Morning Musings - All or Nothing from a Recliner
Morning Musings - All or Nothing from a Recliner – 04/04/18 - Lally Virk.
The year 1975 - Hallowed precincts of The National Defence Academy.
A ‘ragtag’ group of lads from diverse backgrounds thrown together by destiny, start their journey. What bound them all together were the ‘tears’ of pain, scare, disgust, exasperation, frustration and yet joy and jubilation, they all shed every night in those early halcyon days of Jun 1975.
Cut to 2014. Thanks to Brian Acton, ‘BambooDoor’ is born, where this same bunch having completed their ‘long walk to freedom’, so to speak, come together again. ‘Bamboodoor’ an irresistible addiction for all of us….our ‘virtual home’ and the raison d’etre of the 54th Course, NDA.
But today how does one best describe BambooDoor....? This ‘ragtag’ group whose biggest joy at one point of time was as simple as having the luxury of 35 minutes of breakfast time whereby you could polish off 35 toasts and walk out of the mess feeling like a ‘king’, has today become a complex mixture of opposites – throwing in rationality and irrationality, sanity and neurosis, good and not so good, aggression and compassion, joy and sadness, consisting of a bunch of bipolar opposites on a one-dimensional path. 😉 In this long ‘walk to freedom’, by virtue of the life circumstances and varied experiences life threw up, some have learned to keep their polarities tilted in a positive direction while some are still struggling to manage their negative polarities in order to avoid hurting others and more importantly, maybe themselves.
As for me the dichotomy that has played on my mind heavily ever so very often, along with differing constructs, is which approach or perspective should I follow in this group……the ‘emic’ or the ‘etic’……the debate still rages on in my mind even as I write this piece……
That gets me to the reason to pen this post. What prompted me to write these few lines. Two simple yet ‘complex’ incidents happened in the past few days. My endeavour has always been to share my joys (my sorrows belong to me) with you all. Keeping that in mind I shared the wonderful experience of meeting ‘Freddie’ during my morning walks. Though largely appreciated by most, yet it was derided by some and by late evening left a bitter taste in my mouth. Quite a few also shared their disgust privately with me at the sad turn of events in Bamboodoor over something as pleasurable as seeing a ‘bird’. No names but one of us also remarked, ‘…..both of them must be drunk’….0630 hrs in the morning !! 😳
The 2nd incident happened yesterday morning when I received a post, which I forwarded on BD, on what I, in my innocence presumed to be on the Dalit reservation issue. I refer to the Mallikarjun Kharge post. The post was forwarded purely as a classic case of a Dalit crying foul which is their want….but the turn it took was purely political which, as such, took me a bit by surprise because it was never intended that way.
In a nut shell, much like the Australian Cricket episode, today when one balls a ball into BambooDoor, you just don’t know who has ‘sand-papered’ it, whose 'balls' it’s going to scratch and what turn it’s going to take.😉 Even though you may be the most ‘experienced bowler’, but in BambooDoor the result of a ball bowled in the morning, you will only come to know some 200 posts later, by late evening, as to what turn it’s taken.
You may have just balled a simple off-break, but you just don’t know whether it’s going to turn into a ‘googly’, a ‘flipper’, a ‘slider’, a ‘doosra’, or a even a ‘top spinner’!!!???
In ‘BambooDoor’ have we evolved or have we devolved ??!!.
Maybe, just maybe a slight course correction or pitch correction in our attitudes at this stage, by all of us, may add more 'wind to our sails' and may go a long way in making our journey from here and beyond to the promised lands a bit better.
Just some food for thought. 🤔
Off for my walk now…..hoping Freddie meets me. 😄🤔⚔
इत्तफ़ाक़ से तो नहीं टकराये हम सब ए दोस्तों ..
थोड़ी साज़िश तो
खुदा की भी होगी ...
The year 1975 - Hallowed precincts of The National Defence Academy.
A ‘ragtag’ group of lads from diverse backgrounds thrown together by destiny, start their journey. What bound them all together were the ‘tears’ of pain, scare, disgust, exasperation, frustration and yet joy and jubilation, they all shed every night in those early halcyon days of Jun 1975.
Cut to 2014. Thanks to Brian Acton, ‘BambooDoor’ is born, where this same bunch having completed their ‘long walk to freedom’, so to speak, come together again. ‘Bamboodoor’ an irresistible addiction for all of us….our ‘virtual home’ and the raison d’etre of the 54th Course, NDA.
But today how does one best describe BambooDoor....? This ‘ragtag’ group whose biggest joy at one point of time was as simple as having the luxury of 35 minutes of breakfast time whereby you could polish off 35 toasts and walk out of the mess feeling like a ‘king’, has today become a complex mixture of opposites – throwing in rationality and irrationality, sanity and neurosis, good and not so good, aggression and compassion, joy and sadness, consisting of a bunch of bipolar opposites on a one-dimensional path. 😉 In this long ‘walk to freedom’, by virtue of the life circumstances and varied experiences life threw up, some have learned to keep their polarities tilted in a positive direction while some are still struggling to manage their negative polarities in order to avoid hurting others and more importantly, maybe themselves.
As for me the dichotomy that has played on my mind heavily ever so very often, along with differing constructs, is which approach or perspective should I follow in this group……the ‘emic’ or the ‘etic’……the debate still rages on in my mind even as I write this piece……
That gets me to the reason to pen this post. What prompted me to write these few lines. Two simple yet ‘complex’ incidents happened in the past few days. My endeavour has always been to share my joys (my sorrows belong to me) with you all. Keeping that in mind I shared the wonderful experience of meeting ‘Freddie’ during my morning walks. Though largely appreciated by most, yet it was derided by some and by late evening left a bitter taste in my mouth. Quite a few also shared their disgust privately with me at the sad turn of events in Bamboodoor over something as pleasurable as seeing a ‘bird’. No names but one of us also remarked, ‘…..both of them must be drunk’….0630 hrs in the morning !! 😳
The 2nd incident happened yesterday morning when I received a post, which I forwarded on BD, on what I, in my innocence presumed to be on the Dalit reservation issue. I refer to the Mallikarjun Kharge post. The post was forwarded purely as a classic case of a Dalit crying foul which is their want….but the turn it took was purely political which, as such, took me a bit by surprise because it was never intended that way.
In a nut shell, much like the Australian Cricket episode, today when one balls a ball into BambooDoor, you just don’t know who has ‘sand-papered’ it, whose 'balls' it’s going to scratch and what turn it’s going to take.😉 Even though you may be the most ‘experienced bowler’, but in BambooDoor the result of a ball bowled in the morning, you will only come to know some 200 posts later, by late evening, as to what turn it’s taken.
You may have just balled a simple off-break, but you just don’t know whether it’s going to turn into a ‘googly’, a ‘flipper’, a ‘slider’, a ‘doosra’, or a even a ‘top spinner’!!!???
In ‘BambooDoor’ have we evolved or have we devolved ??!!.
Maybe, just maybe a slight course correction or pitch correction in our attitudes at this stage, by all of us, may add more 'wind to our sails' and may go a long way in making our journey from here and beyond to the promised lands a bit better.
Just some food for thought. 🤔
Off for my walk now…..hoping Freddie meets me. 😄🤔⚔
इत्तफ़ाक़ से तो नहीं टकराये हम सब ए दोस्तों ..
थोड़ी साज़िश तो
खुदा की भी होगी ...
Comments
Post a Comment