The pied crested cuckoo

I saw the fan-shaped cloud around half past 2 yesterday. A shadow of hope, up there in the vault of a blazing sky. So I asked the ‘gunman’ (because he was nearest, see?), ‘Looks like there’s a chance of rain, eh?”

To which his considered answer (after first clutching his gun tighter, in case the cloud was a security threat) was ‘That’s a cloud’.

Quite. Very helpful, with the temperature up in the mid-40s (that’s Celsius, Mr. Y Doodle) and the furnace breeze lifting lazy clouds of dust from the roadside. I was out from 7 in the morning to beat the heat. Fat chance. The sun was a hammer well before 9 o’clock, regardless of shades and hat and wet towel and regular sipping of water,. By the time I got back at 4 in the afternoon the back of my neck was throbbing and my skin felt like it had been toasted.

But that was yesterday. When I woke at a quarter to 6 this morning, the room was unusually dark. I ran (well, almost. Cut me some slack here) outside. Oh blessed day! Clouds from one side of the horizon to the other, shades of grey, birds quieter in the trees, that little hush that comes before it pelts down, and faint upon the air the smell of wet earth.

And the added pleasure of being proven right on my prediction yesterday, of knowing Things About Weather even though I'm a city slicker.

But only a faint drizzle so far, the kind that barely darkens the earth and leaves an inverted shadow of the trees upon the ground below where the diffident raindrops cannot reach. Bring it on, Rain Dude! Don’t give us a teaser and a no-show! Come ON!

Update: 24 hours later, it STILL hasn't rained. Haven't these guys heard of Truth in Advertising?

* The pied crested cuckoo is known in North India as the 'chaatak', which, according to Indian myth, sits with its mouth open waiting for rain to alke its thirst. Silly twit, but then, it IS a cuckoo. Me, I've discovered Red Bull with watermelon juice. And a spot of Old Monk.

In the belly of ...

The beast snorted, slewed sideways. It paused for a moment, dipped its head, then took the slope at the charge, a storm of dust spiralling from its tracks. Its roar filled the field as it topped out, then died to a rumble as it lurched forward over the ploughed earth. A cloud of chaff rose from the stubble of the harvest, whipped into our eyes with the wind of our passage. The horizon danced. Sunlight and hot air mingled with the tumult of our progress.

Sprawled on a blanket atop the beast, I held on to a convenient spike and pulled the trailing edge of the headcloth tight across my face.

*** ***

It weighs nearly 50 tons when fully loaded, carries more than a ton of fuel and almost a ton of ordnance. Scaly with armour round its bulbous head and shoulders, swollen with the racks of fuel tanks, bristling with guns and aerials and stippled with smoke grenades, the most obvious analogy is a modern dinosaur, a crouching T Rex that mangles the earth it passes over. These are seriously impressive machines. Those tons of metal are driven by a V- ** engine that generates close to 1000 HP with the turbo-charger, enabling the tank to take 30 degree gradients uphill and travel at up to 60 kmph on a paved surface. 50 tons at 60 kmph. Although braking distance is short on a tracked vehicle, think of the momentum.

Yet when I saw the row of garages waiting in the sun, the snout of a barrel poking out of each archway, I was most forcefully reminded of the stables in Mussoorie. Mounts eager for a morning gallop. Not for nothing are the old cavalry ranks still current in the Armoured Corp – enlisted men are still sawars and the JCOs are rissaldars. They have a similar relation with their machines, too. The young Major who took me around said that the same men are assigned to the same tanks throughout their time in the regiment. They had to abandon a couple of tanks recently – stuck in mud while fording a river during a field exercise – and the crews moped for weeks. The fresh-faced Lieutenant with us obviously loved his tank, too. On a couple of occasions when the Major was trying to get a gadget to work, the youngster could barely keep from showing his impatience, like a teen who can’t understand why his parents’ generation can’t handle a patch for the computer.

(I’ve been asked not to mention any details of the unit or the particular make of the tank. Security concerns. For the same reasons, no photographs.)

A tank regiment doesn’t have companies, they have squadrons of 12 to 14 tanks, backed by a HQ squadron that handles all the rest during active ops – supply, reconnaissance, repairs, the works. Every man in HQ squadron, the cooks, the clerks, the technicians, they’re all fighting men, only they don’t fight from tanks. They have some A-vehicles of their own, armoured personnel carriers that can carry a section of force apart from the 3-man crew, but a significant difference is that they carry carbines and SLRs. Tank crew carry only pistols. Simple reason – there’s no space inside a tank to stash a carbine, let alone swing it.

Space. Who would have thought that the innards of such a huge beast could be so cramped? When I managed to clamber down into the gunner’s seat I could barely turn around to look at the magazine behind me. The equipment is interesting – night vision scope, aiming screen, the actual gun controls like a submarine periscope – but any incautious movement brought me into contact with hard sharp surfaces. I tried to imagine the belly of the beast during desert ops. Outside temperature 50 Celsius, inside closer to 55. Noise level above 100 decibels, plus the report of the gun. Bouncing like dice in a shaker. And through it all, acquire target, select ammo, load, track and bear, range in, centre, fire. Rinse and repeat. While the tank commander next to you handles his radio, a machine-gun and directs the driver. Who sits in a separate compartment out front in the hull of the vehicle (commander and gunner in the turret). And this could go on for hours. 72 hours, says the Major. Three friggin’ DAYS in there. Whew. And I thought the definition of hell was an old jute mill on a night in June!

After the tour, the ride. My bald top was first encased in a headset, then came the swish part - getting to wear the black headdress. That thing is so uber-cool, even an old fat man looks kind of dude-ish in it. It isn’t swagger, though. Both headset and bandanna are essential to keep out the noise and dust. (Wonder what it was like 60-odd years ago, outside Alamein and Tobruk?) I offered to stand behind, but the Major smiled and firmly waved me up. I was placed atop the turret, a blanket under me for padding against the sharp edges of the body armour.

The giant started up with a snarling roar. As it moved forward over the cobbles, I still had no inkling of what was to come. Then we wheeled out of the garages and … out of focus! A lurch, a change of gear, a roar, a pivot. Thrown one way and then the other, holding on for dear life, I understood why standing behind would have been a Very Bad Idea. Down a muddy slope, up again onto an embankment, the barrel tracking left to stay clear of the hedges. I looked fearfully at the ditch beside our path and hoped the driver was competent. A fall in there would be bad enough without 40-odd tons of tank following me down to nestle lovingly between my shoulder-blades.

Despite the roar, once we were on the track our progress was almost peaceful. With the height and the occasional pitch and sway, it was like being in an elephant’s howdah. Babul branches whipped across us, a terrified buffalo calf ran mooing to its mother, the sun glinted off a pond. Then we went off-road, into the exercise area, and again the world fractured into a series of jerky frames. The Major, kind soul, offered me the chance to drive. I firmly declined. An 8-speed gearbox and 2 steering levers could be interesting, but not when a million dollars’ worth of machine is involved.

Back in the stables, I clambered down (stirred, not shaken), untied the headdress and whipped the thick layer of dust off my jeans. A bird trilled in the sudden silence after the clamour. More experiences lay ahead – trying out the gun simulator, seeing the various mechanical systems in tubular (stripped-down) versions, three sequences of shooting practice (9 mm. pistols, which I’m normally wary of, but by the 3^rd round I had a very nice grouping, yay!), checking out the maintenance vehicle – but for me the high point was that headlong rush through the countryside astride the roaring snarling pitching behemoth.

But I’m glad I never have to work within the belly of the beast.

regarding the world with a jaundiced eye?

Outside my window the autumn sun lights up the buildings in the next lane. A squadron of dragonflies does formation flights over the mango tree. Pujo weather, except that the Pujo has come and gone and I’ve spent it right here, flat on my back watching the light change on the trees, listening to the dhaak and the mantra paath in the mandap downstairs. Lots of commiseration from friends for missing the Pujo eats, but what I really missed is the adda in the old red-painted thakur dalan on Ekdalia Road. We sit there every year from shondhi pujo to shnidoor khela, catching up with friends and acquaintances, comparing notes on the year gone by, revelling in the entire milieu of laal paar and chunot kora dhuti and the flock of pretty women bustling to and fro on errands too abstruse to be comprehensible, grinning at the family banter, wondering at how the kids have grown with each passing year, just soaking in the atmosphere. For someone like me, who’s not very big on family ties, it’s an annual immersion in the clan and at the same time, an affirmation of the self.

So this year I’ve missed it. Or most of it. I did get one Sunday afternoon with friends and beer while the sound of knashor ghonta floated up and the ladies fluttered in sudden panic over being late for the pujo. The rest of the time, really, I was just too sick to care.

But being sick isn’t so bad. I can’t remember the last time I spent an entire week at home. One. Whole. Week. Haven’t even stepped out of the front door. How strange. No office, meetings, dinners, cocktails, gym, library. No Saturday-lunch-and-shopping, no let’s-try-that-new-place-for-dinner. No stopping-by-the-office-to-send-off-a-report. Nothing.

Instead … a succession of books. The Kite Runner. Sea of Poppies. A Dibdin. More fruits and fruit juice than I’ve tried in the last ten years – apples, pears, grapes (SUCH grapes!), papaya, grapefruit, custard apples, pomegranates. The Better Half, who normally never enters the kitchen, is cooking up a storm. Watching television – it’s been so damn long since I did that. Or just lying in bed watching the light change, hearing the cheep of sparrows as the sun climbs and the long cawing of rooks as twilight deepens. All sweetened by the additional sound track of VSP pitter-pattering about the house singing to herself, happy that Papa’s not “going to office” for the longest time.

I could get used to this. Far too easy.