By God What A Life

By Meghraj Singh Solanki

By God, what a Life! Is a page turner with large dollops of humour. A painful childhood, flight from home, escape from college, a foray as a domestic, fortuitous sexual encounters, ten tumultuous years at sea... Meghraj Ghayal alias Shekhar Sudhra takes us through a roller coaster journey of a sailor's life in this light-hearted, funny, satirical and daringly candid rendition.

Warning: This book is for all bold, adventurous souls, not for the faint-hearted !

• Language: English
• Publisher: Zorba Books
• Release date: Jun 2, 2016
• ISBN: 9789385020520

Meghraj Singh Solanki

The author is an ex-Naval Officer, who has led a successful, colourful, happy and adventurous life. He infuses the book with little known facts about life in the navy, humour, adventure and thrill, to make By God What a Life, a page turner.

Book preview

By G d What a Life

All anecdotes, events or incidents in the narration are factual

one-off occurrences limited solely to my life as a sailor and

are by no means a judgment about any individual or

organisation. The characters are all real but their names have

been changed to protect their privacy.

By G d What a Life

Meghraj Singh Solanki

Published in India by Zorba Books, 2016

Website: www.zorbabooks.com

Email: [e-mail]

Copyright © Meghraj Singh Solanki

ISBN Print Book: 978-93-85020-51-3

ISBN eBook: 978-93-85020-52-0

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system—except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine, newspaper, or on the Web—without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Although the author and publisher have made every effort to ensure the accuracy and completeness of information contained in this book, we assume no responsibility for errors, inaccuracies, omissions, or any inconsistencies herein. Any slights on people, places, or organizations are unintentional.

Zorba Books Pvt. Ltd. (opc)

Gurgaon, INDIA

Dedication

To my parents, somewhere up there.

Acknowledgement

To my immediate and extended family for encouraging me in this venture.

Preface

What is life? Who am I? What happens when it’s curtains to life?

These questions occur to everyone without exception, sometime or the other.

For most of us the quest for answers ends at the front cover of scriptures attributed to great thinkers, saints, philosophers, avatars, and prophets in whose pronouncements we place unshakeable faith.

Each scripture claims truth for its own assertions thereby debunking, by implication, every other as incorrect or inadequate.

I concluded long ago that no one knew the answers. No one would ever know the answers.

I have been witness to various theories, proclamations and claims about unravelling the mysteries of life, being disproved in my own life.

I have suffered following a good deed and prospered due to a blatantly illegal or immoral one.

I have seen lies succeed and truth fail.

I have seen innocents penalised and crooks going scot free.

I make no claims of my own about knowing the answers and am none the worse for it.

I do not bother with these existential questions any more.

Most of the pages of this book tell the story of a part of my life. I have written it with the view that whosoever reads it should find it entertaining, amusing and relaxing.

There is no need to strain one’s brain reading it.

All anecdotes, events or incidents in the book are factual one-off occurrences limited solely to my own life as a sailor and are by no means sweeping generalisations on any individual or organisation.

Index

CHAPTER ONE

THE BEGINNING

Hello everybody, I am Shekhar, Shekhar Sudhra, an ex-sailor, and this is my story...

‘It’s a dog’s life, I say,’ said Raj.

‘What life are you referring to?’ asked Albert.

‘Our life in the Navy, what other life could I be talking of, you dud?’

‘I couldn’t agree with you more there,’ said Albert. ‘Everything here is time-bound and regulated. Deviations are taboo, punishable, and punished. A feeling of dread… of unknown fear lurks in one’s mind all the time.’

‘Just see the irrationality of it all. At 10 p.m. comes the announcement ‘PIPE DOWN’ on the S.R.E. (Sound Reproducing Equipment) which means you’ve to be inside that mosquito-netted cage of a bed pretending to be asleep when actually you would have liked to read, take a walk or gossip or...’

‘Or shit,’ said Uppal.

‘Or shit, yes,’ agreed Raj.

‘Immediately after ‘pipe down,’ continued Uppal, the ‘Officer of the Day’ (O.O.D.) accompanied by the Regulating Petty Officer of the day (R.P.O.) begin their rounds of the barracks. The former beams his torch at each bed to ensure there is an occupant in it. They count audibly, muttering 1, 2, 3… as they pass. At the end of their walk, down the length of the barracks, they tally the head-count with that given in the list, held by the R.P.O. One wonders why is it necessary for them to do that as long as they have found an occupant in each bed. Perhaps they feel it is possible for a boy to desert the campus along with his bed? Bah!’

‘It’s laughable yaar,’ said Albert, ‘Do you know what happened the other day, in Kunjali division?’ ‘No?’ ‘Well I’ll tell you.’

‘The O.O.D. on his counting rounds that night discovered that one of the beds in the barracks was without its occupant. The discovery set off a commotion. The Officer asked all the boys to come out of their beds and mount a search for the missing boy. A look around the barracks proved of no avail. Eventually, one place, the lavatory, which ought to have been the first place to look for the boy, revealed that a door of one of the cubicles in the facility was shut. The inference that someone was inside was therefore natural. Now, here is distinction between the behaviour of a non-military mortal and that of a combatant worthy. The right thing in the circumstances ought to have been to call out to whoever was inside the cubicle and to wait for a response. But no! Fed up, perhaps, of having had to exert himself past 10 p.m. after a hectic day’s work, the Petty Officer didn’t do the right thing.

Gripping the cubicle door from its top he pulled it outwards. The contraption, already a bit rickety, gave way, and lo and behold, there he was, the missing boy, furiously engaged in an unseemly act! Evidently, the sound of footsteps approaching the cubicle had not proved warning enough for the poor fellow to interrupt the proceedings in which he was then engaged. Evidently, again, he hadn’t expected anyone to wrench the door open!’

None, including the O.O.D., could resist a chuckle at the spectacle.

‘Notwithstanding that initial reaction,’ continued Albert, ‘The O.O.D. ordered the R.P.O. to ‘put the boy on charge’ first thing in the morning. The boy in question was charged with, ‘having committed an offence’, namely, ‘found missing from his bed and discovered (sic) masturbating in the lavatory cubicle after lights out.’ The boy was pronounced guilty of misconduct and sentenced to undergo ‘number 11’ punishment (hard labour/drill and no liberty – confined within campus – for a period of 7 days).

What is amusing is that from the way the charge against the boy was worded it would seem that in the Navy, masturbating is an offence only after ‘lights out!’ concluded Albert, amidst bellyaching laughter from his audience.

Raj now took over from where he had left off grumbling about the daily routine on campus.

‘At six in the morning sounds the bugle that signals ‘Hands-call’ meaning: ‘Get-up you all, your day begins.’ In the space of 30 minutes after that call we are required to rollup our bedding – regulation style – shit, brush our teeth, bathe, put on our P.T. (physical training) attire and rush to the Parade ground for exercises.

‘30 minutes is too short a time for all that,’ Uppal took up the narrative, ‘we are therefore bound to skip one or two of these activities and the one that is most skipped is ... well, I don’t want to use the stinking word.’

‘What surpasses logic,’ Raj continued, ‘is how the hell do the authorities expect the bowels of every boy to move within the space of 30 minutes, which is a very essential thing to get over with, prior to doing physical exercises.’

‘They perhaps count on the entrails of every boy to understand the underlying message of the ‘Hands call’ and begin behaving in conformity.

If that is their expectation then they are in for disappointment. We have been here for almost six months now, but on a rough but fairly accurate assessment, I feel, the innards of at least half of the thousand odd boys in the campus have refused to oblige!’

‘That assessment, or call it assertion, on the face of it is a splendid piece of statistical deduction on your part but how on earth did you arrive at it?’

‘Well, I have analysed the matter at some length, and scientifically,’ said Raj, ‘let me explain.’

‘You see, the flush system in most of our lavatories is non-functional. It doesn’t perform its primary function, namely, flushing out the faecal matter. That is so because the cisterns in most cases leak and don’t therefore hold sufficient water needed for the job. However, credit must be given when and where it’s due. We can’t overlook a valuable role the rapidly falling droplets from these cisterns ricocheting upwards on impact with the Indian style commodes can, and do play. With a bit of appropriate manoeuvring on the user’s part, this falling-and-ricocheting-upwards syndrome of the droplets can save the user the bother of having to use his hands to clean his bottom! Sorry, that was in a lighter vein. Nevertheless I feel the system does not deserve the dignified nomenclature, ‘flush system’ for it doesn’t actually flush. In my view our thanks are due to the boys whose bowels – bless them – do not behave as desired. It is due to that intransigence – that the rest of us can gain entry into those dungeons called ‘lavatories.’ God forbid, if the situation had turned out to be hundred percent in conformity with what you say the authorities expect, we would have inside these hell-holes, hillocks of congealed faecal matter, rendering ingress impossible.’

‘I am compelled to say that your narration had a foul smelling, nauseating content to it, and while I admire and applaud your eloquence I still do not agree that life in the Navy is a dog’s life.’

‘I don’t understand you. If this isn’t a dog’s life, I do not know what it is, if it is life at all,’ protested Raj. ‘Come to think of it, after a few minutes’ rest post P.T. we have to make a bee-line to the mess and queue up with our plate, mug, spoon and fork, in order to receive our breakfast. It’s demeaning!’

‘But the food is very good whatever you may say or think about queuing for it...’

Yes, the food is indeed good but having to stand in a queue for it brings to my mind the scene at the entrance of some religious places where the ‘haves’ dole out alms and Prasad to the have-nots, similarly standing in queue.

‘There is however a marked difference between the two queues in so far as the distribution system is concerned,’ said Albert with a naughty grin on his face.

‘And what, pray, is the difference?’ asked Raj.

‘In the other queue,’ replied Albert, ‘the quantity of the stuff given out is more or less same for everyone and any variation is unintended, incidental and understandable. In the case of our queue, the quantity given out varies in direct proportion to the looks of the recipient and his response to the lurid gaze of the cook, the ladle in the latter’s hand expertly and appropriately reducing or increasing the dole!’

‘There is nothing earth-shakingly new in what you say,’ I countered, ‘this could be true of any other organisation or institution in similar circumstances. Human nature, or call it human weakness, if you will… I protest that life in the Navy can’t be branded a dog’s life on that count, for then, all life would qualify for that dubious honorific – or worse. In fact, some among us may even welcome it if our looks could fetch us an extra leg-piece!’

This conversation was taking place at the Main Entry Camp of the B.T.E. named I.N.S. (Indian Naval Ship) Circars located close to the coastal town of Visakhapatnam.

The site of B.T.E. campus had a sublime beauty about it. In many ways the place could be said to be an abode fit for the gods.

Well laid out roads, pleasant looking residential and office buildings, a well-stocked library, a recreation club, a Parade ground, playgrounds for almost every conceivable outdoor game, an auditorium, a swimming pool, a boys’ mess called the galley, an officers’ mess called the ward-room, a hospice, a canteen called ‘dry canteen’ – a misnomer that, because in addition to selling dry snacks it sold tea and coffee, in their wettest form! The rationale here was that another canteen in the campus which sold alcohol had to be called ‘wet canteen,’ hence the former had to be named ‘dry’ canteen, notwithstanding the fact that alcohol causes more dryness in the body than tea and coffee!

Semantic jugglery apart, the place had everything required for a good, happy, healthy and comfortable life.

We, Raj, Uppal, Albert and other batch mates were halfway through our one and a half year long training at the B.T.E. after a two month initial stint at the New Entry Camp (N.E.C.), located a few kilometres away.

A new recruit had to report at the N.E.C. first, where the initial training began. There the recruits were given a bird’s eye view of the basics of the Naval Service conditions in particular and that of the other two defence services in general.

The most important aspect of this two month tenure at the N.E.C. – besides being a sort of familiarisation and acclimatisation process – was the allocation of trades to the trainees following their individual showing in what was called the S.P. (Selection of Personnel) test.

The actual professional training in the trades so allocated began in right earnest at the B.T.E. immediately thereafter.

For me, making it to the Navy was nothing short of a miracle. Recalling the circumstances, even today, makes me – an agnostic or a rationalist, if not an outright atheist – succumb to the temptation of believing it was pre-ordained!

Of this,