Good times at NPA - a month later

have you noticed that when you have the time to write blogs, you run out of material (if you have any in the first place) and when you have tons of things to write about, you are so out of time! pretty darned philosophical, huh???

it's saturday evening, my most favoritest part of the week... the pains and aches from the killer Cycle Cross Country(just a measly 25km) are over and there is the full sunday ahead waiting to be unpacked!!! (not that i do much more than a bit of sleeping, a little tanning(side effect of swimming), a movie in our Audi, drinking lots of tea (there's a trophy at the end of the Course for the max cups of tea drunk), etc...


it's been a long time since my previous blog, and even people who didn't know i had a blog were wondering about why i wasn't writing... so, i've decided to oblige all my readers... (you better leave a comment this time, you bloody free-riders!!! you know how much i thrive on attention!!)

stuff has definitely happened since the last time... i wrote mostly about the pains & aches in the first few ones and though they haven't entirely gone away, i've finally made my peace with them and learnt to live along with them... it's like getting used to a nagging wife... did i mention about the hair-cut i had... my tresses have finally been chopped off... the reactions were quite varied... some said i finally looked like a cop... some compared me to a 14-year old boy... but I'm happy to be light-headed... it was just too much maintenance, making a bun a million times a day, unable to wash it coz of again, TIME... and one day after swimming, when i thought the coconut fibre felt smoother than my hair, i walked in to a saloon (we were looking for a restaurant, got lost...) and gave a free-hand to the hair-dresser... and the rest is history! actually no...though the DIs, ADIs were initially happy to finally stop complaining about my hair sticking out in all directions, now they're insisting i get a trimming with the guys every week...! talk of greediness!!

we've interesting indoor subjects... though we're hard put to stay awake in them... one of my favorite's the Forensic Medicine... taught by Dr. C and his skeleton (who we suspect is a remnant of 60RR)... then there's the Forensic Sciences which is also quite interesting... fingerprinting, footprints, photographs, sketches and all that... IPC is an interactive class I am awake most of the time though remembering the sections is still beyond my limited cerebral capacities... Indian Evidence is something most of us (70% on a good day) sleep through... 'Police in Modern India' is another awakening class... though sir digresses a lot, it's those anecdotes that i find more enlightening and entertaining... there's the computer classes in which most of the OTs practice Word, Excel and Access in Facebook, gmail and chatting... but Rajiv nearly got us all into trouble when he messaged a 'Good afternoon Sir!' to our Drill Instructor from the class!!

my streak of punishments continues... out of the largesse of my heart(a very rare occasion) i gave a lift to Dheeraj on my museum-piece of a cycle... our neighbouring DI came after me and made sure i ran a few extra rounds to make up for the over-abundance of mercy!
"No doubles here!", he roared as if i'd nearly broken the cycle with my over-weight!!

the Republic Day was the other big thing... we had a grand parade... dressed in ceremonially crisp starched new khakhis and peak caps and cross-belts, we put on a spectacular show in celebration of an event we'd last celebrated in our schools... I was even the platoon commander and strutted properly and commanded loudly... finally my walk is now considered 'good drill' and not 'arrogant overbearing'!!

that's long enough... to sustain any curiosities about my existence... for a few weeks at least!

Squad, Line Tod!!

;-)

-

Life’s getting more hectic… as if that were possible… the PT rounds have been increased to 10… but as if running 4km in the chilling darkness of winter weren't bad enough, we have an over-enthusiastic instructor who’s added a sprinting round after the END of 10 rounds… and then, with us wheezing for breath, we do a few stretches… ‘only 20 push-ups!!!’ he warns us… as if we’d exceed the limit and do a 50 if we went unchecked… and then 20 sit-ups… and then the whole regimen again…


I hadn’t been corporeally punished for a long, long time… the nightmares from the boarding school are being relived here… and somehow, I manage to get into more trouble than the whole squad put together… like the time my t-shirt was poking out of my drill dress and I had to jump down for a few good push-ups in the dusty PT ground, drill dress, boot ankle and all… other excuses are equally trivial… I ran through the parade ground instead of around it… carried tissue instead of kerchiefs… 2 minutes late… borrowed a pen without asking permission… joined the squad without asking… the list is growing…and by the end of 10 months there'll be an inclusive list of all the things that can be punished… I could probably write the NPA Penal Code… just so the juniors are aware of the punishments when they’re walking unaware into the stealthy traps laid by the crafty team of ADIs, DIs, CDI, ADs, ODs, CDs, BDs, etc…

Indoor classes offer the only respite… for most of us it's the most peaceful sleep, though we're sometimes unlucky to be called out by some overly keen-sighted faculty… some are better at the art than others…they manage to sleep before the faculty opens his mouth, wake up for the break for the munchies and coke and tea and promptly continue the sleep as if uninterrupted... Location matters in the practice of the art... the last benches are definitely helpful but even the class-rooms matter...and after studying practically the various sleeping habits, I have come to the following conclusion…

1. Kerala Audi is better than the DJC. Though brightly lit and scantily filled, it offers better, reclining chairs and ample leg space. This is like Kingfisher First as compared to the cattle budget class of DJC...The tables in front provide support to the head while also providing cover from the opponents(faculty).

2. The Mic in front of each one of us provides adequate entertainment by interested people singing, menacingly whispering and snoring into it while making it hard for anybody to recognizing even the direction of the source.

3. The faculty is blinded by the glaring lights all over the place.

But the biggest hurdle these days is neither the Marathon runs in the morning nor the Comatose Classes… Everybody hates the Arms Drill, the girls especially… it involves a lot of juggling with the very heavy SLRs… if one had to throw dangerous, explosive weapons around, why couldn’t we use the revolvers or the pistols???? My right arms feels like it’s gonna split like seam-split at the elbows… and there are bruises from the muzzle, the foresight-guard, from hitting the magazine( we have to hit the magazine hard enough for it to break... i'm not sure if my magazine is gonna break, but my palm certainly is bruised beyond recognition)

Another unique observation: Nowhere else, maybe except in the middle of World War II, did bandages, crutches and limping people, with arms, legs and heads missing (okay I got carried away a little… the missing limbs are purely out of my fancy though i'm not taking back the missing heads)…. The point is, they don’t attract attention! Everybody has them…!! or is gonna have them!! limping is a way of life!

Since the last blog, the big things missed:
there was a cultural function... i was dragged into swaying unrhythmatically in a group dance while our Boss sang a kannada song... i'm not sure i wouldn't have preferred the loaded SLRs instead of facing the audience... the function was followed up with a dancing frenzy! till 1:30... to usher in the New Year... we were told that we were exempt from PT! and soon after we whooped and hopped to show our pleasure, our Boss informed us that it would only be postponed... so the first thing we did on new year was to go on a 5km run at 6am!!! If that's any indication of the year to come, it's gonna be one-looooong-year!!

then, there was the 12km route march… us decked in Jungle gear, with SLRs on our shoulders, and backpacks… marching through the heat of Hyderabad… for no reason at all… people stared at us out of doorways, in their cars, in the middle of games… I wonder what they were thinking…

That’s about it, I suppose… until the next blue moon when I get some time to blog…

Signing off!!!