Born To Fly

Two friends were sitting on the beautiful lawns of Hindu College watching a warm up football match between the two rivals across the road. St. Stephens were victorious that day beating Hindu on their home ground and it couldn’t have been more insulting to a large crowd gathered there. The losing team looked dejected as the Director of Physical Education of the college gave them a solid dressing down in chaste Hindi.

“Chal, let us join the college team trials from tomorrow,” said the taller of the two. “As it is after studying hard in the First Year we barely got through the exams.”

“Ya, I attended all classes, went to so many libraries from Central Secretariat to ICHR, studied all the reference books, made long notes but when the exams came up couldn’t remember things I had read many times. With 40 and 42 percent, we must be the laggards in History Honours in the college or maybe in the university as well. It would have been so much better had I at least played football for the college and enjoyed a bit of college life with friends.”

“Don’t worry, let’s us try and get into the college team. As far as studies are concerned, I will get you the best of tutorials. You are the brainy Bong who will compile them and we will surely do much better than what we have done this year.”

The pact was instantly made and the next day the two landed at the football ground and after two days of tough selection, both were picked to be part of the team. The fair and handsome one was chosen as the goalkeeper and the shorter one got selected as a forward. The first acid test for the team was a repeat of the warm up game with St. Stephens and both the friends were selected in the playing eleven. With even a larger crowd now watching the two teams fighting it out, Hindu College beat the team from across the street by three goals to nil and the man in the forward line scored one goal and assisted in the other two while the goalie made some dramatic saves. Both became instant heroes in the college and found a permanent place in the playing eleven for the next two years.

Brothers in Arms

The bonding on the field was strengthened when both gave the exams that year. They appeared not only for the second year but also repeated the two papers from the first year and got high fifties which was remarkable considering they had stopped attending classes and library cards had been handed over to the other studious types who needed to borrow more books.

Thank you Ranjeev, my friend, for convincing me to play for the college which gave me the happiest time of my life and along with sports, you also helped me get good scores in studies. But for you my friend, I would never have got an identity in college and develop such a passion for the game.

Today, as I remember my friend Ranjeev, memories keep flowing through the shadows of my mind. He was everything I wasn’t and always wanted to be. He had a way with girls as no one I had seen before and never saw another later, while I was always the shy and the meek one.

The two friends would, on some days after football practice, walk to Patel Chest from where the University Special buses originated in order to get seats. It was on one such day that they found themselves seated comfortably next to each other. As the bus started moving and stopping at various colleges picking up students, at Indraprastha College a pretty girl boarded the bus and stood near their seat. He looked at the girl and almost ordered his friend with a straight face, “Get up now!” Stunned by the strange behavior, the friend still gave up his seat and asked the damsel to take his place instead. Within no time, Ranjeev struck a conversation with the girl and by the time the bus had reached Rajghat, the two of them were laughing and talking as if they knew each other for long. When the bus reached Lutyens Delhi and the girl stood up to get off, Ranjeev, too, got off. Next day the girl was at our college chatting with The Boss.

When it came to girls, if there ever was a Speedy Gonsalvez, it was him. There was something about him that attracted the best looking girls to him at all times. Was it the twinkle in his light brown eyes or was it his tall and fair looks or was it his quick repartee or possibly it was all of them and more in him that made the girls follow the Pied Piper.

In school I had done many things from writing chits and copying from the neighbour’s answer sheets but I wasn’t as daring as Ranjeev. He had the audacity to keep his bag containing the notes in the college staff room and would often go there to take a look before coming back to his desk to complete the answer sheet. What happened as we sat down to give our last exam of Third Year was beyond anyone’s comprehension….

Ranjeev had not been keeping well and had not been able to study the jointly prepared answers or tutorials as we used to call them. It was our last exam before we passed and got our graduation degrees. He was sitting two seats ahead of me. As the question papers were being distributed, my friend started a conversation with the invigilator. European history was always a subject I loved and started writing my answers with great speed and began filling up one answer sheet after another. There was pin drop silence when I heard Ranjeev talking aloud with the invigilator,"I am asking for the answer sheet from him,” as he pointed a finger towards me. The invigilator said nothing and Ranjeev now almost ordered me,"Pass me the answer sheet, nothing will happen.” I was afraid to do so as this might jeopardise my future if something were to go wrong.Still I took courage to ask the invigilator,”de doon kya(should I give)?” The watch dog just smiled at me and I rolled one of my answer sheets and threw it towards Ranjeev who caught it and started writing his answer. In the next one hour all my answer sheets had reached Ranjeev and he was able to complete the paper and was pretty satisfied with his efforts. As we handed over our answer sheets to the invigilator, Ranjeev thanked him and as we stepped out of the classroom, he started laughing hysterically. We both graduated together and didn’t do too badly. He never grudged me getting a few percentage points more than him. He was more pleased at getting a decent score.

Ranjeev was the friend who introduced me to good life that ought to be the birthright of every teenager. And in giving me this joy of living, he never had to make any special effort. It came to him all so naturally.

I lived in the smaller of the government apartments while he lived in a larger one where senior bureaucrats were stationed. In my colony , we enjoyed dance only when there were marriages and people of all shapes and sizes would wriggle around the ghodi, on which the groom sat, with a garland made of currency notes. The band would play Come September and tunes from Hindi movies and men and women would dance as if in a trance and the senior citizens would throw up some currency notes and the band players would catch them as extra baksheesh. Ranjeev and his friends organized dance parties at their Chanakya Puri Club and,at times, at his home. He always made sure I was invited. He made me see what proper dance parties were, what it meant to dance with girls.

In one such New Year’s Eve party, I was sitting near the bonfire with some boys and girls sitting around it. Ranjeev was the star of all the parties and he came out and asked me to come on to the floor. I felt a little shy. He not only pulled me into the hall, he also asked a girl sitting there to get up and take to the floor with me. At another party, Ranjeev and his other two associates, Ravi and Niraj, made sure I got the first close dance of my life. Of course, the party ended pretty awkwardly for me and the girl, but then my fear of dancing was gone. Pappu can dance saala!

Thanks to my idol, I started enjoying the parties and learnt to shake a leg, much more than I had ever learnt living in my colony. My fear of girls was gone. All my twenty long years I had waited for such  good times which only he gave to me and surely to many others like me.

I could go on with many more instances of his fun loving and free flowing life but must at this point take a break. He joined the Indian Army after clearing the IMA exam while I went my way into the world of insurance. Ranjeev always loved flying and so when I met him, after some years, in Mumbai he said,” I am from the Army, am on deputation to the Coast Guard flying choppers…army, navy and air force all in one!” He became Lt. Colonel and took voluntary retirement, whereupon he started flying choppers for private operators. A couple of days ago, I got the sad news of his chopper meeting with a fatal accident as he, along with two others, were returning after supplying relief materials to flood affected areas of Uttarakhand. This was not the first time that Ranjeev had undertaken such bold rescue operations. He was among the first to reach out to the helpless and devastated people at Gaurikund and Kedarnath in 2014 and later in 2017 in Pithoragarh. He truly knew no fear. His Whatsapp status read…Born to Fly!

You were born to fly

You were born to be free

And truly you’ve flown away

High as high can be

I am sure God needed you

Needed you to give lessons to all

Lessons of love

Lessons of friendship

Lessons of bravery

Lessons of service

Or maybe to run His chopper services

To recue humanity in disaster

Born to Fly, from here to eternity.

In life, a man is always indebted to his parents for many things and so am I, but never ever another man can be as indebted as I am to you for giving me so much joy, helping me discover my real self…no wonder I am not ashamed to say Tu Mera Hero Number One. You were everything I wanted to be and you changed me for good. Today a part of me got blown away…I cried and deep inside me, chanted Om Shanti Om Shanti Om Shanti.

SS

KHOYA PAYA

War was in the air. A madman had just crashed his explosive laden vehicle into a CRPF convoy. Indian Air Force had intruded into enemy war zone and blasted terrorist camps from the face of the earth. The other nation upped the ante by flying F16 aircrafts over Indian territory and in the ensuing scuffle an Indian pilot who ejected from an aging MIG 21 Bison was captured by the Pakistanis. Both the nations moved their armed forces to high alert and towards the bordering regions. Airports in India were asked to conduct extra security checks on passengers.

But for India’s flying salesmen it was just another day in paradise. Our man on the go, Sadashiv Rao, entered the Mumbai Airport at 5.30am in the morning to take a 7.15am flight to Delhi. He went straight to the self check-in kiosk for a print out of the boarding pass. This action is always so easy and smooth and it is a pleasure to see the fine piece of check-in paper slip out. As he bent low to collect the paper, his eyes caught a brown envelope lying on the floor. Surely it must have slipped out of a rushing traveller’s bag. To pick up or not to pick up was the question and he opted for the first.

His eyes popped up as he read the addressor and addressee details and a box on the right hand corner written in red in block capitals, ’SECRET’. He looked around and waited a while to see if someone came looking for it, but no one came. He started thinking of the options before him. Option one was to throw it into the dustbin and walk away. Secondly he could have gone to the airport manager and made a public announcement. The final option was to hand the envelope to the CISF men posted there. He decided against all the three and put the envelope in his computer bag, cleared the security hurdle on way to the boarding gate admiring the beautiful pieces of art on display at the airport.

As he waited for the boarding announcement, his fingers twitched as a few more awkward options popped up….How about opening the packet to know what’s the official secret? Would be nice to see what constitutes a state secret beyond the Bond movies. What if the contents were to reach some news channel?  He also wondered what would happen if the CCTV cameras at the airport had picked up his picture and the security men caught up with him with the envelope in his possession? Aa bail mujhe maar…was the only way he described his present situation.

Sense prevailed as he checked the envelope once more. Since the addressee was in Delhi, the city he was going to, he decided to hand over the same personally. So for the next three wintery days in Delhi, he kept waiting for an opportune time to go to deliver the document.  While his car did pass the address on the envelope a couple of times, he wondered how he would explain the presence of a top secret envelope in his possession and even if he were to survive the initial grilling by the security personnel, what would happen to the man who was supposed to actually carry it? If truly the document contained some state secret and was meant to be hand delivered, Bhai ki naukri toh jayegi…aur kya hoga kya pata.

So nothing happened at Delhi and he returned home. The envelope remained in the front zip of the bag only to be brought out a couple of times at night to check if it was still there. Finally, after two more days of further thinking, Sadashiv started locating the sender whose name was on the envelope…Google, Linkedin and FB…all failed in their search for once. The man was incognito! Next stop was a visit to the official website from where he could get the landline office board contact number. He punched in the eight digit number…trrrinng trrinng…after a couple of rings a bored voice of a lady was heard from the other side and he hesitantly asked,

“Kindly connect me to Mr. Pattanaik.”

“Which department is he in?”

“I don’t know the department but I think he works in the Director’s Office.”

“Which director’s office?  We have eight directors working here.”

“Madam, I don’t know which director but let me tell you why I am trying to reach him. I have an envelope  which I found Pattanaik’s name written which I picked up at Mumbai airport 5 days ago. The envelope is marked secret and I am sure it must be important for the organization. So please help me locate the man. Just want to give him the same and I can assure you I have not opened it at all.”

“What did you say an envelope marked "secret"? What colour is the envelope- white, yellow or brown?”

“Madam, please give me your mobile number and I shall send you a picture and you will understand what I have in hand.”

“We are not allowed to keep mobile phones here. Sir, so please give me your name and number and someone will contact you soon.”

The name and number were shared and phone put down. Within ten minutes he got a call from a land line and he knew it was from the same office.

“Mr. Rao, I am Mrs. Madhu Sharma  speaking from the Director’s office. Can you repeat what you just told the receptionist?”

And so he repeated, now with a lot more confidence in his voice knowing the chase was moving in the right direction.

“Thank you for what you have done. Please hold the line as I transfer it to the head of security here.”

Again Rao was made to repeat the story. The gentlemen on the other side finally said, “We do have a Mr. Pattanaik working here. We have cross-checked with the date when you found the envelope at the airport with our records and are aware of the sensitivity of the missing envelope that is in your possession. It is very important for us to get it back. Please tell me your location now and I shall have the same picked up immediately.”

In the next 60 minutes the designated person arrived. He showed his official identity card as Rao took him to his desk, pulled out the envelope and handed it to him. He smiled, thanked and said, “Thank you so much Mr. Rao. Pattanaik is in Bhubaneshwar today and he asked me to come personally to collect this letter from you. I cannot reveal the contents of the letter to you but I can tell you for sure that this was an important letter containing some vital information meant to be hand delivered to none other than the highest executive of the country. Had this got lost or reached wrong hands, hell would have broken lose.”

Our hero felt as if he had just been given the Superman’s cape. He felt like a hero, having saved planet earth and slept well that night. Next morning the phone once again rang from a land line.

“Mr. Rao this is Bijay Pattanaik here. I am eternally grateful to you for what you have done. I am saving your number and shall keep it forever and should you ever need help please do not hesitate to give me a call. It is good to know that there are good people in this world still around.”

Sadashiv felt happy as he put the phone down but his mind went back to an incident that happened more than half a century ago. It was the time India was up against China in 1962. A war dispatch had come for the Brigadier in the Army Head Quarters in New Delhi. It was handed over to a young woman who was in the lower rung of civilians working in there. Since it was lunch time the woman kept the paper aside as she finished her roti subzi lunch. She returned to her table after washing the tiffin box and was aghast when she couldn’t find the important piece of war dispatch. She was panic stricken and informed her superior who too tried searching for the document but in vain. The superior asked the woman to keep quiet and not tell about the inward document to anyone. If the Brigadier were to come to know about the mistake, she would surely lose her job. But the naïve woman started crying and started checking under every file, every drawer in and around her. The commotion reached the Brigadier’s office, who soon came to know about the missing paper. The woman was called into the army man’s room and the man in full military attire asked her,” Are you sure there was a message for me?” “Ji haan, Sir.” She replied. The Brigadier was furious as she stood there shaking from head to toe.

She couldn’t do any work after the humiliating dressing down as her mind was preoccupied not with the thought of losing her job but at the impact the loss of a confidential document would have on the armed forces during war time and so she started her search once more.  And then she found the missing paper in another file on her table. In trying to be extra careful, she had tucked it away between pages of another file. The document was promptly delivered and the woman was called once again by the officer. This time the Brigadier was pleased at the honesty the woman had shown and told her if any time she needed any help, she should let him know. She said I have a sick child and it would be nice if she were to be allotted a government accommodation. The Brigadier smiled and in no time ensured the woman got an out of turn allotment of accommodation which in normal course would have taken over a decade. This was in early 1963 and by the year end Sadashiv was born to the woman.

Double helix at work you might say.

SS

Animal Farm

While driving to work from home in the morning, the radio was  playing an all-time favourite song by Kishore…mere saamne wali khidki mein ek chaand ka tukra rehta hai…instinctively I looked out of my car ki saamne wali khidki and lo what do I see….a minivan laden with chickens. There were chickens of all sizes and shapes but inevitably they all looked alike…sad and low. As I passed the van I found the driver merrily moving his head from one side to another. Surely the man must have been enjoying another exciting number on the FM radio. As I drove the last 2 kilometers, felt bad for the chicks in the van. What a miserable life they have. From the time they are born, the creator knows the end game. The chick is fed, some things good and not so good, made to look healthy then one day carried off to a trader who lets his foster parents make ends meet.

Then it struck me. Am I any different from the chicks inside? They with their red plumes on their heads and me with my Zodiac tie hanging down my neck!  Just that they were in an open minivan with grills to prevent them from flying away and me in my air-conditioned car with doors and windows locked down, with responsibilities of home and work preventing me from flying away into a world I love. The chicken driven away meets her fate sooner than me while I keep driving this burdensome car of life day in and out not knowing what fate awaits me at the next turn. While Kishore was yodeling on the radio, I felt like making a sound cock-a-doodle-doo!

Depressed was I as I entered the office early in the morning only to be greeted by a short and dark lady who in the early morning shift cleaned up the place every day. When I saw her smiling so beautifully at me, as she does almost every day, I realized how wrong I was to feel low despite my being so much more fortunate than the little lady before me. I quickly changed my mood and decided I will be happy no matter what the situation was. So I promptly went to my workstation to begin a lively new day.

One of the first mails I saw was an organizational announcement saying they had added another portfolio to my already heavy and diverse one. Hmmmm…let my boss come. I shall refuse to be the meek chicken anymore. An hour later the boss walks in and goes into his glass cabin. I walked into his room and said,” I need to change my business cards. I want to write below my name Hanuman!”

The poor fellow on the other side almost puked out the water in his mouth when he heard my request. With great respect and dignity he asked me to sit down and tell him the cause of anguish of a quiet good chap. And so I explained.

Tell me Boss, in Ramayana Sita was the wife of Lord Ram. When she was kidnapped by Ravan why did Hanuman have to go to Ashoka Vatika to meet Sita and later agree for his tail to be set on fire. Who puts his tail on fire for someone else’s wife? No one but Hanuman will. 

Tell me more Boss, the only time Lord Ram’s brother took to fighting a man was when he fought Meghnadh or Indrajit and in the fight our man almost lost his life. Again, it needed someone to go to get the  Sanjeevani  buti.  Who do you call? Hanuman, of course, for he brings not only the medicinal herb but whole of the mountain as well. 

Tell me finally, Hanuman and his folks could have lived happily in the forests. Yet in the final war against Ravan, Hanuman first made his people build a setu (bridge) across the sea and then fought shoulder to shoulder with Lord Ram and also lost many of his brethren. Who else would take such risks, but Hanuman? 

In short, whenever Ram was in problem he needed Hanuman. Similarly, whenever this organization needed to get out of trouble, they made me take the plunge. You give me all roles where others had failed in the past and lost their jobs. You keep adding to my work and make me do much beyond a single man’s ability so I consider myself a Hanuman. So please approve my new business card with the new designation even if it sounds funny and outlandish. Saying this I left my Lord Ram very confused and bemused. 

I felt relaxed having spewed my venom before my boss, now it was time to get back to normal work. And as luck would have it a big proposal came our way and I got engrossed in planning how to win the same. 

I suddenly developed stripes and became a tiger on a prowl. Having seen my prey, I started measuring the distance, calculating my speed versus that of the prey and laid a trap all around…this was going to be my lucky day. My gait changed, my looks became sparky and there was a roar in my voice as I made my move. For every problem I had an answer, for every situation the client and the broker pushed, I was a step ahead of them and seemed to enjoy the challenge. The tiger was hungry, the tiger was sure and the tiger wanted to prove his powers and made a dash. The tiger forgot there were other hunters in the forest and just as he made the final leap, a pack of wolves had made their killer move and took the prey away. The tiger was angry but was helpless before the wolves who outnumbered him. The tiger accepted his fate and turned back into his pin stripe suit and drove back home. 

After an exhausting day and a tedious drive, I reached home. Rang the bell and entered home, my sweet home. Then suddenly a barrage of questions was thrown at me:

Did you get the prints I sent you?

Did you pay the bills I reminded you about?

Oh you didn’t eat the lunch I made for you this morning…why had a working lunch at a five star?

Why would anyone want to come home early with young beautiful girls hanging around?

 The gait became unsure, the baritone voice suddenly seemed to have left my side and the tail went between my wobbly legs. India’s tiger population just got reduced by one as the big striped cat became a small domesticated cat. Forget the tiger, save me!

All this in a day’s time.

SS