An officer and a Gentleman..

An  officer and a gentleman. ..

By

Vivek Hande

 

The story dates back to the late fifties.  My father was a young officer (and a gentleman) in the Indian Army. Those were the days of train travel. First class coaches had independent compartments with attached toilets. Journeys were long and criss- crossed the length and breadth of the country. But one traveled in style as befitting an officer. This included being served tea and meals in porcelain crockery. It also involved changing into a night suit; of course one had to be in silk dressing gown when stepping out of the compartment.  One usually sank into the upholstery and enjoyed the countryside passing by in style. There were no smart phones or laptops to distract you; so one indulged in catching up with ones’ reading. 

 

M father was travelling between Madras(Chennai now)  and Calcutta(Kolkata now). It was to be a rather long journey and he was travelling along with a course mate in a first class coupe. The reading material had been exhausted and most of the problems of the world had been sorted out over animated conversation between the course mates. The train stopped at Bizwada( Vijaywada now) around eleven at night and my father was pleasantly surprised to see the AH Wheeler book stall open  through the window. He got off, rather jauntily attired in his black silk dressing-gown to arm himself with some books for the rather long journey yet to go. Engrossed in selecting books, he was alerted, a little late in the day (or night) by the rather bored vendor that the train was half way out of platform one! The young officer threw the books and sprinted not so jauntily to catch the fast departing train.

He managed to get onto the railings of the last coach which was the unreserved one. Barely clinging onto the foot board and holding on for dear life as the train hurtled into the darkness of the night. He could see the coach was packed with passengers stuffed like sardines but all seemingly oblivious to the world and definitely unable to hear his shouts for assistance. The train gathered speed and the steam engine roared into the night and was sending billowing gusts of soot into the air. The dressing gown was flapping wildly with the wind; soot and dust was settling into every pore on the face and eyes. He was fighting sleep; the winds and the momentum of the lurching train and quite literally, blowing in the wind (Bob Dylan would have approved!).

It was a terrible nightmare by any standards and at the end of two hours when the train rolled onto the next station, the young man had numb hands and wobbly legs and a very black face and a very very tattered dressing –gown. He managed to make his way back to the coupe on very unsteady legs. The course mate emerged from deep slumber oblivious to the excitement. He asked, “Where have you been? What happened?”  The young officer replied,”I had stepped out. I think I need a new dressing –gown!”  The officer and gentleman was ready for more adventures…

When the going gets tough, the tough get going!!

When the going gets tough, the tough get going!!

By

Vivek Hande

Stay fit; Burn fat. Kill the calories. Eat less, exercise more. I am a staunch believer in fitness and one has to strive hard to be fit. But, there is no point overdoing things. I am also a believer in the principle of moderation. Everything is good in small portions and good measure.  I agree with some proponents who say mental fitness is more important than physical fitness. In fact , there are some who also say that running late should be considered exercise. There may be something to it.

But living in an environment, where everybody is so fitness conscious and burning calories as if there is no tomorrow, one does get swept away. There are two very well appointed gyms close to where I stay. They are teeming with folks sweating away, pumping iron and what have you. One of the gyms is called “Serendipity”.  I ventured into the gym deciding I needed to emerge after a couple of hours with a set of six packs and a well toned physique. The trainer swooped down on me and prescribed a set of warm up exercises.  After fifteen minutes of warm –up, I would have liked to gulp down a glass of chilled beer along with some roasted peanuts perhaps. The trainer had different ideas. After pushing me onto what he called were graded exercise sets on a series of equipment that seemed to have emerged from “Star Wars”, he seemed to have an unbecoming smirk on his face. Because of my mental toughness, I was somehow surviving and managed to keep my heart within my chest cage and was not asking for an oxygen cylinder. It is to my credit that I stumbled through some more time on the “fly” and the “lat pull down machine” without needing a stretcher and inspite of the trainer’s diabolical intent to see me erupt in flames!

An hour seemed like an eternity. I staggered out of the gym with a solitary thought in mind. Why have they called the gym “Serendipity”? I am good with the etymology of words and in my oxygen starved state I recollected the origin of the word. First used by Horace Walpole in 1754 in a book titled “The three princes of Serendip”, old name for Sri Lanka. In the book, the heroes are making discoveries by accident or sagacity of things they were not in quest. Serendipity;  noun. Luck that takes the form of finding pleasant things that are not looked for. The occurrence or development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.

 Well, my bursting lungs and stiff back and muscles and wobbly knees and hypoxic brain were certainly not pleasant things I had found by chance. There seemed nothing serendipitous about the whole thing. I slowly dragged myself home, crossing the other gym on the way. By the way, the other gym is called “Utopia”. Utopia, noun.  An imagined place or state of things in which everything is perfect.

 I suppose in a utopian world everybody will go to the gym and stumble across the great benefits of torturing oneself serendipitously!! Each one to his own....