Camouflage

Deep in the dark misty woods of the malnad mountains along the western ghats, situated on the west coast of India, there resides a plethora of animals. From the smallest to the biggest.

Each has its own way of survival. In this cruel world of green, there exists no rules of engagement & therefore no rooms for error, no points for second place & quite rightly as charles Darwin states 'Survival of the fittest' is absulutely necessary. The inhabitants of the forest are by themselves divided into two basic categories.

1. Predator

2. Prey

From a survival point of view, one has to be either fast in the game or one has to be clever, or the game is up. In this post I am going to have a wee chatter about the clever group. We have a few clever specimen with us right here in this post.



The first contender in this competition is the stick cricket, something what I personally call as the ''branch boy''. This perticular species has a remarkable ability to use the mighty deception called camouflage. An art which was copied by almost all armies & whose colourful costumes are sported by the most ruthless of dictators and the most exotic of dancers. By naturally being so thin & by possessing the colour of a twig, this clever whippersnapper masquerades as a twig for as long as he can hoodwink the potnetial prey into presuming that he is indeed a twig. And as soon as he gets the chance he hunts with top speed.



The second contender shown above is the ''colourless butterly'', I personally nicknamed him 'the swamp thing' by his colourless looks and his ability to copy the background in such a way that he appears invisible to the untrained eye. However he settles down in his new surrounding quite comfortably with the imperative knowledge that neither predator nor prey can spot him. Right until the moment the unsuspecting prey walks onto him, & he grabs them & its within his grasp in a second.



The next contender is the twig grasshopper whom I personally call the ''Green Beret''. By looking like the branch and leaves of a plant, he silently makes his way behind enemy lines without being spotted by predators casting evil eyes. The plant in itself with its twig & leaves is a source of food to many insect species like the butterfly, the beetle & the ant. Little do they know that the twig they are standing or walking on is the predator itself who at the first opportunity blows his cover & ambushes his prey with superatural speed.



However clever these contenders be, there is a special contender who has survived for a squillion years with his ruthless cunning & deceptive looks. He's none other than the Calote. I call him ''Rambo''. Although he looks like a dinasaur, he is far smaller in size. His tiny body is made up of many many colourful scales that imitate the branch of a tree. With strong limbs and a stronger tail, he can virtually traverse in any direction including downright vertical. His earlobes are invisible but some of the sharpest and its got a special feature of vibration recognition which many predators and prey dont possess. The 3 above contenders think they are the boss & are pretty overconfident about their deception, while our Rambo has already seen through their deception in seconds & combined with his own deception, hoodwinks them into thinking they are safe. With a quick microsecond lap of his sticky tongue, he gulps his prey in no time & wins the contest by a mile.

& therefore its upto you folks to decide whos the winner because I already have.

Remorse

There are a few misconceptions people have over others & point it out across to other people being too impatient & daft without even realising that they themselves are on the wrong track and they were wrong all along and others were right. But by the time they realise & attempt to redeem what wrong they’ve done, what hurt they’ve caused, it’s too late. I don’t know why I’m penning this thoughts down in this post, I somehow felt like from deep within, perhaps in an attempt to redeem the hurt I’ve caused to others. Turning the clock anticlockwise some thousands of revolutions backwards in time, I can remember a time when I did something really daft & by the time I realised that it was too late. But it taught me a valuable lesson in life, A lesson which turned the course of my life. Something I can never ever forget and I would like to share this with you folks.

I was a kid back then, in a constant process of learning. I come from an armed forces background. With my father in the Indian Air Force, he used to frequently keep getting transferred across the length & breath of the country. And with that I was forced to abandon my home, my school, my friends and everything that I loved & felt a belonging to. To top it all I had no sibling with whom I could share my happiness, sorrows, fears & jokes. This was one such occasion. We were taking the train to our new destination with all our earthly belongings. We were supposed to be travelling second class 3 tier sleepers with 3 berths on either side of a compartment within a compartment. As the train arrived, due to the rush & to our dismay the reservation was such that my parents were in one compartment & me in another compartment. I felt happy to be free & make myself some new friends and enjoy some terrific views across the window.

It was night by the time I boarded the train & everyone else who came from the previous stations were sleeping. I was given the lowest berth on one side, I showed my ticket to the ticket collector & slept closing the window, resting my head on my wee bag and covering myself with a thin bed sheet. The journey was a couple of days long. So the next day as I got up, I could see that there were an elderly Punjabi couple sitting in front of me and a scattering of a few other old villagers across the sides & upfront. The Punjabi man in front of me looked tall & powerfully built with a trimmed beard. I greeted them and introduced myself to Mr & Mrs Singh. Mr Singh appeared to be sitting cross legged on the berth with a shawl over his legs and Mrs Singh was lying next to him laying her head on Mr Singh’s thighs. They asked all about me and we had a refreshing chat. By their behaviour they appeared to be quite posh. It seems Mrs Singh was very sick & diagnosed with cancer & they were taking her to a certain town for chemotherapy.

As I looked out the window, the wind blew at my face and the trees swished past at great speed, but after time the trees seemed to be swishing slower & the wind blowing lesser lesser in intensity. And finally I could hear hooting & the train arrived at a station. As the train halted, Mr Singh asked me ‘Beta Kartik, Can you please get us 2 cups of tea from the station stall, here is the money. I smiled, obliged and quickly dashed across the platform & got them the tea. And so the train began chugging again & things were uneventful until the arrival of the next station. Yet again Mr Singh tapped me on the shoulder and asked me ‘Beta Kartik, Here is some money. Can you please get us a bottle of mineral water and some biscuits? ‘I obliged yet again nodding my head, dashed across to the platform and got what they wanted. And the train chugged again and everything remained uneventful until the next station arrived. Mr Singh tapped me on the shoulder & asked me ‘Beta Kartik, Can you please get us some breakfast from her station stall, here is some money. ‘With a hint of irritation at being used again & again I unwillingly obliged & dashed across the platform and got them what they wanted.

The train chugged on and the trees swished past again, I was lost in dreams and my reverie was disturbed by the tapping of Mr Singh, he said ‘Beta Kartik, the next station ahs arrived, can you please get me a newspaper, here is some money’. I was obviously irritated this time round. Why was I treated like a servant, why was I being made the scapegoat? Could I not enjoy the train journey without hopping across the platform at every stop? This time my anger took the better of me & I confronted the elderly man and told him upfront ‘What do you think I am? Your servant? Every station that comes, you ask me to get something or the other. I am not going this time. You look so strong & well built. Why don’t you go get the things yourself? Shame on you that you are using innocent kids like me for doing your jobs.’ By the time the other passengers questioned Mr Singh & reminded him to leave me alone as they were observing all this for quite a long time.

At this juncture the train had blown the whistle & started chugging on, Mr Singh was taken aback with my frankness & made a sad face & looked at me in the eye and asked me. ‘Do you really want to know why I was asking you to get stuff for me?’ I retorted ‘Yes indeed, I would definitely demand an explanation’. He then opened the shawl he was covering his legs on & I got the shock of my life. There were no legs. Both his legs were amputated up to the thigh. I was taken so aback that I was shocked. He then began narrating something I can never ever forget. ‘Son, I was a major in the army. And in the war in 1973 as I was leading my platoon to enemy occupied territory amidst heavy artillery shelling & firing, I stepped on a landmine and it ripped my legs apart and they had to amputate my legs to save my life. I am glad I am alive. My son lost his life while fighting terrorists in Kashmir. If I had my legs son, I would have gone to get the things myself and had my son been alive, he would have got it for me and I thought you were like my son.’ Saying this he hugged Mrs Singh & both of them began to cry’. I was taken aback, tears streaming down my face I begged them for an apology. And surprisingly after all I had done he apologised me & hugged me. We felt like one family, one blood, one caste, one religion as proud countrymen of our motherland. He then said ‘Son, we have sacrificed a lot because the country comes first for us above family, above religion, above caste and even above our own mothers. I hope your generation keeps up the esteem of our nation & let her flag run high and proud because son, if there is one mother above all mothers, its our motherland. Azad Hind.’

Monsoon Blues

When the wind whispers to the moon,
That I shall blow the clouds over,
To make you dissappear very soon.
And out came, out came the monsoon.



Pellet after pellet drenched,
Before the rivers got quenched.
And out trickled sunlight once again.
Shaping the rainbow out the rain.



But never blame the rainbow for the rain,
& learn to forget memories that cause you pain.
The last whispered wish of age,
Is to live it all yet again.

Bombay

22:00 25/12/2008

It was a hot humid night, the crescent had cast its dull grey spell on the sea making the coast look like a dark long silhoutte. It was past midnight & the tide was low. With no sign of a storm, the sea seemed as clear as a lake. It was the best time to set forth fishing. The crew of 5 had assembled on the docks, the nets were ready , the vessel was filled with diesel & supplies to last 2 months.

They intended to travel deep in the sea where the fish were at abundance but they had to be aware of the maritime border, not to wander far off & cross the border. Not so long ago a boat had done exactly that and it never returned for years. The captain held the map, the tricolour was fluttering up the mast majestically. The engines whined themselves on & the boat sailed along seaward as the crew bid adieu to their families. As the night grew longer, they let the helmsman keep watch at the bow while the rest of the crew took a cozy nap in cabins within the stern.

02:00 26/12/2008

Sometime later in the night, the helmsman saw the silhoutte of a boat & he could make out a blinking light coming off it. Was it meant to be a signal? The signals were coming on & off precisely 3 seconds to each other. It often meant a signall of distress. The wireless radio showed no signs of activity either. Strange..! Worried and frantic, he woke the rest of the crew. As they clambered up the cabin to the bridge, they could make out the signal more clearly. It was a fishing boat. Silhouttes of men waving hands were visible. But no one noticed that the flag on the mast was missing. The captain signalled back with the same pattern, a sign of approaching assistance.

As they drew level with the other boat, they observed the crew speaking a strange language, like that spoken in the neighbouring nation. They then assumed that it was another fishing boat that had drifted off the border and got stuck somehow. They helped the stranded fishermen aboard their boat. They then salvaged some of the equipment from the other boat that consisted of a few boxes, a few sacks & a black rubber inflatable dinghy. There was no sign of any nets. Were they really fishermen after all? Or smugglers? To reassure themselves one of them opened a box, to their surprise it was full of ammunition, grenades, assault rifles, RPG's etc. They knew that weapons were smuggled aboard dhows across the coastline, but never had they heard of someone hijacking a fishing boat. Eyebrows raised and tempers flared.

Before they could react, guns were pointed at them. The hijackers were not regular smugglers but someone more dangerous. They were asked to sail inland & drift close to the shores of Bombay. As they moved inland, the hijackers decided to catch some shut eye. The fishermen decided to act. The motherland that had fed and nurtured them was more important than their families & the nation's fate was at stake. It was time to act now.

They tiptoed stealthily to where the boxes were, opened them & armed themselves with the assault rifles but as they were loading the magazines, the commotion woke the hijackers who swiftly tried to subdue them. Overcome with a sense of patriotism & determination, they attacked back swinging the butts of their rifles. The standoff was short, they were overpowered and subdued in no time. The hijackers were better off without them. Their throats were swiftly slit and their bodies were thrown into the mighty sea where no one could find them.




The hijackers were none other than the 10 terrorists who attacked Mumbai on 26th December 3 years ago and killed around 200 innocent people, an event which shook the world. However this epic struggle & sacrifice of the fishermen seems to be forgotten in the pages of history. But heroes are heroes whether they are soldiers or fishermen & this is an attempt to redeem their sacrifice. Jai Hind.