to atone for my sins. I got the children admitted to schools in Bombay, drawing consolation in the fact that I have done the morally right thing – taken the path of harder right than the easier wrong. I mentally saluted the General for bringing me back on the path of virtue and righteousness once more.

A couple of years passed – kids settled down to their school. Friends scattered. I was watching the TV. The anchor was reporting the most recent scam saying “General Bones has been summoned  for Court of Inquiry investigating his alleged role in illegally obtaining a flat in Ideal Housing Society ”

To be candid, the general populace does carry the impression that defence personnel are a tad dense in their upper floor – a notion which is difficult to dispel. Unfortunately there exists a host of factual and fictional anecdotes which augment the belief. I have one such anecdote to narrate.

Capt RK is a retired army officer serving with us – a smart energetic person. Now, we all know that the city of Mumbai plays host to a variety of viruses – some known, other mutants. RK happened to get afflicted with the mutant variety. Initially, like a true fauji, he refused to accept the fact that he was ill. When the fever persisted and we insisted, he reluctantly took sick leave. The local doctors could not get a handle on the mutated virus. He finally went to a swank clinic where all those pedigreed foreign returned doctors practice. The good old days of General Practitioner who examined the patient, drew on his experience and diagnosed are long gone. Today it’s science and gadgets. So poor RK was subjected to a battery of tests, diagnosed as having some unpronounceable disease and was prescribed a 3 day course of different medicines. These medicines came packaged in a single strip with day 1, 2 and 3 marked in column. The patient was required to take the daily set of red, blue and white pill placed column wise every day.

RK started the medicinal course convinced it will cure him of every ill. However at the end of third day, he felt worse and had blood in his sputum. He went back to the flabbergasted doctors complaining of worsening condition.

The flummoxed doctors ran another battery of tests which yielded the same earlier unpronounceable result. Now those fancy foreign returned doctors just couldn’t fathom what was wrong – the diagnosis was positive, the prescribed medicine appropriate but the end result opposite and inappropriate. For once, the super gadgets seemed to let them down.

The clinic had an ex fauji as the Administrator. He overheard the case discussions in the executive lunch room and looked up the medicine strip. He went to RK and asked “Did you eat the medicines regularly?” RK nodded his head in affirmative. “So you ate the red, blue and white coloured tablets each day?” the ex fauji asked indicating the set of medicine meant for Day 1, 2 and 3. “No sir” came the classic reply from RK, ” I ate the red coloured ones on the first day, blue coloured ones the second day and white ones on the last”

She wore a pink salwar kameez and an attitude, long legs balanced on high heels, no make up, shoulder length jet black hair, honey colour complexion, intoxicating brown eyes, about 30 years. “Hello Sir, how are you?’ she asked as she slid next to me. I had to fight the enticing perfume and presence to concentrate on the lecture.

A few lectures past, I realized two things – she was a tad deficient in her upper storey but made up for it with loads of attitude and chutzpah. I was more than happy to help her with the occasional answers in return for a company and a dimpled smile. Men will always be boys and 500km away from home, staying in a hostel; men will be boys with loads of testosterone!

The moot question hammering my intellect was – can a person have more than one soul mate? Are human instincts and happiness subservient to man made rules, to be sacrificed on the altar of “acceptable behaviour”? Do we come across friends, confidants, loved ones and enemies from our previous births in our present lives? How else can one explain instant like or hate when we run across certain persons? Soulmates are fellow travelers from previous lives or maybe part of our soul which has transmigrated to different physical forms, now trying to get together again……

As students we, armed forces officers, were acutely conscious of the fact that we were the chosen ones to study in the hallowed precincts of the institution. The red stoned building with its sprawling lawns had an old world charm; there was feeling of freedom and expectation in the air. The faculty and alumni of the institution boasted of names from the who-is-who of the academic and management world. Two weeks into the course, we had our first get together with the faculty in the local army mess.

A typical army party on the lawns besides swimming pool, local DJ playing popular numbers. She wore a light blue crepe sari and was letting her hair loose on the dance floor – a figurine full of mischief, masti and oomph. The full moon cast its luminescence on her; the songs talked of her beauty, the music made her come alive.

On the way back to the hostel, I composed my first ode to her and like a love smitten juvenile, emailed the poem to her on the intranet. I didn’t give a damn about rules anymore. I was in love

Heaven (or Hell?) has a nice antiseptic smell to it. I slowly start becoming aware of the environment – the smell and the sounds. My eyes open to revelation that after life is full of fancy gadgets and tubes protruding from my body. I can make out the beeping of technology which has obviously pervaded the after life too. As my eyes become more focused, I can discern my wife sitting at the bedside. Has she followed me here? I force myself to look around, to think rationally. I discover that I am in ICU, very much alive. The scream I had heard was succour in form of my wife walking into the bathroom.  Unfulfilled in love, unsuccessful in death – I feel waves of nausea and disgust. The drugs are welcome as they push me back into the void.

The next time I surface, I am better prepared to face the reality. And so is my family! I see my son and daughter and wife around – looking expectantly at me, smiling, trying to reach out. My mind is blank. The outflow of blood into the bathtub seems to have obliterated all the memories and desires. I feel relief at having a family, at having someone by my bedside as I re surface into mortal life.

Over the next two weeks, I rest, recuperate and rediscover the joys of being a mortal. The family keeps me company, keeps me going on. I rationalize – Powai is near and real, Gravesend by Tilbury and far. Who is more important – the one who made you feel alive or the one who kept you alive? Confusion. What are my priorities? What are my responsibilities? Unrequited love is romantic but is story book romance real life? Can life really be lived in the pages of a romantic novel? My brains struggle with the questions and slowly start taking control of my heart – for good or bad.

The day of my discharge – wife is running around to get the papers cleared. I have conditioned myself to look forward to going home and spending time with the kids. Memories have been entrapped in some dark, dingy corner of my mind. I am undead. There is this tap tap of someone walking in the hospital corridor. The tall woman is wearing high heeled knee length brown Jimmy Choos, a dark green Dior skirt, soft beige blouse and a matching jacket. The hair is soft, silken, shoulder length wavy; the skin honey coloured and dewy fresh. The face is made up to accentuate the high cheekbones, the eye shadow and mascara highlight the smoky brown eyes. The smell of Elizabeth Arden awakens my senses as I realize that she has learnt my lessons on being a sophisticate quite well. She smiles and says in a husky voice “Hello Nadeem – I have really missed you”

It is surprising how life can obsessively revolve around waiting for a single response on the Facebook. My Blackberry had the account, the office computer had the site opened and minimized as also the PC at home. Every moment spent in waiting. Hope and anticipation waxing and waning everyday! Bouts of intense despair where the air seemed poisonously heavy and the lungs incapable of drawing it in. Disinterested and divorced from the mundane happenings of everyday life. Hope is all I lived with, hope which was increasingly giving way to dark, dull despondency.

The temporal self is weak; Eternity a vast chasm for the temporal to bridge. To wait for Eternity, I needed to divorce the temporal and take an ethereal avatar. Maybe time as we know ceases to exist on the ethereal plane. Maybe, the astral self could cross the oceans and watch her sojourn in the temporal till it was over and we were united. The idea slowly began to take root.

I had always been a sybarite – loved the good things of earthly life. But those were means to an end and without her presence in my life, meaningless. I followed elaborate rites for my passage from the temporal to the ethereal. No loose ends to be left behind, no other attachments except for my singular goal – Her.

I sit in the bathtub – soaking luxuriously in warm water with a bottle of Elizabeth Arden’s Mediterranean poured into it. I sit surrounded and immersed in her smell as I remember her. A mellifluous voice renders a popular composition of Ghalib, romantic nuances float in the background. The crystal glass on edge of the tub is filled with my favourite single malt on the rocks – the temporal savouring the last pleasures of the physical world. My laptop runs a slide show of all the images I have stored of her and my brain makes those nostalgic moments come alive. And I watch the white foamy perfumed water change colour – from innocent virgin white to a promising irrevocable red. My sights are dimming as I concentrate on the slide show – locking the last vestiges of her physical image, imprinting them on my soul. I have started feeling cozy and lightheaded when there is a tong from the laptop.

I peer through the gathering haze into my laptop to read my last message.  It’s from her and reads ‘ Hi Nadeem, Howz life treating you?’

She was an ex army officer from the northern part of the country – rustic but with a tremendous zest for life. Five years in the army had not separated her from her penchant for loud lipstick, garish colour combinations of synthetic clothes, loud make up and the hard twang of rural accented English. But she had guts and an attitude which showed promising potential.

I was the sophisticate by Indian standards who could differentiate between Chenin Blanc and Shiraz, Gucci and Armani, between Poison and Opium. I loved my Mozart and Bach while she liked hindi pop, I read Orhan Pamuk while she enjoyed Chetan Bhagat, I played golf while she jogged to keep herself fit. We were as different as cheese to chalk; add an age difference and you have a well nigh impossible situation. But the opposites sought each other desperately. I taught her to be a sophisticate while she taught me how to be alive. I explained etiquettes and learnt the joys of breaking rules from her. We were soulmates – she and I.

Love sneaks in your life only once. That is the time when each joyful pore of your body feels alive, each breath intoxicating. It is a phase when societal laws, familial ties and peer pressure cease to have a meaning. Each moment is exhilarating, pleasurable and filled with immense happiness. And when you make love, stars twinkle, bells jingle, lights explode, there’s the crescendo of Bach in the background. You loose your identity, your souls merge, each day is better than the previous day. You live just to be with her, to see her, to smell her, to allow her to fill up your senses. Obviously, such happiness and love is not meant to last. Human beings in such love would be liberated from the bonds of hate, social norms, religion – disrupting the harsh real world we know.

She went off to distant lands to join her husband exactly a year ago and we lost contact. The intervening year was spent in pining for her, in hoping she was happy, in agonizing over a thousand what-if scenarios, in being caged in the rationality of worldly rules. One year of non-existence until she popped up again on the Facebook.

It has been two months since I have sent the Facebook message to her. She has not replied. I wait patiently. After all, eternity is a long long time……

 I had gone to the local D Mart with my wife to shop for the monthly groceries.  Inside the hypermarket, I was allotted the important task of pushing or pulling the shopping trolley so as to maintain within 5 metres of my wife.  It’s an amazing experience to witness the multitude of variables which a housewife examines before deciding on a particular product or a brand. Since I boast of being happily married for 20 years, I have, naturally, developed the wisdom to keep my mouth shut during my wife’s shopping forays. My participation is limited to answering questions like “ Is 660 gms of X detergent at Rs 75 a better bargain than 800 gms of Y detergent at Rs 80 ?”…….

So, in the true spirit of a happily married couple, we loaded our trolley to the brim with the goodies my wife wanted and proceeded to one of the numerous cash counters. The counter was manned by a Cashier girl and her Assistant. The Cashier had a barcode reader connected to a computer which scanned the price and did all the calculations – a typical Point of Sale operation prevalent worldwide. So Ms Cashier scanned and Ms Assistant packed the grocery in bags. The billing complete, I produced my card and signed the credit chit. Transaction completed! At this point, we could see a hectic and tensed whispering session between the Cashier and her Assistant. The Assistant excused herself and went away.

Ms Cashier gave us a charming smile and requested us to wait since her Assitant had gone to meet the Supervisor about our gift items. In recession,  grocery freebies are always welcome. But curiosity got the better of me and I inquired ‘ Gift with which item?” Ms Cashier politely handed over one of the ten JAMZ biscuits packets my wife had purchased. As I tried reading about the gift offer, Ms Assistant came back breathless and apologized that the free gift with the biscuit packet was unfortunately not in stock. Ms Cashier wanted to know if we still desired to buy the biscuits since the “free gift” was not available. Meanwhile, I could not find any mention of any gift offer or scheme on the biscuit pack. Finally I asked Ms Cashier as to what free gift was she talking about! She smiled and rather importantly pointed to a blue text box on the biscuit pack which read “ TRANS FAT FREE”.

Personally, I find the larger than life Bollywood stereotype image extremely detrimental when dealing with the corporate HR interviewer. The general perception is that defence services officers are all spit and polish, magnificently endowed with brawn and deficient in brains. So when it comes to the extremely complex corporate world, HR concludes that we won’t be able to cope up and will end up antagonizing everyone by our idiosyncracies.

The truth is that an armed force officer is fairly intelligent and rational. By virtue of facing diverse and difficult situations, he is flexible and adaptable with an ability to innovate to achieve the desired goal. As the saying goes, we are trained for all situations ranging from the ballroom to the battlefront. And if I were to quote my more brash colleagues, from the bedroom to boardroom! After all, how many corporate CVs can boast of the capabilities and expertise to handle diverse tasks ranging from taking the lady of visiting foreign dignitary sari shopping, providing succour to populace during calamities, planning operations with umpteen variables and staring down enemy guns? All this and more, in extreme operating environment, 24X7!

“But Commander, you don’t have the corporate experience or domain knowledge” is an oft heard refrain. As a mid to senior level professional, I feel that “capability” rather than ‘domain knowledge’ is more important. But then, I have decided to quit the services and seek a career in the civvy street, so I need to play by the new rules.

However, I must confess that the new rules are not easy to play by. Self praise is frowned upon in the Services and I still blush when I have to assure the HR recruiter that I am good. HR folks don’t make it easy either. I recall an interview wherein I was trying to draw the analogy between HR as practiced in the Services and HR as advocated by Gary Dessler, author of the book on HRM followed worldwide. After listening to 10 minutes of my earnest explanation, the interviewer stopped me and queried “Who is Gary Dessler?”! Neither is it easy to dispel the mistaken notion that all faujis are dimwits. During the initial phase of my most recent interview I told the interviewer” I want to assure you that an intelligent naval officer is not an oxymoron”. The svelte lady flashed a brilliant smile, nodded understandingly and asked “ Oxy what?”. I had no choice but to reply “Moron!”, realising fully well that I couldn’t possibly crack this interview!.

Meanwhile, my search for a job continues…..

“Uncle, Numair has hit me unnecessarily. He is a very bad boy”. The complainant was a 6 year old child – about the same age as my son Numair. It had been a tough day at the office for me. I had been intercepted by this gang of children as I was walking back home after parking the car. Numair stood in the background, sulking. I could not help but feel a sense of déjà vu as I surveyed the scene before me. I was transported back 40 years to a  time when I had been in a similar situation.

As a child, we used to play in a small ground behind our home in a small city. One of those evenings, all 6 years of me got into an argument with a neighbourhood kid. 40 years down the line, I cannot recall the actual reason, but the passage of time has not diminished the righteous feeling in me that my premise was more correct! Well, we tried to resolve our arguments like any other sane and rational 6 year olds – we whacked each other. Whilst our whacking bout was on, my dad came back from his municipal school where he was a teacher. My opponent ran up to my dad and vented his anger whilst I sulked in the background. Dad surveyed the scenario, slapped me twice in front of everyone and walked away without uttering a single word. A dumbfounded and very hurt self tried to hold back my tears, my cheeks red and stinging. Apart from the physical pain, what really hurt was the feeling of being punished unjustly and in front of everyone by my own dad. I can still hear the jeers of everyone as I walked back home – hurt, angry and alone.

At home, dad explained that he had hit me to keep the outward impression of impartiality intact and dismissed the issue. Impression at your son’s expense? – the child in me cried silently. That night, all alone in bed, I was quick to absorb the lesson of this twisted middle class morality. The impression of others was more important than that of your near and dear ones. Cursed with this sick logic, I grew up making the interests of my family and near and dear ones subservient to the ‘impressions of others’. Imagine living you life with this kind of morality – sacrificing your own interests for the sake of others at all times. Pleasing others became more important than the happiness and comfort of self, family and my dear ones.

Did my father ever realize what he did that day? No, I don’t think so. In his defence, I must hasten to add that he was probably too busy keeping the wolves away from our doors, to make sufficient money to pay for our education. Life was a struggle, dependent on the goodwill of others to survive. The only people willing to stand by you and suffer for you were your near and dear ones…………  

I jerked back to the present and called out to my son. As Numair came close, I put my hands protectively around him and told the other boys “All of you are old enough to sort this out amongst yourselves. Don’t be sissies and complain”. I believe I finally corrected a 40 year old wrong.