Sunday Morning Blues. NCC.
If you happen to travel by train in Sunday mornings, you are bound to notice the NCC (Naval) boys and girls.
I was in the NCC once upon a time and I thoroughly hated it. Preparing the uniform like this kid was a painful chore and that's one reason I never iron my clothes and hate uniforms. Also, I was short, weak and had poor brain and muscle co-ordination, no amount of marching up and down in the hot afternoon sun could correct.
All the other guys who were with me joined for the crappy food that was served after all the dust inhalation. Luckily, we rarely had to march on Sunday mornings, it was always after school in the afternoons.
I was in the NCC (Army wing) and we wore Khaki which is derived from the Persian word Khak or Dust/Mud. Just like how we use English and Hindi now, Persian was the official language for a long time in India. You will be surprised by the number of Persian origin words in Indian languages like Kannada. Words that are now being replaced by English but Khaki will be Khaki.
Once, we had a soldier who had come to shout Ek Do Ek Do and Daine Bhaye tell us about his colleagues in the IPKF in Northern Sri Lanka. He proudly told us that the women fighters they caught, they would take them into the jungle, rape them and kill them. No wonder they preferred cyanide and killed Rajiv Gandhi. And we listened to the war story and didn't realise what it meant. It sounded like some far away Rambo or First Blood story.
Jai Jawan.
