LIFE OF A WORLD

If you have ever thought what the words SHIT OF A DAY really mean, then ask me. I know the feeling.

Oh, sure it begins like any other day, but it fails to end that way.

First thing was the Internet connection getting out of whack even before I walked into the office. Of course, I needed to look up stuff before news production could commence. There was just no way.

All the while, the IT was getting whacks at the internet connection thingies, hoping it would work. It did not.

Someone had gone to a cybercafe and only returned forty minutes before the bulletin was to go out. I had forty minutes to produce an entire fifteen-minute bulletin from scratch. It was not going to be easy.

Ten minutes to air time, a consultant begins to seek my attention, and then the IT guy calls me over. What else to say but to give me a few moments to finish and then be right there with them?

Not so? Instead I got the short shrift. Military routine--WHEN I SAY JUMP, YOU SAY "HOW HIGH?"--would have been a kinder description. No, sirree. I was described as RUDE, INSUBORDINATE.

Of course, there was the last-moment admission that I knew my job, but not before perspicacious questions like DO YOU THINK YOU KNOW YOUR JOB? I said yes, I did.

SO KNOWING YOUR JOB DOES NOT GIVE YOU THE RIGHT TO BE RUDE TO PEOPLE.

Rude to people? Geez! I don't even want to talk to people let alone be rude to them. If everyone just sat in their seats and went up to Valhalla, it wouldn't matter a row of beans to me.

Just in the thick of a deep-shit production, I get told, THIS BULLETIN HAS FAILED.

I look at the time display on my cellphone and say, NO IT HASN'T, only to be told looking at my phone was rude.

Evidently, placing a palm on the table was rude too, as was bracing one foot in front of the other.

No one told me I was getting employed in a military regiment when I moved to take the job.

And then I get asked, HOW OLD ARE YOU?

It is the most unlikely question? Now if that is not inviting rudeness. I want to ask, WHAT HAS THAT GOT TO DO WITH ANYTHING? That would have been ruder than rude, so I keep silent.

But I am again bluntly reminded it is rude to keep silent when asked a question. I keeping silent because it would have been super-rude to say what was on the tip of my tongue.

Anyway, newsrooms are that way, pressure cookers of all kinds. These things happen all the time, and then they blow over once production is done and the news is going out on air or has just gone out on air. In newspapers, all the madness becomes a happy hour once the paper goes to bed.

These things happen. Kuchh kuchh hota hai. That's Hindi for SHIT HAPPENS.

What is she doing? Not crying--try yawning. But why? Tired, hungry or just for the heck of it?

My maternal folks would call this onu gbajie boys

यह बछ्ही तो प्यारी है ना?
उसका नाम है बम्बिनो।
जो नाम मैंने दिया उनको।
इस के लिये मेरे पास एक गाना है।
यही तो
जा कुडिये जो कर ले पूरा बदन तेरा रां दिया
ओए मुन्देया वदा रहा सुली पे जो न तुझे तां दिया
मऐं सुली पे चड जाऊं तो बोल अब ही मर जाऊं
याद रखना मेरा कहना यह दिल एक दिल मिल जाने हैं

Her name is Bambino, and that is all i call her. But that is not the name her mother christened her.

Anyway, she has become a regular part of office life at work. And at the lodge. If you do not get the hang of what I am going on and on about, do not bother. It takes more time than nine months to do that.

Anyway, Bambino is the only name I could come up with for the little chic. She is growing right into it, even though her mum prefers other funny-sounding stuff that sounds like drinking sugar and syrup.

She is a very cooperative little thing, and I can imagine what a ruddy, crumpled, ballfisted wonder she must have been bawling her way into the world.

If there ever were an award for babies who cooperate in the office--and by cooperation, I mean no crying, no demanding for attention and milk and water and stuff just when you need five minutes to do something crucial--she would pick the prize.

It is only a matter of time before people start missing her when she is not in the office. No matter how much the guys pretend to macho and the girl pretend to be arty, every once in a while they get to pick her when she is crying--gosh, did I say crying? I think I meant simpering--and try to pacify the tot.

There is something earth shattering about holding a baby in your hand, especially when they are not so troublesome you feel like throwing them down. She really respects herself.

One of these days, I am going to teach her some Hindi words. Not that she would understand too much of it, but it would be just for the heck of driving her mum crazy. She would call it a contagion and an infection rolled into one.

Watch out, Indiana has got designs and stuff lined up for Bambino.

Just wait until Bambino goes on air.

Right now, I am doing exactly what my friend would hit me over the head for.

His name is Dauda, and he went by the blog on the missing penis, maybe for the second time in two days, and he didn't really like it anymore.

He complained it was missing penises all over the place.

The amazing thing is lots of people consider it amusing that a crucial part of ones anatomy is missing, especially because the person in question is an infant. No one is thinking how the lad is going to live, and if he does, how he would react when he bathes with young boys his child and discover that he doesn't have something between his legs when other boys his age do.

Talk of snatched innocence!

A friend of mine thought, of course the boy will grow without it and in the first seven, eight, nine years, he would not be any wiser. Then he is going to grow into puberty and realise how much he would miss, realise he is anatomically misfit, neither male nor female, and then he would kill his mother.

Anyway, a recent comment on the missing penis forced me to update this blog. In doing that, I have had to battle writer's block and now the juices are dripping somewhat.

For a crazy update, police is now searching for the girl. She ran from home with the baby.

While researching wars, I stumbled upon the movie Kargil.
Better still, I watched the musical Ek Saathi Aur Bhi Tha, picturised on soldiers at the close of battle--and I was blown away.

But it is uplifting, like a phoenix rising out of its ashes.

I hope it affects you the way it did me, so I reproduce the words here.
(Do not worry about what it means, though I will reproduce that too, it just will affect you)

खामोश है जो यह वो सदा है
वो जो नहीं है वो कह रहा है
साथीयों तुमको मिले जीत ही जीत सदा
बस इतना याद रहे एक साथी और भी था
जाओ जो लौट्कर तुम घर हो खुशी से भरा
here is it below in english
This is the call that is silent;
the one who is no more is saying
my companions, may you meet with victory upon victory.
Just remember this: you had another companion as well.
If you do return, may your home be filled with joy...

कल पर्वतों पर कहीं
बर्सी थी जब गोलियां
हम लोग थे साथ में
और हस्ले थे जवान
अब तक चट्टानों पर हैं
अपने लहू के निशान
साथी मुबारक तुम्हें
यह जशन हो जीत का
Yesterday, somewhere in the mountains, when the bullets showered down,
we were all together, and our courage was fresh.
Traces of our blood still remain in the crags.
My companions, congratulations to you on the celebration of your triumph.