R Chandrashekhar's Home Page

Fruits of Labour `Vairagya’ is a Sanskrit word with a deep sense and connotation, whose shallow English equivalent is `to renunciate’. The lore of Indian culture stresses on some occasion-driven `vairagya’ - surges of diffidence, futility and self-questioning which most people encounter, but soon get over.   ‘Devaalaya vairagya” is a   surge to seek oneness with the Almighty that overtakes a devotee’s mind while praying before the Temple deity. `Smashaana vairagya’ , encountered at the cremation grounds where, standing beside the funeral pyre, the thought occurs that if this is the way it is all going to end, the rat race of life appears wholly futile. Yet a few days later, the despondency shakes off and its back the stress-filled routines. A third is, `prasooti vairagya’ is the experience by a woman who has undergone the pangs of child-birth. The resolve to never again go through the agony is overcome in time, though may not necessarily for reasons of her choosing. T...

Incidents at First Light First Light is the `defining moment' for each day, when imperceptibly, the darkness of the night is shed and a very faint and pale light engulfs the sky. With each passing moment, again imperceptibly, the light gets brighter and brighter, until the first streaks of the rising sun strike the earth - a period of great activity and happening, when all life on earth prepares for the day to come. The doctor from Pune had to reach the airport much before First Light. The first hop was to Delhi and then the connecting flight to Srinagar. This was a pilgrimage he and his family as also many others in the group, had only in their imagination thought will ever come true. The hand of God, in which he had an abiding faith, had now moved to help him towards achieving his most longstanding of residual aspirations. From Srinagar, after a quick tour of the sites of the town, the vehicle took them on the road to Leh. Off this road, a little beyond Sonamarg but short ...

The General’s Command It is such a loss to society that many an old soldier chooses to fade away rather than give back to his country and his people the wealth of his discipline and down-to-earthiness in seeking solutions to problems. Many are apprehensive of the devious wheeling-dealing ways of `civvie' street which they find repelling, as indeed does every right-minded civilian as well. Most old soldiers prefer to stay cloistered within their own circles rather than take the plunge into the mainstream of their new life. The few who do so are invariably   successful and leave indelible prints of their personality upon the minds of those who work with them. Major General Mohite was one such old soldier who,   after hanging up his uniform, rose to be a shining star on the corporate and social life of Poona. He resided in a large house located at a prominent `T' junction on the up-market University Road and everyone knew him to be the Managing Director of one of the city'...

Popcornben My course co-fellow’s advice was crisp. ‘That’s a large-assed Airport, move yours quick’, he had said. Rows of aircraft of different Airlines, makes and models stood docked to awning Shute-bridges at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. On disembarking, one joined a veritable stream of people and baggage to flow along to the Embarkation Bay of the connecting flight. The transit time was short. Good luck that Boarding Gate B-34 was not too far away. Then came the announcement that the flight to Miami was delayed due to make a ‘technical correction’, perhaps one of several vacuous post 9/11 ‘security-driven’ phrases, but it indelibly blotted the thus far ‘clockwork precision’ image of the American Airline industry taking the mind back to our good old National Airline and the hours of suspenseful waiting it enforced. There was no such ambiguity in United Airlines’ next announcement.   ‘There will be no catering on this flight’. Those of you who are hungry or want t...

Nishat Old Poona’s cinema theatres had some interesting names - Westend, Empire, Liberty, Apollo, Excelsior – all worthy institutions of their time, some screening only English movies while others the Hindi or vernacular ones. There was a cinema theatre adjacent to our school named Nishat. A very old one but one in which had premiered some classics from the golden age of Hindi - such as   `Dosti’ and `Zindagi’.   It did not need to be a cinema buff to know which new film was being screened as a huge balloon tethered to Nishat’s roof would go up carrying a banner that heralded the name of the new release. What Nishat meant, the language to which the word belonged, few knew after passing out of school, the theatre and its name faded out of sight and mind. Years later, the word Nishat came back with unexpected suddenness - in Srinagar, as out tourist bus stopped at the gates of Nishat Gardens. The mind's eye at once was taken back to the old cinema hall. Nishat Garden...

Petty Officer It was a leap into the dark. It was low tide on that dark night when the old, soon to be discarded SS Rohidas, had thrown anchor far out at sea off the Ratnagiri coast. The Junior Naval NCC cadets from Poona on board who had to disembark here were to jump on to the large boats that had come alongside the ship. This jump was to be made from the last step of a rickety ladder off the ship’s side in the dim light of a lantern as the only muted indicator. One landed with a thump onto the boat, which rocked to absorb the impact. In the dark of a moonless night, this was a scary for the secondary school cadets. As each boat filled to its capacity, it moved out towards the lights of the town. Ratnagiri Port those days was a solitary jetty. On disembarking, the cadets regrouped on it, and after a headcount began a tiring march of over two miles to the campsite - a school housed in a complex of small buildings. The journey from Poona had commenced the evening before. and fatigu...

Guiding Our Culture Words fail to describe completely the exotic carvings at the caves at Ajanta and at Kailasa and the other temples of Ellora. To dig out of a hill-side an entire monolithic temple or caves, complete with pillars, corridors with intricate carvings relating mythological tales in a jointless, seamless canvas of stone is truly extraordinary. Those who conceived the plan for Ellora and its temples and planned the execution of this massive project possessed a rare ability to `inversely’ conceptualise, record their plans to precision. This is important as the project would be executed over decades by generations of extremely skilled craftsmen with no changes. Even a single incorrect stroke of the chisel would cause irreversible errors. Tourists come in busloads to view these sites. Most are overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the effort and the intricate carvings. Some others completely miss grasping the enormity of the effort involved, nor do they really care. More t...

Shrine of the Broken Idols The Som Vihar residential complex dominates the cityscape as Sangam Marg in RK Puram curves northwards. Named after India’s first Param Vir Chakra Awardee, it is the only “private’’ colony in an otherwise wholly government sub city. A little further down the road, on the left side is a large peepal tree on the parapet around the base of which stands a saffron smeared statuette of Hanumaan, amongst a host of other chipped, cracked or broken idols - discarded from homes where they once were reigning deities.   Nearby the tree is an old water kiosk - relic of the time the sarkari babu cycled to office – no longer relevant in the age of bottled mineral water. In the double shadow of the tree and the water-hut stood for many months, a hand-cycle with ‘Presented by RIN Association to Hawa Singh son of Piara Singh’ painted prominently on the back of the chair.   The story of Hawa Singh is of a life that plunged from a budding career in the Navy....