Ponderings of a Pongo – 7

A Passage to SPR (Selected Place of Residence) I read an interesting narrative of one of my friends Ravi Nair, my namesake, about the good old times of his father, a VCO (Viceroy’s Commission [...]

PONDERINGS OF A PONGO – 6

THE OPPORTUNISTIC COMMANDER Mouque da Commander In the final reckoning, it is not success or failure that defines a soldier, but the values he chooses to uphold. In battle, it is seldom the [...]

When Alleppey Kept Time Without Wristwatches

A Nostalgic Journey from the 1950s to the 1970s – Alleppey to the Army – and Beyond Watching the Amazon Prime serial “Titan – Made in India”, about the making of India’s first [...]

TILL THEIR LEGS WILL SWELL.

Journals of An Itinerant Army Officer The reading eye craves something original. Something written that taps the tinfoil of memory and things forgotten through the eye. A book or article to [...]

THE WINDOW GHOST

Journals of an Itinerant Army Officer Ghosts have distinct personalities and favour to move by lunar cycles. I have yet to hear of a ghost who simply rang the doorbell and entered through the [...]

ROBINHOOD OF KATHIAWAR AND OTHER EXTRAORDINARY STORIES FROM INDIA’S FREEDOM MOVEMENT

BOOK REVIEW Ordinarily, I am not given to emotions. But the extraordinary stories this extraordinary book narrates moistened my eyes a lot frequently. The book has fifty chapters, the last of [...]

UNEQUAL JUSTICE IN UNIFORM

Recent court orders granting full pension to women Short Service Commission (SSC) officers of the Army—and earlier, of the Air Force—have been widely hailed as long-overdue justice. They are. But [...]

BEYOND THE HERO

Reclaiming the Collective Story of War Indians are hero worshippers. They cannot help it, it’s inherent in their genes. That’s one of the reasons we find a string of war movies streaming out of [...]

120 BAHADUR – An iconic last stand vividly recounted

Film Review Bravery is not too challenging for a body of soldiers when they are winning a battle. It is when you are losing one and fighting with your back to the wall that the true bravery of [...]

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE ON RAILS

Humour in Uniform The travel tales of Phulana Singh, our genial senior officer who always found pretty females for company whenever he travelled, often made popular topic for parody among us [...]