On Family Life

Does your family also work like a constitutional monarchy? Recent events and sustained observation has forced me to conclude that mine does.

The parents, of course, are hierarchical heads of state, a joint position inherited by blood and marriage and as such in continuance of the divine right. The sad burgeoning of the bourgeoisies has over time diluted the strength of the crown and powers are increasingly devolved onto the middlings, but the prestige and respect attendant on the double throne still survives. In any case, the constitution is but unwritten and compound more of tradition and convention that clear-cut legalities of a law.

Politically, therefore, the state is a form of feudal federalism in the fluid style of the Stuarts. The thrones share and control a number of important ministries, but a few are still the preserve of lords of the chamber and yet more are shared betwixt the crown and its dependencies. The Treasury, for instance, is shared equally amongst all revenue generating members of the state and the Exchequers jointly deliberate the expenses of the realm. The Foreign Office too is shared by all major members of the Royal Council and relations with other potentates are determined as much by individual agency and effort as by combined writ of the Council.

Of course, like all mechanisms one hardly realises the amount of behind-the-scenes work which goes into making this fluid yet fixed structure keep going seamlessly. It’s only when some rupture disturbs the normal functioning of the realm that you become aware of the underlying layers of complexities which prop the system. These ruptures can be of various kinds, but what their occurrence provides is an insight into the ways in which the state functions.

Such a rupture occurred recently with the issue of the state car. A new vehicle being purchased for the purpose, the matter of disposal of the old one became contentious. Much of the Council argued in favour of an immediate phasing out, but the member for affairs cultural and supernumerary arguing strongly for continuity and heritage a reluctant case was made out for conservation of the car.

Therein ended the first of many meetings. The issue being so tangled, a series of deliberations could not settle it. Inter-ministerial memorandums of understanding and mutual interest were come to, lengthy analyses conducted and reports prepared. Comment was invited from experts financial and mechanical, the Foreign Office consulted heads of other allied potentates and a holistic white paper was prepared.

Of course, that wasn’t just it. As in all senatorial setups, debate categorised the process at all stages, but what mattered the most was not the rhetoric of the moment but backstage alignments and confederacies. Members of the Council sent feelers to each other, the thrones themselves issued bilateral negotiations and the black clouds of chaos so threatened the matter that the original issue stood the risk of obfuscation amidst piles of red tape and tangential deliberation. All seemed lost and at the risk of becoming a dreaded official secret erased from public memory till, as, again, is wont with such forms of governance the highest power issued a directive and so the matter resolved. Backstage considerations must indeed have been involved, but in the best traditions of family life all was conducted with that sign of imperious command that put the matter to rest: fully, completely and amicably.

Remembering Bal Bharati

To Parth Taneja

*

The idea that Bal Bharati, GR branch can be the best school in its area will immediately seem incredulously ridiculous to anyone who has actually studied in the blessed place. Of course, we all have more or less fond memories and of course after passing out we more or less remember it fondly as the good old place, but thinking hard and strong there are few who would actually agree that it was, or is, half as good as the papers would have us believe. Seriously, Bal Bharati best amongst all the other heavy weights in Central Delhi? Khullar Saab must have loosened CES’s purse strings a bit.

Jokes apart, does it really make any sense? Bal Bharati best? Okay, the survey says it scores highest in terms of perception, but even then, who would be stupid enough to perceive that place best amongst all others?

Don’t get me wrong here. This is not to indicate that I don’t or didn’t like being there, nor that after passing out I’ve acquired airs and disdain to acknowledge my schooling. None of that, no: instead, what irks me is this very thing about being best, this entire charade of being better than what you are, of trying to be better and better and better still. It has brought some changes, this aspirational anxiety, but given the inside reports I last had of it, Bal Bharati remains what it has always been and will always be: average.

Thankfully, I say. Seriously, that’s what it’s always been and that’s what it’s best as, an average school amongst so many more better equipped, more professional, hi-fi schools. Average. A charmingly average school.

It’s good to be average, isn’t it? Like anything, Bal Bharati has its faults, but the best thing about it is that it’s average. It’s not like any of your ambitious, verbose institutions aspiring to make the ideal man out of children. Of course, the school diary and PR material has some such bosh to that effect, but then I suppose that’s for the perception surveys. The inside story remains that Bal Bharati has, given the few fortunate exceptions, more or less incompetent, bungling teachers, a lackadaisical attitude towards sports and extra-curricular activities and fails to make anything more than semi-noble savages out of its students.

And yes, that’s the best thing about it. Most students tend to be cocky when they graduate and remember almost all their teachers as bumbling, bilious ignoramuses. Common human tendency which, I suppose, is common enough to apply to most students of most schools. Again, later on in life most people, even as they sentimentalise, tend to think a bit flippantly of the educational institutions they were part of, remembering the good with the irritating but still thinking of all of the latter in a sepia-tinted, oh-old-days way. I have absolutely no doubts about being privy to such sentiments, but when I say Bal Bharati is best being average I don’t just deprecate my alma mater in that half-joking, flippant manner. I mean more.

More in the sense that I feel being average is one of the best assets of any educational institution today. In Bal Bharati, I never felt myself under any extraordinary pressure to perform, never saw myself faced with any larger than life standards to come up to. There were always extra-curricular activities, there were always assemblies and house meetings and sports days, but there was never, as so many students – and more, their parents – complain, any overwhelming, continuous pressure to exert yourself more than what you might desire.

That is to say there was impetus and ample opportunities were always provided, but you were never forced into availing of those opportunities, never taken into the whole paraphernalia of competitions and events for the school’s greater glory. There is always rivalry between schools, but as students of Bal Bharati – and I suppose I’m not alone in assuming so – most of us never felt that rivalry. We couldn’t care less what students of other schools were like and what they would think of us precisely because that intensely cutting competitive spirit just wasn’t around to instil that peculiar sense of pride and belonging which institutions with their glorious traditions and grand narratives always inspire. It was, and perhaps still is, a school where you could be, spend your days peacefully with all the momentous upheavals of infancy, childhood and adolescence without coordinators and managers hammering you for some supposedly prestigious competition designed to make you better. If nothing else, Bal Bharati makes you thick skinned in some subtle ways and so the entire rhetoric of bettering yourself which all schools bombard their students with has little affect on Bal Bharatians.

Which is why when I hear news of Bal Bharati becoming “an international school” and what not, I thank my lucky stars of getting out in time. Being average, it was a healthy mix of ambition and incompetence, of imposition and free will. Certain minimums were always expected and efforts made to attain them, but beyond them only the chosen few fell victim of the headministerial staff’s ambitions. There was always guidance, but you still had enough leeway to explore yourself and find your own way, not be straightjacketed into models of the ideal would-be scientist, the ideal would-be engineer, the ideal would-be accountant, the ideal would-be sports star and so on. I find people of my batch and my class doing various interesting and remarkable things, people whom almost everybody hardly expected to be good at anything being more successful than anybody’s wildest dreams. There are always students of this sort and it is their hard work and genius of course, but what marks Bal Bharati distinct is that it never stigmatised such students for not living up to general, public school expectations. Yes, attempts would always be made to co-opt us into the all-rounded personality network, but something in the very fabric of that place prevented most of us from falling prey to that typically industrialist, market-oriented disease. We had good times and bad, but we never felt the pressure to become marketable in that sense.

Which is why the Bal Bharati I know and remember is best being average.

*

Author’s note:

Prompted by a conversation and this: http://epaper.hindustantimes.com/PUBLICATIONS/HT/HD/2011/12/19/ArticleHtmls/AND-THE-AWARD-GOES-TO-19122011011002.shtml?Mode=1

On Communalism

A Miser, to his Mistress

Excerpts from a (Dramatised) Monologue

“Ah me, ah me, a pretty pass to be in! Oh, to be sure, to be sure, a pretty pretty pass to be in! All the world’s a stage and we misers but sidekicks on it…

What else? Don’t, and be maligned. Steel your heart and loosen the strings, and still be maligned! Ah me, ah me! What to do, where to go?

Go? Ah yes, go…that’s what I’m here for, am I not? Go, yes. But why? A surprise? Oh, a pox on it, a pox on these plaugy surprises when you know you won’t be welcome! Still, the heart’s a heart and welcome or not it will have its due. Oh well…go, for all you’re worth go…

But how?

Hmm…a pretty pretty pass to be sure! Oh, to be sure, to be sure! This or that? Hark! What’s that? Oh no, that’ll not do. Goes the wrong way and would only mean more. Hmm…should I? But that’d be 10 whole rupees– more likely than not 15. What’s the time? Hmm…she said it’d start at 9 and she has another one later. I suppose I do have time. Don’t quite need to be rash. Yes, that’s the word, rash. No need to be rash.

Ah! Here it is! Hmm…this will be just fine. Just fine. A fiver from here and then 15 from the depot, window seat all along. Nice and convenient. Just the way it should be. Hmm…

Oh dear, it’s so slow. The dratted idiots steer like the wind in the morning! Why doesn’t he push the paddle! Oh dear, oh dear…it’s been fifteen minutes already and we aren’t even out on the road. Heaven bless me! It’ll take at least an hour from the depot to there and by this rate it’d take at least half an hour to the depot itself! Dear, dear…that’ll be an hour and a half at least! What if…what if she leaves?

Oh heavens, yes, what if she leaves! What if it’s all done and over with and she goes back before I’m there? No, no, all of it can’t be over so soon. It’s bound to take some time, all that meeting and policy making and deciding and lord knows what! She can’t be over with it so soon!

But not exactly soon, is it? An hour and a half…good heavens, and here’s the road already! Oh, decide, decide! Getting down would be 5 till the station and lord knows how many after– about 20 I suppose! Total of 25. Hmm…and just 20 here. 5 bucks, 5 whole rupees. Not to forget the 5 wasted if I do. 10 bucks then. 10 rupees. Measure for measure, a pound of love, cut in the heart! 10 bucks? 10 bucks! 10 bucks?”

And he got down.

Beyond Boundaries, Borders, Lines and Cultures

(written long, long ago)

*

Thanking Tridib and D.M.

*

A book-worm’s confessions…

I have to do it; it’s been on my mind for quite some time and I just feel like saying it. I must say it.

I’ve been addicting myself. I think I’m quite a hopeless addict by now. I seriously need to de-addict myself…

Yes, I’m addicted to books. To Literature. I’ve indulged myself horrendously over the past one and a half years, so much so that I don’t even remember the basic mathematics of senior school. I discovered this while preparing for my economics exam- I couldn’t even recollect the names of elementary Greek symbols, like delta and beta and so on!

Oh well!

Oh well indeed! Reading is such a pleasure. It transports you to places where you could never go in reality, to ages back in time, to places in the future, to cultures far and beyond, beyond all boundaries and barriers…

Oh well! How stereotypically conventional! Books are magical, they transport you…oh yes, you’ve read it before, haven’t you?

I bet you have. I won’t claim originality for myself here. I’m like anyother bookworm; hopelessly infatuated, caught in the trap and not quite willing to leave it.

My mind, and I think I shamelessly gratify my vanity in this, is an extraordinary mixture of a plethora of cultures, of whole new worlds which I constantly discover and re-discover. Once I’m in Troy, outside the famed Gates, witnessing Achilles’ wrath play the dance of death. Then, quite suddenly, I’m with Dr. Watson, riding up to Baskerville Hall through that dreary, foggy, excessively spooky and mysterious Moor. Very soon I’m with Everyman, journeying through the pilgrimage that is life and then with Monsieur Poirot and Captain Hastings in a quiet country manor trying to exercise those little grey cells to their level best…

I have to admit I’m suffering from severe dislocation. Most of the time I simply don’t know where I am: I might be walking in college, but I could pretty well be far away in ancient Egypt, walking in solemn state with the Pharaoh. The boundaries between fact and fiction constantly keep dissolving till reality becomes strange, unfamiliar, ‘unreal’ and the world of fiction, the world I share with sundry other folk, real and a lot more material.

Perhaps that’s insanity, a mark of my slip into lunacy, a signal that I’m beginning to loose, or perhaps have already lost, my marbles…

Or perhaps it means I am, to quote Monsieur Poirot, at the verge of true wisdom…

The Ghost of Literature

(Because it was, is and will always be below and beyond a certain Lady to attempt anything of the sort!)

I

“Is this logic, is this sense,
Are these denizens of Literature’s den?
Where is their sweetness, where their light?
Oh, these philistines are but blight!

Surrounded I seem by prodigal fools:
Purloining papers now seems cool!

They study Literature not for its sake,
But for gold which may come in the wake!

/Will they carry this haloed legacy?
These who suffer best from palsy?
Shall they bear Wit divine,
Reason, balance, harmony fine?
The fruit of knowledge,
Will they labour to gain,
Or, suffering pangs, decide ‘tis vain?

Everywhere I see excesses great,
Follies fell wilfully made:
Fallen, falling, only to fall again,
Such the fashion that all would fain!”

Despairing thus of the world around,
This scholar did himself in Shaw ground.
Read a bit of chocolate-cream soldier’s escape,
But this time found it a deadly weight.
Irritated, disturbed, he stood up again,
And, pacing to and fro, began to complain.

II

“You, Kreative Mistress,
Who pseudo-suicidal tendencies harbour;
Why under sundry delusions do you labour?
In fits of anger thankless gits friends make,
In other passions to Olympus them raise!
Extreme, uncertain, troubled to the core,
Thy antics do really me awfully bore!

You, Movie-buff,
Who harmless folk fucking morons make;
Why do you this choleric temper fake?
Perilous, imperious, passionately moody,
You damn as a Goddess and are as choosy!
Potential you have, yet knowingly it blight,
Self-fashioned, yes, but only a plight!

You, Ok-Nikki,
Who clean-shaven lads dictator declare:
You talk as much sense as a March Hare!
Rational, balanced, calm yourself present,
Yet the world at large generally resent!
What now of those claims, those words fine?
Ha! All hollow, worthless shine!

You, Zarzu,
Who grand plans do make,
Involve all others, yet yourself prove late!
You do such wondrous schemes devise,
Which co(dd)zen good folk of precious time!
Yourself in them should more be involved,
Rather than call it the production’s fall!

You, Little Anne,
Who seem consigned to join our fold:
All qualities have, yet are not gold.
Too eager, excited, you carry on and on,
Incongruous thus appear, hopelessly torn:
Forget not your blood, your inborn fall-
Above that you will not rise at all!

You, Lady Long-locks,
Who all men doth kameena call;
What be thy problem, to be seen by all?
On petty matters you frightfully fret,
With bad jokes badger others to death!
Idiot, yes, though idiotic not,
Thy skewered vision harries me a lot!

You, Uncle Jon,
Who are cynical and smart:
Know you not how others you harm?
Motiveless, aimless, for their own sake
Your verbal barbs fly. Remember-
Sarcasm is fine, but only to an extent;
You, making an art, carry beyond ends!

You, Baba of Virgin Mounts,
Who do in matrimony antagonists join:
You do greatly over-reach thus!
For visible now is that impish babe,
That Pinku who dwells within thy nave!
Master still, yet master not,
Thy mastery now lies in the pot!

You, Master-illusionist,
Who are with various things obsessed,
In sketching dabble, onto rhetoric press.
Why of the world a distorted image paint,
When Woe-men always do prove it vain?
Never you cease from your fruitless wassails,
Even though they on all counts fail!

Last to you, O black-eyed wench,
Who do confound and bless at once;
Abuse freely, then happily act dunce!
Forget you so easily your own crimes past,
Live merrily, while others smart!
If this be your justice, this your way,
Then, by Higgins, I shall not stay!”

III

Disappointed, depressed, damnably tired,
He now to his bed readily retired;
Sought refuge with Morpheus’ lad,
Who soon in his hand him safely had.

For hours he slept in peace,
By Jove’s grace, ‘twas dreamlessly sweet!
The heavy hours slowly slipped by,
Till the clock did three sombrely chime.

Three, as all Wits know, is an hour divine,
Magic now happens, subtle, fine:
This the hour when Wit to Moon ascends,
This the hour when hostellers to bed descend!

On the twinkling stars a shadow grew,
Witty Moon too disappeared from view;
The wind saw it fit to die,
And Earth soon under darkness did lie,

From the South opaque mist drew
Enveloped his house, steadily grew.
From a crevice a way in found,
And there, flew round and round.

The scholar, chilly, suddenly awoke,
His bedside for a light madly groped.
Found instead Everyman grim,
And, clutching it close, saw the game begin.

Twisting, swirling, the vapours human form took,
Condensed into a figure made all of books!
Ay, all but the face, which was wondrously queer,
Of various things a composite drear!

Homer’s hair, Chaucer’s ears,
Shakespeare’s chin, Milton’s lips,
Pope’s nose, Dickens’ lashes,
Graves’ brows!

So countenanced was that apparition,
Which now before him stood.
Its eyes closed, it parted its lips,
And thus, in Higgins’s blessed voice, began.

“Fear me not, for as you are me,
So am I you!
You my essence, I your power:
Behold! I am the Ghost of Literature!”

“The Ghost of Literature?” the scholar asked.
“Isn’t that a very fancy term?
A very romantic exaggeration?
Are you even real, or a dream?”

“Cease!” The Ghost cried.
“Enough of the questioning,
For I will do all the talking!
For once listen without cynically interrupting!”

IV

Having him so admonished,
His never-ceasing barrage of queries banished,
The Ghost thus began-
“Listen to me well, O mortal man,
For I shall either be thy saviour, or thou damn!
I am the Ghost of Literature, true:
My task here? A change brew.
I shall alter your outlook, you reform;
So you shine, in better form!”

Saying as much, it suddenly stopped
And pursed its lips tightly shut.
Then, slowly, it opened its eyes and
Gazed into the other’s bewildered orbs.

V

Seeing those orbs, the scholar was struck:
Familiar yes, but familiar not-
Brown-black, certain doom of a zillion chickens…
But that was not all.

Looking more, he saw greater depths,
Within them a canon of infinite breadth.
Sappho in them tunefully sang,
Mary through her dead brother’s woes ran;
Elizabeth, Queen, her letters compressed,
While Behn her Rover cunningly sketched;
Finch with Pope an Impromptu held,
Austen Lizzy up to Pemberley led;
Mary the rights of women vindicated,
Shelly’s Frankenstein all norms jaded;
Christina through Laura the fruit consumed,
As Eliot in Maggie foresaw her doom.
These, and others, he in there saw,
Marginalised voices; oppressed, yet strong.

Such were the eyes that pierced his own,
Till his heart with guilt heavily groaned.

VI

Commune now through eyes took-
Gazing still in those orbs, a voice him shook-
He heard it not, yet heard it still,
For ‘twas his head that it did fill.

As for the face, so this voice,
It did a bundle of paradoxes poise.
Bold yet soft; agitated, yet calm.
Music to the ears, with a nursery kid’s charm.

“You, who do the world deride,
Look first within before all you override!
The faults which you to others apportion,
Are naught but your own inherent notions!

Delusional you are, without a doubt,
That, as well a fashioned choleric with clout;
Your own balance you easily loose,
To that temper of yours, as foul as a goose!

Remember too that your own plans
Don’t often materialise;
Remember too that cultures
You may not rationally criticise!

Again, your humour too is often awry,
Jokes meant, yet black and gory.
In satire too you do over-reach,
Especially with Ladies whom you attempt to teach!

Within you too dwells an impish creature,
A Pinku with Gargantuan features!
As for distortion, in that you freely indulge,
Confuse others, while yourself bogs drudge!

Why yourself then such a scholar think,
When you too totter on Dullness’ brink!
Your own follies make a prodigal roll,
What right then have you to with others fool?

/Literature has no rigid bounds,
It may not be fixed by you critical hounds,
All may a part of it become,
Even if their tastes be a bit rum!

Therefore, though the world be a barbarous waste,
Though sense in it has waned of late,
Yet it is not all that bad:
Hope’s all around- just look for it foolish lad!”

VII

These words did him greatly shame
His ego did they effectively maim.
Yet his eyes from it he could not remove
And gazing still, his lips, soundless, moved.

“You are, O Ghost, a beacon in the dark,
Your aim hits bang onto the mark!
My faults to me now are clear,
They are now maladies that I do fear.

Change I must, and change I shall-
I am but a man, but a man I am.
If unto me is granted will,
The light of reason to chaos fill,
I will above these faults rise;
Make of myself a better being,
More tolerant, open, less prone to spleen!
Give me time, give me space,
And I shall myself imbue with greater Grace!”

Hearing this the Ghost smiled,
Opened at last its lips and “Benedicte!” cried:
All at once it then dissolved into constituent dew,
Which swiftly then from that bedchamber flew…

This then the tale, this the story,
Of how a scholar was cleansed of maladies gory:
Learn ye from him, from this be inspired,
To correct within, before you on others fire!

Notes

I

Para 1
L3- Remember Mathew Arnold?

Para 3
L2- Choice; Renaissance ideas of the will.
L3- Carries it forward; these (worse than!) Faustian falls (because they happen re-occur) happen by choice, not by accident.

II

Para 8
L6- In the Baba's words, Pinku was an accident. After Brahma was done creating the Universe, he smiled a very naughty, mischievous smile and out of that Pinku, the anti-thesis of orderly creation, was born.

III

Para 5
Those who have read Bram Stoker's Dracula will know this is how Dracula used to materialise supposedly locked and 'safe' rooms...

Para 8
In hair is all the strength, and I'm assuming Homer must have had long locks.
Chaucer's ears because he used to pick up any and every thing, from Kings talk to a Wife's babbling!
Milton's lips as a homage to Shaw (Pygmalion)- "Your native language is the language of Shakespeare, and Milton and the Bible..." Higgins speaking through Milton's lips...
Pope's nose, crooked and long, smelling all rapines, going where it should not!
(Robert) Graves' (questioning) brows, for his unorthodox and provoking theories, especially on Greek mythology!

V

Para 1
Line 3- Refer to The Borgoad.

Para 2-
Line 4- Mary Herbert, Countess of Pembroke, Philip Sidney's sister.
Line 7- Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea...The first four lines of her delightful answer to Pope's Impromptu, "Occasioned by Four Satyrical Verses on Women-Wits,in the Rape of the Lock"- "Disarm'd with so genteel an air/The contest I give o'er;/Yet, Alexander, have a care/And shock the sex no more."
Line 9- Mary Wollstonecraft's seminal work, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.

VI

Para 5
Line 4- A tribute of sorts to Astha Joshi; I totally agree with what you said!

VII

Para 3
Line 2- Juxtaposing ideas about the finitude of man with those about his infinite potential, him having the capacity to make the impossible possible...

In Guard of Honour

To Ananya Borgohain

*

http://picasaweb.google.com/anubhav490/CommonwealthYouthRallyRamjasLeg#

*

Life is so full of surprises. What is is not and what is not is. You never really know what you’ll come across at the next turn, what will pop up from the most unexpected corner…life is like that; that which you think you know can suddenly morph into something totally unfamiliar.

Which is exactly what happened to me and two other friends in the rehearsals for the Ramjas leg of the Youth Commonwealth Games rally.

Commonwealth Games. Splendid athletes. Noble personas. Exalted quarters. The Queen…

Abhimanyu, Ishaan and I, all three of us had found the idea of being Guard of Honour appealing. It had been on the grapevine for some days before it reached us and there was talk of a grand ceremony to welcome the delegates to Ramjas. The College needed volunteers to assist it in this very job, in making this “historical event” all the more historical, in a way, worthy of being historical. The Sports Department had issued an open invitation to all to “come and be part of this grand extravaganza”. After all, things like this don’t happen every other day in North Campus. It really was a historical event.

And we were to be a part of it.

Yes, a part of the grand extravaganza, a part of history. Our names would forever be there in the annals of history as worthy souls who answered the call, who made the making of history possible, who acted as Guards of Honour.

With eternal glory and posterity in our eyes we left the Canteen for the porch. A respectable crowd was already there- it was heartening to see other kindred spirits rising to the need of the hour. Very soon, the Sports Incharge descended into the crowd. A tall, stately figure, a firm, authoritative figure. All became silent as every eye went up expectantly to her. She began.

“You are all here to be part of history. We need volunteers to make this event a success. We need Guards of Honour…”

Guard of Honour. I heard not the rest of her speech, only the Guard of Honour part remains with me for with those very words I was transported by a flight of fancy to an old, bygone world. Would we be given swords and bayonets? What about uniforms? Would we be provided with the same of were we supposed to arrange them on our own? Where in Delhi would such clothing be got for rent? Was the Buckingham Palace prototype alright or would we be required to go further back in time? What about cannons, would they be brought in as well?

All these questions assailed me, vexed me from all sides till I broke off to find the Sports Incharge done with her pep-talk and now giving instructions to her minions. We were told to form a line, a human chain that would stretch across the length of the chosen path. Seeing this as my chance, I took the lead and with my honourable companions in tow, went ahead to be at the head of the line.

We three had almost done that when a few female classmates who were passing by spotted us and stopped in their tracks to comment on what they saw. With a mischievous, almost derogatory, smile, Ananya Borgohain asked us what we were up to. Ishaan explained the reasons for our presence there- the Youth Commonwealth Games Rally, the dire need for volunteers, the glorious event we were to be an integral part of. To all this I haughtily added that we were to be Guards of Honour.

I still remember that instantaneous burst of laughter.

“Humph!” I thought, “What do these Philistines, these wretched barbarians, know of honour! Let ignorant fools laugh- who cares about their incongruous cackle!” Raising my chin an extra inch or so above the usual level, I turned to look in a direction where creatures as hateful as these were not present to offend the sight. That was the end of that encounter.

Meanwhile, while all these aspersions were being cast on our honourable task, more kindred souls joined the group and the line, with I its honourable head, inched forward.

Half an hour later, it was still inching forward- and it wasn’t even halfway through the entire length of the designated road. With the sun glowering on my back and the humid monsoon clime sucking out the life from my frame, my strength started failing. Yet, it was just the flesh which was tired: the mind, the Spirit, was raring to go in pursuit of that exalted end, to be a Guard of Honour…

Another fifteen minutes passed. By this time I was fairly tired. My bag is seldom light and what with the added baggage of the new found Honour, the weight on my shoulders seemed more and more out of the ordinary. I was sweaty, thirsty, hungry and tired- in short, wanted to take a rest, sit down and relax. But this was an honourable errand for which I had voluntarily enlisted myself, to have deserted my honourable post now would have been sheer sacrilege. So what if the other, equally honourable kindred souls had fallen- they were greater fools and to be ridiculed even more than Ms Borgohain and Co. for failing to understand the gravity of the task which they were honour bound to see through. Let others fall, Anubhav Pradhan is an honourable man…

Yes, an honourable man. So honourable that even when the other two suggested, after yet another quarter of an hour had elapsed, that we leave this now fruitless task I at once rallied them to stand and see the whole affair to its logical end. That, gentlemen, was the only honourable thing to do- to honourably see the honourable job to its end.

Hark! What was that! A call from the nether ends of the line! Attention! A call to duty, to arms and to honour! The time had come at last, honour, true honour, was now to be rewarded!

Down the beaten road came the Sports Incharge and her entourage, now jogging, now running. Now was the time. Chin raised high in proud determination, I joined my legs together in attention and positioned my right hand by my side (the left already being behind the back) in readiness for a salute. Her at-first-incomprehensible call to the honourable souls in eager attendance now became audible. The order was to “raise your hands, raise your hands high up in the air”.

I was ready. This was to be the crowning glory of my honourable life. A fitting tribute to not just that which was being honoured but also that which was honourable.

“Raise your hands high up in the air”, came the inexorable cry of the Sports Incharge and as I raised mine in a prefect salute came her final injunction- “Clap!”