HANDWRITING

How many of us remember when  exactly our scrawls became readable handwriting ( can't be said about all, I 'm sure). One of my abiding memories associated with 'learning' is filling up blank Cursive handwriting workbooks my mother  bought for me- and  laboured to assist. She didn't have to try very hard since I picked up quite fast- and probably it was on account of  my good handwriting that I could clear the admission test to KG II, Mount Carmel, Dhanbad . I had goofed up by writing 'Right Cat' when asked to write cat ( because my Mummy would always dictate in Hindi saying 'cat likho'). I liked my handwriting, and got fairly good marks in English Handwriting, a paper which carried equal marks as Recitation in the early years.

By and large, the guys who were at the top of my class had good handwriting. Bad handwriting, while writing mushy epistles,  was almost like bad mouth odour- and not everyone is a Clarke Gabel to be allowed to kiss, despite  halitosis, the  Darjeeling born Vivien Leigh and a string of beauties. and no one wanted a crush to be still born on this account.

Getting pens as presents during birthdays was quite common and a good one was  treasured. My father even allowed me to use his Sheaffer pen which was otherwise as precious to him as his Omega Seamaster.  In my hand, it glided on  paper- like a ballerina on the dance floor. As one grew up, one heard  about graphology-  the science of analysing handwriting with a view to know about skills and personality traits from one's handwriting. Forensic Science has a section devoted to Questioned Documents which was primarily about forged handwritings and various penal codes had elaborate offences drawn up relating to forgery. One doesn't quite know how the earliest humans took to writing from chalk to pencils to pens, but it does appear to be  primeval skill and in the evolution of human civilisation, it is said that the pen became even mightier than the sword. A written document was the final destination of one's thoughts, and one would put ink on paper as a final confirmation.

Handwriting , doodling, scribbling, sketching and probably painting have been shown to have deep and seamless  connections- all artisanal impulses. For Tagore, it was a craft- and his paintings basically emanate from his manuscript corrections and deletions. Ray's interest in typography did not actually start with metallic letters used for printing but with calligraphy done with a thick brush. He created many new Bengali typefaces which have refreshingly innovative yet perfectly legible form. He  created  four Roman fonts (Ray Roman, Ray Bizarre, Daphnis and Holiday Script)and numerous new fonts in Bengali.Ray is the first and possibly the only designer of typefaces in Bengal who inspired an entire community to love the beauty of the letters of their mother tongue. One of the reasons for the Bengali's love of reading is their ability to appreciate the beauty of  Ray's typography. The United States even celebrates National Handwriting Day every January 23 -- John Hancock's birthday on account of his very stylish signature.

But slowly, and more steadily, technology started to take a heavy toll of handwriting. Computers, tablets,  cellphones took away the pen from our fingers which found their way to the qwerty keypads. This trend is indicated by a 2012 study that found 33% of people had difficulty reading their own handwriting. And recently I realised how much I had slipped. Today, I  am almost ashamed to write a simple Best Wishes note on a Birthday card or a book to be gifted  to friends( who despite being women have uncharacteristically not been uncharitable :)), or  make entries in the Visitors' Register at the various units I visit in the course of my official visits. 

As schools bring in new technologies into instruction, handwriting itself is becoming a redundant skill. Teaching cursive in  not required in Common Core curriculum standard in the US, now being followed in 45 of its 50 states. This has sparked a debate among the English educators across the English speaking world. There is a fear that in the age of emails and texts,handwriting finesse will take a beating and ams shorthand will find its way in term papers.With the arrival of chip and pin, even a person's signature has become obsolete as a means of identification.It is not just children's over-reliance on computers and mobile phones for communication that is the problem, it is the way technology encroaches on leisure time too -  children generally have far less physical play these days. 

Despite the fact that the toppers of my class had lovely handwriting in addition to being intelligent, I am sure that there is no co relation between good handwriting and intelligence. But that is not the point I want to make- handwriting, good or bad, should continue to be a prescribed skill because unlike when one is writing and using both the cerebral hemispheres, in typing or texting, one does very little little thinking because one is not allowing the brain to form neural processes.While technology does allow communication portability, we must remember that one day our children will need to function in business environments - and hence, I am not in agreement with a view that why depend on a skill like handwriting which is a just a part in the evolutionary chain of technology designed to record our thoughts when we have faster technology available. 

Regardless of the method chosen by schools and parents, spending minimal daily time on handwriting with your children helps to ensure that they will be better able to express themselves competently and creatively in whatever method they choose. If a child’s writing is a painful and laborious process, his or her expressive efforts will be stifled.Children who are fluent with a pen can use language and writing skills to escape the limits of their circumstances, and those who do have access to computers will not be restricted in their communication and creativity if there isn’t an electronic device within their grasp 24/7.Infact, technology itself offers wonderful apps to learn handwriting.

The pen is almost a part of our anatomy- its becoming obsolete is , however, not as frightening as the likely demise of another part of anatomy  if these technologywalas perfected the science  ( and art, though I doubt very much on that)  of parthenogenesis;)

HUNG JURY

‘People refused to have water which passed through the turbines of the hydroelectric plants of Bhakra Nangal projects, thinking the turbine blades had taken away the “properties” of water,’ my Geography teacher quipped in his ultra Malayali accent . We all laughed, made more fun of the sardars in the class, and proceeded to hear his next take on justifying Idi Amin’s expulsion of Asians from Uganda. ‘The Indians were selling Bata shoes , charging in Ugandan shillings the equivalent of Rs. 55.95 for the left foot, and ditto for the right from the poor Ugandans!’ he delivered in his nasal twang to the class of ‘79.  

But while the Sardars not only  got over their scepticism of turbine treated water and even took  to relishing lassi churned from  the blades of washing machines, the Americans, or rather 51% of them, even today  think that stormy weather “affects” Cloud Computing , though usually remaining “ foggy” about what Cloud really is! This is as per a survey conducted by Wakefield Research in 2012. The world’s most preferred educational destination is a country where 11% of the population thinks HTML is a sexually transmitted disease, 42% regard Motherboard  the deck of a cruise ship, 27% thought gigabyte is a South American insect while 12% are of the belief that USB is an acronym for a country in Europe!

This set me thinking. What is really going on in the name of surveys and research? For me , research and surveys were usually shackled with matters very serious, not for something as flippant as say who amongst siblings would tend to be a better driver and who a criminal.  

But then there are some research , and God knows what analytical tools they employ or samples they chose, which are about sibling differences. A study by Privilege Car Insurance revealed that youngest children tend to be the safest drivers while the eldest most likely to get a traffic ticket for motoring offences and traffic collisions.

Scientists at Vrije University , Amsterdam found the eldest with higher IQ , (probably due to the attention parents lavish on the first born), dominant, religious and neurotic -  but at the end of the spectrum, the youngest , who despite usually being the dullest, would be the most favoured. The researchers are not exhausted by the eldest and the youngest, there is something for the second as well. The second born have a number of fantastic qualities - diplomatic, outgoing, natural mediators , competitive , and social in addition to being rebellious, less religious and impulsive. A research in progress being conducted by the National Bureau of Economic research has already indicate that second born are more likely to become criminals!

The studies are usually limited to American families of single , two or three children or mixed  ( the steps after multiple divorces) but still a small one digit number. Not much  study has been done about the eleventh or the child who suddenly ran to greet his Afghan warlord father only to make him jump with a scare of fidayeen attack, not realizing that it was actually his seventeenth child .

While such surveys and researches  do promote arguments and banter at the dining table, they don't do any further damage. But sometimes, the researches are commerce driven, sometime centre around peer rivalry. When British scientist Yudkin  in his book Pure, White and Deadly sounded the alarm on sugar way back in 1972, a battery of scientists led by one a scientist in Minnesota Ancel Keys  and his allies in most influential bodies in American healthcare  as well as  the Sugar Lobbyists like British Sugar Bureau and the World Sugar Research Organization debunked Yudkin’s work as “emotional assertions”, “ science fiction”, sold the idea of diet- heart hypothesis, basically painting cholesterol and saturated fats as public enemy no 1.

Internal sugar industry documents,recently discovered by researcher in University of California, San Francisco and published in JAMA Internal Medicine suggest that many of the dietary recommendations against saturated fat were considerably hewed by the sugar industry which derailed discussion on sugar for five decades and even paid three Harvard scientists in 1967 to publish a review on research on sugar, fat and heart disease.

In 1980 US government issued its first Dietary Guidelines and UK in 1983 which was to cut back on saturated fats and cholesterol- yet from 12%obesity amongst Americans in 1950, 15%in 1980, it rose to 35% in 2000, and corresponding figures in Britain rose from 6%in 1980 to almost 66%, making Britain the fattest country in EU. It is only recently that cholesterol has been removed from the Naughty List, but in these intervening years pharmaceutical companies have sold over $1.5 trillion of cholesterol reducing statins, billions of dollars of orange and other sugary products. I suspect tinkering with range of required Vitamin D is also calibrated to push sales of medicines .

Perfidy was further alleged by Dr Wolfgang Wodarg, head of health at Council of Europe, against pharma firms whom he accused of influencing scientists and official agencies , responsible for public health standards, in declaring what was a minor flu( the bird flu)  of the H1NI virus as a pandemic , ‘clearly one of the medical scandals of the century’ when governments were forced to stockpile billions of dollars of vaccine.

The chaotic findings in medical researches are quite bugging. I am at my wit’s ends to decide once and for all whether or not to eat the yolk of the egg and  my wife to consider my intake of red wine as safe or not. I am unsure as to when is the best time to have a banana - morning or before sleep, and whether to cover myself in blanket and bleed the fever or avoid it altogether when running temperature. Confusion reigns not only on what we eat, but now also on what we release, how we interact with the opposite sex and with obese people.

Yes, research scholars at western university like Exeter’s found medicinal qualities in hydrogen sulphide, exploiting it to make a compound called AP39, administered to the mitochondria ( the energy powerhouse of our cells) as assisting treatment  of dementia, diabetes, arthritis , heart failure and ageing. So now anal egress of  pungent intestinal gas would no more be considered embarrassing- it seems such a shame that the late Indian  Prime Minister was ridiculed for his shivambu.

Researchers from Radboud University of Nijmegen have  confirmed what every every Bihari emigre to Delhi University  used to think about someone who would stray from the herd and start interacting with “chicks’ . Yes, interacting with women make men stupid,  the researchers conclude.  And if that was not enough, Spanish researchers from the Center for Advanced Studies at the Juan March Institute  in Madrid found that men who participate more in housework done typically done by report like cooking, cleaning and shopping report having sex less frequently than those who participate more in traditionally masculine tasks- auto maintenance, paying bills, etc!

I always used to think that  flu, yawning, coughing and piddling were contagious, but now in a paper published in New England Journal of Medicine in 2007 researchers have concluded that obesity can spread like flu- their findings suggest that when people become obese, the risk of their closest friends becoming obese over the next 2 to 4 years increases by 171%.

And if this is not enough, the modern research papers can have fairly exciting , wacky, titles -

Wax on , wax off: Pubic hair grooming and potential complications;

Nifty Ways to Leave Your Lover: The Tactics People Use to Entice and Disguise the Process of Human Mate Poaching;

Carbon Monoxide: To Boldly Go Where NO Has gone Before;Ashes to Ashes:

Thermal Contact Burns in Children Caused by Recreational Fires;

A Lucky Catch:Fishhook Injury of the Tongue;

”Here’s Egg in your Eye”: A Prospective Study of Blunt Ocular Trauma Resulting From Thrown Eggs;

Hung Jury: Testimonies of Genital Surgery by Transexual Men

Of course, you all must have heard of the Ig Nobel prizes, awarded for scientific research which “make you laugh at first and think later” every year, sponsored by science Humour magazine Annals of Improbable research, the Harvard- Radcliffe Science Fiction Association and the Harvard- Radcliffe Society of Physics Students. Prizes have  been awarded for Digital Rectal Massage for  Termination of Intractable Hiccups, Pressures produced when Penguins Pooh,Extraction of vanilla from Cow Dung, Effect of Country Music on Suicide, whether Coca Cola is an effective spermicide and for such other banalities.

On 24/9/2017, the Ig Nobel awards, awarded prizes to a group of four scientists for their discovery of insects with genitalia that reverse the traditional sex roles as well as for a treatise On the Rheology of  Cats which argues that cats can technically be regarded as simultaneously solid or liquid due to their uncanny ability to adopt shape the shape of their container.

And the prizes for Ig Nobel at $10 trillion cash prize is way above the Nobel Prize of $1 million. There is this small difference , though- yes, of the currency. Unlike the US dollars for the Nobel, the Ig Nobel prize recipients receive in  trash Zimbabwean  dollars  !

CHAAR TI SHIKKHA OR THE FOUR LESSONS

“Saar, OC Nandkumar wants to talk you, says it is urgent,” one homeguard from the Sub Divisional Control Room came and informed.  It was  Sunday evening, the sun had set but it was not totally dark as yet. I had just finished watering the marigolds and a few croutons on the lawn of my house in Tamluk, Midnapore.

I got up, went to the phone of my bungalow office only to find it dead, not quite uncommon during those days of manual exchanges .

“ Ok, I am coming over to the wireless room, “ I said and took a minute to slip into a track bottom and reached the Wireless sub control, hardly 75 yards from my house. The operator, immediately cleared the net with an “All please wait , all please wait” bark and  soon put me across to SI BK Mondal OC Nandkumar .

There had been a communal riot in area under Sutahata PS in the adjoining subdivision, and the Addl. SP had asked for one section of force to be deployed from Nandkumar PS to set up a camp. I gave instructions for despatch of the same, a hybrid composition of four National Volunteer Force personnel and 3 constables under an ASI.

As I was about to leave, BK Mondal cackled again with a compelling energy and urgency.

‘ Saar, what to do with these two people ?’

‘Who?’

‘Saar, these two , Esh Pee shaheber  driver and security guard,’ he whispered into the wireless.

‘And where’s the SP saheb?’

‘Bodo saheb is not with them.’

With a great effort I suppressed my bewilderment , anxiety, a few cuss words  and  politely enquired as to how  these two shadows had managed to land in the police station without the Superintendent of Police.

He bleated incoherently, just told that they had been disengaged with the Bada Saheb about two three hours ago at near Chandipur and had now come to the police station.

‘Sir , they are feeling very nervous.’

Bloody hell, the Security Guard and Driver’s nervousness was the last thing that was bothering me. What the hell has happened to the SP I was wondering.

‘Where’s the SP, I hope he is safe?’  I demanded, throwing all caution to the wind about airing such things on the air as taught to us at NPA, Hyderabad .

‘Sir, CI saheb has taken him to Midnapur,’he immediately updated my Missing Person query.

'Were our people at fault?' I asked out of my self-preservation instincts . I had no intention of being hauled up as a rookie SDPO about the sorry  conduct of my officers  which had uncoupled the top most district police officer from the comfort of his car, shield of security and trappings of authority.

The OC assured me that we were not at fault. So I told him to ask if the SP’s driver felt confident enough to drive back to Midnapur without any apprehension of a heart attack, or committing a stress related accident.

Soon he answered , ‘Saar , eraa jete paarbe.’

‘Let them go,’  I said and left the Wireless Room.

On that note I returned to my house, a bit shaken. Surely there were misgivings about this cadre I had been allotted. One  had heard about police unionism in Bengal, stories about heckling of senior officers. But even in my wildest imagination, I never thought that these fellows would leave an old SP on the road and scoot away.

The following evening, I went to Nandakumar to meet the CI and enquire in detail. It emerged that after having having an early lunch, the SP, with his driver and security guard, went to hold a personal enquiry in Khejuri, a block situated on the coast, once a thriving port from where Raja Ram Mohan Roy had set sail for England ,  famous for having the first post office made by the British in India, the Cowcolly (Koilkhali) Lighthouse which was the first under Calcutta Port Commissioners and  a mosque built by Afghan rulers in 1662.  He could have easily returned to Midnapur from there ,but decided to proceed to Kolkata via Chandipur, Nandkumar and Tamluk and then catch the NH-6 from Mechada .  SPs are supposed to be touring officers as well, and he decided to live it up to that.

As he approached Chandipur Bazaar, he was held up in a traffic jam as happens  in most highways narrowed in Bengal by haats, shops, van rickshaws, the odd party office and possibly an electric pole. He instinctively sent instructions on wireless to OC Chandipur to come and clear the jam. But OC Chandipur did not respond, a very flustered SP and his security guard laboured to decongest,  then went to the police station and gave him a severe tongue lashing.  

However, after having gone hardly a kilometer from Chandipur PS,after Narghat Bridge,  the SP's driver and security developed an urgent need to pee. Permission granted from SP, they ran across the road ,maintaining the distance which hierarchy informally but firmly ordains. Now coughing and piddling are extremely contagious, the urge is transmitted in a jiffy. It soon infected the SP, and he quietly slipped away. Meanwhile, after a quick bolt action, the SP's staff rushed back and drove away in the  black Ambassador with tinted glasses.  Nothing wrong with their trained response, except that by that time the SP had not come back to the car, and it was a car with an empty backseat that they drove, for about 70 kilometres till Debra when  the security guard realised, as he turned around to hand over a vial of homeopathic globules,  that the SP was not in the car!

Meanwhile, CI Nandkumar, who had heard the SP’s call to Chandipur regarding the traffic jam, and quite bewildered to hear the SP’s unannounced presence in his jurisdiction, got into his jeep and drove towards Chandipur.. As he was driving down, he saw a man wave and shout at him. It would be an understatement to say that he was surprised to see a lone bald , spectacled man resembling the SP , walking briskly . He stopped, he confirmed , he was appalled. There was no sign of the SP’s car, he was sweating, and shorn of any trappings of authority, looking harried. The CI thought probably the SP had escaped from some hungama in Chandipur and  braced himself  for an earful from the SP at the sorry state of affairs in his AOR or Area of Responsibility . But soon he could make out from the muffled,  but very eloquent, mumble from  the SP that there  had been an error of judgement by his own men with devastating results.

‘CI saheb, help me get a private from Nandkumar More.’

Nothing bigger can happen in the career of a Circle Inspector than to rescue his SP from such a mess, , no finer story than this to tell his grandchildren  and the CI beamed at his achievement. For CI Nandkumar, a timid man man who had all along suffered at the hands of women- as son, as husband and as father- this was his macho moment. He took the SP to his office in his jeep and  sent out the OC to arrange for a private taxi for Midnapur, and while the car was being arranged, took the advantage of circumstances and requested for bring provided with a secretariat table and an almirah for his office.

The CI’s request was , of course, granted by the SP who wanted to settle this  personal debt promptly from his official resources. He accompanied the SP to Midnapore, deposited him in his house and returned triumphantly. I thought that would have been the end to this horribilis incidens. But no, it was not to be.

The following Sunday my Addl SP, who had joined recently,  and I had to rush to Midnapore after spending a harrowing and embarrassing time in rescuing  OC Panskura PS from a clutch of fisherwomen. Prior to that, as part of my reporting obligations about important incidents in the area, I had faithfully informed him about the previous Sunday’s events. On way to Midnapore, I requested him not to broach the issue as it would only embarrass the SP. He just nodded.

We reached the SP’s  bungalow office, the SP was in a lungi and genji, his pet dog and a kitten were sitting near his chair, very imperious, and looked at us as trespassers intruding upon their time.

Within ten minutes, we told him about the Panskura OC’s shenanigans, and after extracting an assurance  to start a departmental proceeding against him, we were served tea and cream crackers. The SP was served again, but he shared it with his pets.

And then it happened. Out of the blue, the Addl SP said,’ Sir , I believe you were greatly inconvenienced that day,’and stopped for the effect to sink in.

It doesn't take much time for this to sink in a man who had been more than greatly inconvenienced just a week ago.  But with great fortitude , he just said, ‘haan.’

‘Sir, I was wondering that when the PO was Chandipur, why did you go to Nandkumar for  help?’ the Addl SP enquired.

PO?Place of Occurrence? Used in police term as to denote the scene of crime, documented as a sketch map in case diaries?  A very unfortunate term to describe  a place where your SP was divested of his symbols of authority . But who can stop such a person when he is on a roll.

The SP looked at him a bit irritably, and so did his pets.

“ You have been Addl SP of Tamluk for lesser number of months than of the years I have spent as SP here. I bloody well know that the place was hardly a distance from Chandipur PS,’ he snapped, though a bit mildly.

‘But tell me, just a few minutes ago I had asked OC Chandipur for help to clear the traffic jam. The fellow had not only not come to the bazaar, he was sitting cross legged in a mufti, shaking his right leg and reading Pratidin when i went there. The whole thana looked like as if they had not even heard about instructions.  I gave him left , right and centre and walked out.”

“Now tell me, with what face I would have gone to him hardly 10 minutes of this berating?

“Amaar ki authority thakto?”

I also imagined the scene of SP shouting, uttering profanities rightfully expected from such a wounded authority,  and of OC Chandipur,mumbling his defence,   blessed with a voice that was heavily nasal,  a sound box which had a  preponderance of of female vocal folds,  an ever uncertain throat and a full tooth missing in the front that allowed air to pass causing all sorts of confusion to the listener- and  fear of spit spray.

Such a lucid explanation in public administration- I thought the Addl SP would  be satiated, but I had clearly miscalculated..

“ Sir, it  must have been an arduous walk to Nandkumar. It is a long stretch,” he said, with an expression of  post facto concern.

'Mai ri , 'I squirmed, from where does he remember a word like arduous , evocative of so much pain and nightmare.

I thought the SP would throw us out. There is limit to needling. But displaying great sang froid, and grabbing an opportunity to philosophise, he said,

“Tumi jano,aami jokhon haat chhilaam, amaar chaar ti shikkha holo.”

‘When I was walking, I learnt  four lessons,’ he ‘bilingualled’ for his two abangali subordinates.

I was speechless .  How come this gentleman learns lessons from seeing his car walk away from him without his permission. People have been known to lose their wits in similar circumstances and here was this fellow  inding nuggets of wisdom in such abundance as one would  small unripe mangoes that carpet the ground after a kaal baisakhi or nor’wester.  

The Addl SP turned towards me and gave a triumphant smile, as a vindication for his due diligence in the matter of SP, Piddle and the Car Dribble.

“ Sir no. 1?” he enquired quickly asked lest the SP change his mind.

“Ek number holo je je kono ghotna ghot te paare. Any thing can happen. Never in my 26 years of service I thought that such a thing can happen.”

It struck me as simple but  profound, and provided the right traction for Addl SP’s curiosity.

“Dui number ,sir?” he prompted.

“Dui number holo je je kono ghotona tomar  songe o ghot te paare. Any such incident can happen to you also, don’t think that such a weird thing would never happen to you . “

This great exposition of the ordinariness of one’s existence was a unique lesson for people like me steeped in their exclusivity and uniqueness, of Jesuit education and covenanted police service. It dismantled one’s ego,  the self deprecation was so earthy that now even I longed for more.

My immediate superior, his huge appetite for wisdom whetted by these two nuggets, was in an epistemological trance. He cupped his hand , as if he was holding a microphone, and almost thrust it towards the Sage .

'Number three?’

'Teen number holo je you must always carry cash on your person. You see, I don’t carry cash with me, give Rs 100 to my security guard and when the amount is spent , he comes back to me. Imagine, I had no money, I couldn’t hire a van rickshaw, nor get into a bus.'

This was a real shikkha I said. IPS officers usually  considered it infra dig to personally get down and buy cigarettes or cup of tea or some eat, and would normally let the security guard do on a reimbursement/ adjustment basis. Usually, they hardly needed to pay for anything though there have been instances of a few insisting to pay for an aath anaa cup of tea.  I also did the same, handing over money to Amit , my security guard. It was a habit I learnt from my Phupha, who unlike me was a teetotaller and hadn’t had , right till his retirement as DGP, Bihar,  the benefit of serving under an SP like mine with such profound, life changing experiences.

“Number four, sir,” was duly announced.  

‘Number four holo, ‘ and he permitted himself a smile , ‘that you should be physically fit  to walk ten kilometers.’

Absolutely illuminating. We IPS officers hardly walk , and not used to walking on a highway, walk fearfully, always away from the edge of the road, shuddering with fright whenever a truck rushes past.  Walking ten kilometers during those days was never advised by any training SP.

The SP continued , ‘ jokhon Bhogowan dekhlo je chheleti r shikha hoey giyechhe, when God saw that the ignorant the boy has learnt his lessons,  he sent CI Nandkumar to rescue me.’ He stopped,  and smiled, his teeth shone, and even his eyes, minus one glass eye, lit up at at the denouement.

I was moved, amazed, spellbound. This indifference to vicissitudes of fortune , to pleasure and pain, this acceptance of Fate and Knowledge , their identification with Reason- I doubt whether Zeno of Citium could have explained Stoicism so well.

I thought on this note  of  Bol Siyavar Ram ji ki jai and all’s well that ends well, I  would just get up , salute and walk out. But sometimes, a tongue used to talking cannot remain silent for long. And such a tongue, inspired by an eloquent reductionism of SP of explaining such a complex phenomenon as narrated above in such simple terms, was animated in situ. Suddenly I started up, startled. I heard a voice resembling mine.

“Sir, very nice of CI Nandkumar to have come and rescued you,  otherwise had you reached Nandkumar PS in mufti, the sentry wouldn’t have even recognized and allowed you in,’ I heard myself say.

I thought it was a very incisive comment, it had logic and empathy, and I deserved to have this comment, made as the youngest officer present there, commended by the SP , appreciated by his pets, and tolerated by the Addl SP for speaking out of turn.

The SP looked at me and snapped, ‘what very nice! Had the CI Nandkumar not come, you fellows would have never come to know about this story.’

SP’s don’t normally say ‘’Get Out’’ to IPS officers, but every person knows when to leave. There is a silence, as sudden as it is intimidating and indicative. We got up with a shuffle and saluted and turned around. The pets came out to ensure  that we had left.