The Walk Across The Oceans

Starting today, I add a new column to my blog. The  world is full of people who have faced the challenges of life and emerged winners. Life has been harsh to them, yet they have found reasons to carry on. They could have given up but they didn't, because they believed that the fact that they were still breathing, was a bigger gift. These are the stories which we can turn to, at times when we are at our lowest. These are the heroes  who can be your idols. They will share their stories as to how they overcame their losses and are still content and happy. They will tell you how they faced the harsh world. To begin with I share the story of Major A K Singh, which in fact is the fourth in the series. The first three will follow in the coming weeks.

Major A K Singh

Life never ends with an accident or an emotional setback or for that reason, any tragedy whatsoever. It's up to us to shift gears and go full throttle in whichever direction we want. To bring across the truth of this belief, to millions of readers out there, I wanted to interview all the tough fighters. The decision been taken, the next step was the daunting task of finding such people. I set out for my research. One day while browsing through the shelves of a bookstore, an interesting cover caught my eye. There was the picture of the ocean, and a tall, dark handsome guy sailing across. The cover looked interesting. And as I held the book, my eyes noticed, that one leg of the hero was wooden. That indeed is my subject, I thought. With the name securely written on my note pad, what I didn't envision was that in spite of the shrunken world, I will still face difficulty getting in touch with him.

After a smooth ride of penning three articles, I stumbled. The next two names in the list just eluded me. One was Major AK Singh and the other...well...I will divulge his name only if ever I am able to bring his story to you all.

Coming back to Major A K Singh, I did finally get to chat up with him. He very humbly differed with my view of finding him handsome. "I just felt I was that odd awkward boy, who would wear special shoes with heavy inner soles to improve my knock knees and flat feet. In fact I was nicknamed German Shoes," says the good humoured Major.

Setting aside the matter of dissension, I would like to warn about the adrenaline pumping read you are about to dive into. Till date I had only seen schools of flying fish jumping out of water in the technologically created scenes of 'Life of Pi'. Today I can boast that I have heard about them from someone who has personally been through the ineffable experience. There you go, I can sense the thrill building up already. So let's embark upon the journey with the man who with immense passion pursued his dream to sail around the world. In the process he went on to become the 'First Handicap Person to Circumnavigate the Globe'.

The Foundation

"I remember as a four year old I had watched films like 'Ganga Jamuna', and 'Jis Desh Mein Ganga Behti Hai'. I was so impressed. The dacoits were doing such a good job. So when anybody asked me what I wanted to be, I would proudly say a dacoit", he shares laughing out loud. This child with adventurous streaks in him went on to be a soldier to the nation.

Born the youngest into a family of two brothers and two sisters, Major Ashok Kumar Singh's father pooled in all his resources to provide the best to him. He was sent off to The Rashtriya Indian Military Academy (RIMC), where he excelled in his studies. The foundation to be physically strong and courageous was laid to prepare him to join the National Defence Academy (NDA). "It was at NDA, that I was introduced to sailing. We started off with small cadet class dinghies", he recollects. "It was fun and I enjoyed it. Soon we were sailing in Mumbai. We used to sail off the Colaba Coast in those days."

He went on to represent NDA at the first Cadet Class National Regatta held at Pune's Royal Connaught Boat Club. He also represented India at the Youth Olympics at Kiel, West Germany in 1972.

Streak of Adventure

By the time he moved to IMA, he had already picked up the Sports Blues for riding, polo, swimming, physical training and athletics. His proficiency in sailing and yachting fetched him the Sports Blazer at NDA. The list is unending. At the IMA he was awarded the Sword of Honour for being the best overall and the President's Gold Medal for being the best in Academic Subjects. Armed with excellence he was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant into the Bengal Sappers. "That's one group of Indian Army Corps of Engineers. The other two groups of Combat Engineers are the Bombay Sappers and the Madras Sappers," he makes things easier for me to understand.

Sailing and Windsurfing had become a part of life for him now. In 1977, he was part of a Yachting Cruise from Bombay, now Mumbai to Bandar Abbas, now Iran. At times when he wasn't sailing? "I would drive around in my Royal Enfield, which I modified in those days to run on diesel, with my Golden Spaniel dog as company," he fills in enthusiastically.

Leap of Destiny

While posted at the College of Engineering Pune, Major Singh took fancy to hang-gliding in the Baner Ridge Area around Pune. "As I had been transferred, I felt there was this one high-performance kite I had not flown", he recalls of the fateful day. "They say nothing should be done in a rush and that was one time in my life I rushed." The breeze was at about 12 knot, the day was normal and he took off as usual from the cliff. "I knew I had to take a left turn to make the kite go right. But I don't know how it turned towards the ridge again and I hit the cliff and was stuck on a branch."

The impact was so strong that his helmet fell down. A woman standing below mistook it to be his head falling apart and fainted. The rest for him were faint memories in and out of a delirium. He could sense the bumpy ride in the army ammo truck. "I managed to say 'it just happened, I just crashed'. I could make out it was night. And then I heard the doctor saying, just tear away the pants."

An emergency operation later, Major Singh had a steel rod inserted through his left femur. Both his arms and legs were immobile, because of the various fractures. "The jaw was all wired up and my mouth had dry blood and saliva caked upon it." But it is fine. I shall be alright thought Major Singh lying in the ICU. 

Sheer Negligence

Unfortunately, all wasn't right. "I still remember that the first report prepared by a young recruit doctor had the note 'no blood flow to toes'. There was no flow to the dorsal artery of the foot and my toes turned bluish black." he remembers. Strangely it went unnoticed by the experienced doctors and out of sheer luck his brother-in-law who is a neurologist intervened. In a rushed up emergency operation he was amputated on his left leg above the knee.

"Later I was told it was the case of Gas Gangrene," he sheds light on the seriousness of the issue. Gas Gangerene is supposedly the deadliest form of Gangerene. I call the accident a leap of destiny, because if the incidents following up the accident hadn't taken place, the country wouldn't have got the first physically handicapped person to sail around the world. As rightly put by Major Singh himself, "Poor are the people who haven't faced hardships because they teach us a lot. We need to enjoy our life. It's our duty towards us. Enjoyment in the context that you think, you understand and you see the richness in life. You learn from what is taken away from you."

Replanning and Relearning

The process of learning to be normal had already begun since the day he lost his leg. Using a stick was out of question for this daredevil. He practised sleeping with the artificial limb on, to see how long could he take it. "The process is of learning on your own. People love throwing challenges at you. You have done this you haven't done that. How can one, who is not in the situation, know how to tackle it. Even the doctors don't know best since they are not amputees," he nails it by saying that.

In the meantime, the planning of the voyage on Trishna which had actually taken root in 1979, was given a green signal around June 1984. By then Major Singh was married and in March 1983, he had even met with the crash. 

Recounting about how he found the perfect boat he says, "I headed to England to select the boat. With limited finances, I looked over 200 to 300 of them." With lot of help from British sailors, a 14 year old third hand boat called Guinevere of Sussex later renamed to Trishna was picked up. The reason? "Well it had been sparingly used and was in a very good condition. It was the class of boat that could take the seas anywhere in the world," he clarifies. 

Even as he was getting the boat prepped up for the voyage, he was clueless as to how would he steer with one leg. "I didn't remove my leg at all for several days when we started, but then things fell into place. I designed my pants by taking my trousers off from my knee, so that the limb could be removed easily. This way I could sleep and also be up on the deck fast and work."

Major A K Singh on Trishna

The Survival 

With the ocean spread out challenges must have been abundant. "The beginning was bad because we were still settling down," he puts in. His artificial limb broke four times during the voyage. "I had so much faith in it. Unfortunately it was not made of stainless steel but of mild steel, which can not take salt water and so it corroded and broke." he complains. Every time it broke, because of the financial constraints he never saw the urgency of buying a new one because he kept on thinking that he can't afford an imported limb. Of course when the crew came to know of his suffering, they got him a new one.

Storms on the other hands can be very horrendous on small boats. He goes on to say, "you have water all over, your face, body, tongue and your eyes are red. One can't even drop off everything and turn away." So when they were hit by a storm in Tasman Sea, it was hell. When the wind pattern was supposed to be blowing West to East, they were travelling East to West. "We were suggested by the New Zealand Navy not to sail. But we all felt it was not fair to have it out in the press and then let them say that the Indian Army is not sailing because of the storm." So much for the pride of the country and he maintains that not his hang gliding crash, but the Tasman Sea was the most difficult moment of his life. "You start losing body temperature, there's a sweet deep warm feeling inside. You start hallucinating. Everything becomes dreamy. In the sweetness of the feeling you feel relaxed, want to give in, lie down and go to sleep. That is the most dangerous thing, because then hypothermia takes over," he point out. The mixture of hypothermia and his broken limb put him through a crushing feeling. But then as he specifies that when you are out there, every situation needs to be tackled to get out of it. And so they survived to share their stories with the world.

The Ethereal Experiences

Excited like a teenager I want to know if they came across any pirates. He laughs whole-heartedly and says," Pirates too know who to go after. If they find six scruffy Indian army guys, they will be like, what the hell do they have that we want to go after!"

 On a serious note, they were adequately rewarded by safe passage and the sea life too made its presence felt time and again. He has seen the whales, the sharks and also the flying fish. He vividly describes the day when flying fish were darting out of the water by hundreds. "Obviously something was wrong, either there were predators around or something to do with the sun or the moon phase or they might simply be mating because we never came across that phenomenon ever again." While occasionally they had flying fish falling on the deck and it would make good food for the crew. But that day they had to cover their eyes lest their hard jaw would have punctured them. "They left black marks on our face."  He also got to see huge Ray fish, coming clean out of the water and falling back flat. 

"Whales are curious creatures, they come close to you. It's surprising to see tons and tons of a whale body jump out clean five to ten feet above the water. It was fun watching them investigating  us, but then scary too because they were more powerful," he points out. They had come across a yacht, where the whale had surfaced below the sailor. He flopped over the back of the whale into the water. Fortunately the boat was still upright. Having lost the rudder, he somehow managed to figure out some kind of system and find his way back safe to the islands. 

It must have been scary when while on Albatross, they were sailing on shark infested waters. With a freeboard of eight inches, he got a chance to picture the shark going around the boat. "I remember telling myself not to keep my hand dangling in the water. It will be funny to be minus a leg and a hand," he shares light heartedly. And then on tropical waters on a pitch dark night, they would see a huge shimmer in the water, phosphorescent green because of planktons. "It is so ethereal, you can keep looking at it," he says of the experience.

Major A K Singh(2nd Row, first from left) with the crew of Trishna

The Present

Devoting time to his aged parents and making up for the time spent away from his wife and daughters, Major Singh today lives an active life in Lucknow. He tries to pay back to the society by looking after the girl child, running a college for girls that his father started in the village. He still pursues things he is passionate about, like travelling and indulging in adventure sports like scuba diving, skiing. A couple of years ago he managed to tick Bungee Jumping off his bucket list. Now he is waiting for the opportunity to go sky-diving. Never say never to an adventure seems to be the mantra of this spirited fellow. His enthusiasm rubs on to you so much that after the interview I too sneaked in a couple of more adventures into my bucket list, which I otherwise had started to believe that at this age I should let go off. Wishes I realized should never be ticked off. His golden words got etched in my memory when he said,"it was a simple wish to sail around the world, not meant to set record A or record B. The Ocean does not recognise records, the mountains and the jungles don't. You can enjoy them. Get from them what you never get anywhere else."

Major A K Singh with his wife Asha

Deep Insights

Life is : Beautiful! You need to see it correctly. It's a journey not chosen by us but it's our privilege to live it.

Body is :  A carrier for who you are, all you want to do for yourself.

Duty is : Life

Happiness is : Being able to do what you really want to do.

Adventure is : Pushing at your own personal thresholds all the time.

Dreams are : Anything that doesn't go away while you are awake or sleeping. It nags you, bothers you, you can't wish it away.

Into "The World of Cloudtains"

THE COVER

A couple of years ago I used to regularly travel to Mussoorie, the abode of one of my favourite writers Ruskin Bond. For me it was a getaway from the routine of Mumbai and to catch up with my son who had a break from his school, the prestigious Woodstock School. While our walks down the mall I would always get to see Mr Bond, I mean Mr Ruskin Bond seated at one of the book stores, signing off his books for the patiently waiting mix of young and old readers of his. I never had the courage to go and get a book signed to keep for myself, though my library has many of his books. But standing there watching him sign off the books so effortlessly, I would be a bundle of emotions. A part of me wanted to pick up a book and get it signed, another wanted to go and ask him that how does he keep on writing so many stories one after the other and each one so engrossing? There was another which wanted to tell him that since I had read his "A face in the Dark" as a 12 years old, I have had innumerable plans of how one day I am going to write stories as spooky as that.

Nothing of that sort happened and I would silently with my son in tow walk away from him pledging that next time I would certainly have the courage to go meet him. But then what happened was more of a blessing to me from the universe. Those days I was constantly being prodded by a voice inside me to get back to my first love WRITING. I don't know why I kept on putting it aside. Then on a flight from Mumbai to Delhi when I was looking out the window, I saw the vast expanse of clouds. And a minute later it transformed into a world of its own in my imagination. I could get hold of only a tissue and fortunately had a pen on me and there and then I started jotting the points for my story. A couple of years later I got together all my notes and sat down and gave shape to the story of two sisters Arya and Nitya lost in the land of clouds.

Once done began the innumerable mails to the various publishing houses and the rejection letters from them. While with each letter my dream shattered but my confidence in the story refused to waver. And then as a ray of hope came the letter of acceptance from Bloodygoodbook. I didn't know whether to accept or not, whether to be happy or not. The reason being it was not the traditional way of getting myself published. Bloodygoodbook is the country's first crowd sourced and crowd curated e-books publishing venture.

So then I thought and thought and thought and finally got my heart and my mind in sync by making them believe that what better way to get yourself published than getting your writing judged by the readers first. So here am I asking you all to click click click on the links below ....read my book and leave behind a review and your precious vote. Do make a point that you let every kid around you know about it so that they can vote too.

Link to my book on bloodygoodbook.com : http://bloodygoodbook.com/world-of-cloudtains

Link to the video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75zev4lg9F8

Rattled But Resilient

It was just waiting to happen. And am sure that like me many other women in this city were well aware that it was just a matter of time. When it happened in Delhi, I wanted to pen my views but could not. A strange numbness would take over my mind each time I wanted to express myself. I would relive all those moments when I had been groped and pawed as a young girl. All those times when I would hate myself for being born a woman. I wanted to cover up my body in layers and layers of clothing, be invisible or would pray to God to bestow me with some magical powers to punish the perverted animals. It was all the more confusing because the two men at home, my dad and my brother gave me all the freedom while the men on the streets exposed me to the inhumane side.

Fate brought me to the then Bombay and I took my first breath of freedom. In a crowded bus I would anticipate something to happen but nothing happened. I was scared to join an evening college for my post graduation but my brother laughed off my fears. And as I learnt to live without fear, I realized that I didn't need a male to be besides me always and slowly I fell in love with my life as a woman. In those days when there were no mobiles for my mother to reach out to me, my deadline to be home was 11PM. Can you beleive it? I could be out without a male escort till 11 in the night!

Then, I started working and my job demanded irregular working hours. I have driven back home in the middle of the night, all alone. The cops at the nakabandi were a positive assurance of my safety. I have never been scared in this city, of walking up to a cop and asking for help and they have always been there. The few shameful incidents that ever happened didn't daunt my trust in them and still hasn't. 

One day, in the evening at around 5PM, I was driving back  from Lokhandwala. A group of youngsters returning from their routine cricket match shouted out some comments. There and then, I knew that my city has changed. The daily newspapers loaded with horrific crime incidents confirmed it all the more. Initially I tried to pass it off  as wild imaginations of my mature age. But then when I exchanged notes with my friends, I knew I wasn't wrong. Somewhere the city had stopped respecting its female inhabitants while the women on the other hand, got more and more self dependent. Is it this insecurity that has forced the males to turn barbaric towards the womenfolk?

The system of law and order is crumbling and we are talking the same things over and over again each time the youth of a girl is humiliated. Our demands are heard but not paid heed to and heard too only because they are in the form of an outrage. They talked about speedy trials when the rape happened in Delhi. That was December. Eight months and where is the verdict? As a woman I don't see it as a fast track case anymore. And neither will any pervert male waiting to pounce on another innocent female! 

The accused claim to be minors the moment they are caught. Why not consider only those who can produce a proper certificate acquired at birth as minors and the rest be treated as majors no matter what? How many more to be victimized to guard the human rights of a wrong doer? Do they even deserve to be allowed to cover their faces from the world?

Since childhood a woman in India is taught not to step out without a male as an escort. But now one male can't save us. So should we start moving with a posse of males as our security guards. Oh No! We should now ask for police protection each time we go to a lonely place!! 

I can go on and on like the endless debates going around. But I can't, because the more I talk about it the more suffocated  I feel. But come what may, as a woman I refuse to let my spirits be dampened. I am answerable to all those males who have let me be alive in my mother's womb, to all of them who have held my little fingers and made me learn to walk, to all those fellow students who have been besides me whenever I excelled, to all those colleagues who have believed that I can reach the skies and to all those friends who have been besides me in the hour of need. So the ones who have not been able to adjust to the strong headed independent woman of today can sit and sulk because there will be an uproar each time a heinous crime is committed against a woman in my country, till the laws are strong enough and the lawkeepers are left with no option but to provide a safe environment to us.  And above all every modern day mother will bring up her sons instilled with tremendous respect towards women. Because after all, the onus to change the society has to be taken by us, to make it a better place for our own survival.

Some Scenarios of Being Cheated - I

The crow cawing outside my window in this lovely weather of Mumbai is a proof of the fact that certain things don't change at all. Thank God! Though, this goes even for the potholes on the city roads. They have a tendency to get worse but alas! not disappear or for that reason reduce in numbers. The chaos of our everyday life and the chaos in which the country is in, also seems unchangeable. While a part of the country is moving ahead, a bigger part is still fighting with trivialities of life. We are busy cheating each other over small things.

The prices have gone up but the packaging has become smaller. Are you even aware of it? You are being robbed of on both ends whiz a whiz paying more for less stuff. 

Go and buy a car. You will be promised by the sales team all sorts of add-ons. The promise that you don't have to pay for the insurance, for the teflon coating and the anti rust coating brings a big smile to your face. So much of expenditure saved, your mind calculates. Your big smile is intact only as long as the car doesn't go for the first service. Then a call from the company workshop knocks off that smile because he wants to know whether with the free service you want to get the coatings done. Your logic to him that while buying the car you were told that you don't  need to worry about the coatings for four years and there is a warranty on that is answered in a very convincing manner, "Oh that they say to sell off the car." You are left shocked. However, you decide to not get the coating done. Are you taking a risk with your car or you are being intelligent by not letting yourself be cheated by the servicing guy is a question only time will answer. 

You want to buy a Vaccum Cleaner. Well the sales guy comes to your home. You don't have to take the trouble to go anywhere. You get a demo and you tell the person that you will look at other available options from other companies and then get back to him if you decide to buy his product. The sales person has to up his performance quotient. So, with the vaccum cleaner he promises you a bag in which you can store all the parts accompanying the machine, a discount of some percent if you order immediately and a home delivery within the next forty eight hours. The piece is so much in demand that by the time you decide to buy it, it might be out of stock. That does it! You place the order, only to discover later that the model sold to you is the one being phased out and the company as it is has a policy to deliver within forty eight hours. OH THE BAG! When the machine is delivered to you, the bag supposedly was out of stock and it remains out of stock and an illusion for you always. The reason being that from now on the sales person will stop taking the phone. If you manage to trace his boss he will promise to get back which he never will, and after making some futile attempts you will give up thinking why are you breaking your head over a minuscule bag.

How many times have you bought a mobile phone plan only to discover later that it's not as profitable as it was made out to be because only when you start using it, do you discover the hidden costs.

How many times have you bought clothes in sales to come home and discover a piece that is torn at a place which you would have not been able to notice then, and now you have to live with your buy because of the no exchange no refund policy during the sale period.

How many times have you bought an expensive electronic item with the tag of two years extended warranty only for it to go kaput exactly at the end of those three years leaving you wondering how did the company know that the product will last only that long? 

Such happenings or coincidences leave me questioning myself again and again whether this is the nature being unjust to a select few or lack of ethics by the companies. But it does pinch. No not for the money going down the drain but the fact that I got cheated by my own fellow human beings. Thanks to the crow outside my window. At least somethings never change.

The Wandering Me

Oh! what a wanderer am I ?

wandering in search of my soul,

though it lies within me

I search for it in other times.

The soul that donned other bodies,

That which could give me answers for now;

I have searched for it forever 

Forever, since I remember.

Why am I here, I would always ask,

As a child, looking at people 

oh so comfortable,

in their human garbs.

Trudging the arduous paths of life

awakening the soul within,

My heart still seeks an answer

Like a child in an overgrown garb

WHO CARES??

A couple of weeks ago I did what every Hindu in Mumbai is proud to do....Yes!!! WALKED ALL THE WAY TO SIDDHI VINAYAK TEMPLE FOR DARSHAN ON A TUESDAY MORNING. I can not explain the exhilarating feeling I had after the darshan. I felt so elated. For the next two days the very thought that I had walked down to Siddhi Vinayak kept bringing back a zestful smile to my face. Every year at least once I visit Siddhi Vinayak, but that day at 3.15 AM when I set sight on the idol of Bappa, it was a different  feeling altogether. This was the  night of 17/18th June.

Today when I look back I remember that on that very day when I had reached out to God, many pilgrims      were struggling to survive in Uttarkhand. No matter how much we pass off the floods of Uttarkhand as a natural calamity, we all know that we have pushed the nature to a point where it has started revolting back. Hinduism, which represents the culture of living life in a simple way has lost its true meaning for all of us. The calmness and serenity of our minds is long gone. We have made competition a part of even the most mundane activities of our lives. Everything is materialistic because money brings in all the happiness.

Hills are being developed to accommodate the influx of tourists. Any piece of  land available, is being constructed upon. The outsiders go and leave behind plastic, litter and marks of  hooliganism. The locals take it quietly without uttering a word because,  these are the people that are bringing in money and with the soaring prices there is nothing else on our minds. Religious places have been modernised  to make life easier for the pilgrims. A couple of years ago I was shocked to see the changes that had been done to Vaishno Devi. Frankly I found the Vaishno Devi which I had visited in 1984 better than the concrete structures that have come up today. Why? Why do we kill the basic character of a place in the name of modernisation? Go to Shirdi. Lost is the beautiful, serene village where Sai Baba once lived. Horrendous, ugly malls stare at you in the face.

On my way while walking to Siddhi Vinayak there was not a single place where the people walking for the darshan could sit and relax for a couple of seconds. Since ages Tuesday after Tuesdays after Tuesdays people have been walking to Siddhi Vinayak on Monday nights, but I didn't find a single footpath on which I could walk. I had to walk on the wrong side of the road to keep an eye and be alert, lest a speeding vehicle bumped me off. I had to sit on the edge of the high footpaths smelling in the stink of the city. Yes, have you ever noticed that in addition to all other problems during rain nowadays the city stinks! There were huge piles of filth pulled out from the drains and left in heaps as it is. Alas! the memories of the deluge are long forgotten.  And by the way, whose idea are those footpaths because I don't see any senior citizen able to use them without the fear of increasing their arthritic problems.

The authorities decide to extract two different kinds of taxes namely Vat and then Property tax for your properties, in one year. They also add up the pending amounts for the last couple of years and you have to pay it. Giving a relaxation of a couple of months is enough they think. Taxes have become more of a kind of the punishments the headmistress Miss Trunchbull  used to vent out to the children in Matilda. Moreover, you pay the taxes and forget about your rights as a citizen. The roads you move on are so bad that I am sure we spend a larger amount of money on getting our cars and bodies repaired.  Yes the living and the non living are in the same boat so they are repaired, The air we breathe is full of pollutants and nothing new in that complaint. The vegetable, pulses and any other thing we eat or drink dumps in loads of chemicals into our body. We have stopped thinking as to how much of chemicals or banned substances they have. We make ourselves happy by looking at the size of the cauliflower, the brinjals and the gloss on the fruits.

If the authorities themselves are so unconcerned what to expect of the common citizens. In Hindi there is a saying 'Jaisa Raja waisi Praja' ( As the King so are the Subjects).What better way to explain the situation today. We don't think twice before fleecing our fellow citizens, before finding ways for breaking the laws or before bribing. Sadly, it's a never ending circle of life during Kaliyuga that's swallowing us in.

As a harrowed citizen my dejected feelings...? Well, I'd say that I don't know the statistics and I don't even want to figure it out but yes it seems, the system and the authorities have only in mind the top percentage of the country which is already affluent and can afford just about anything. The rest can fend for themselves for their survival. Even if they can't Who Cares? 

Dunkin Biscuits

As I write my blog, I should warn you that I will take a short break somewhere in between my writing. Don't worry nothing serious! It will be to dunk in the last biscuit into my evening cup of tea and then finish off the remaining tea.

I don't know about other countries but I am sure most of the Indians love dunking their biscuits into their cup of tea. I love doing it. Today though I dunked in a few Oreos and mini Chips Ahoy, but my all time favourite is Parle G.

I remember earlier I used to not share with anyone my love for my biscuits dunked in. I mean, I used to take care that nobody other than my close family was around, when I relished my biscuits that way. So mostly, when I visited someone, I used to hate it when they served tea and biscuits. The reason being I used to miss my dunking ritual so much that the moment I returned home, I would rush off to prepare myself a cup of tea and then dunk in a whole packet of Parle G and enjoy. Everything wrong with it. Firstly, think of the amount of calories I had taken in when I ate those biscuits and tea at the friends place (and somehow most of the times Indian chai is nothing but milk and sugar boiled together with some tea leaves added to it), and then the double dose of calories I thrust into myself to overcome the urge that simple tea at the friends home had left behind. Sinful...

Over a period of time I developed different tastes of dunking, as per the mood. Like it was different to have it with tea, absolutely different to dunk in the biscuits into a glass of hot milk and if nothing else, very different to dunk it in a glass of water. Water is preferable if you don't want to mix any other taste into your biscuits. The moment you pull them out after keeping them dunked in for the right time, they will be soft enough to ummmmm melt into your mouth. And its an altogether different experience when your attention is diverted by a regular chit chatter and you over dunk the biscuit. Now, in the journey from the cup to the half open mouth full of juices ready to work on  biscuit, the over softened biscuit doesn't reach the target. It plops down into the cup and dejected you just get to gulp down the juices. But the next moment your mood lifts up again because as an experienced dunker you remember, that the last sip will be the best.

All said and done, a few years ago I seriously wouldn't have had the courage to write about dunking biscuits in tea. Then one lucky day I read a write up by Vir Sanghvi and my inner voice said, " OMG! he knows about it too? And he does it too? If someone like him, who has eaten out of the hands of the best of the chefs enjoys doing it, then why should I be hiding my skills of dunking?"  And since that day, I don't feel ashamed of dunking my biscuits into my tea. It's an altogether different issue though, that now I only drink black tea. But then, that again is a different experience, of dunking your biscuit into a hot cup of black tea.