The Liberation Saga

The pangs of partition, drew communal lines and divided the Bengal lands

East Pakistan, they christened Tagore’s native kingdoms eastern lowlands

 

In time Islamabad’s atrocities grew to purge the ‘bengali’ gene

Solemn verses of ‘Rabindra Sangeet’ couldn’t cull the dismal scene

 

As a feeble voice for equality, freedom and justice rose

The Liberation Saga

The pangs of partition, drew communal lines and divided the Bengal lands

East Pakistan, they christened Tagore’s native kingdoms eastern lowlands

In time Islamabad’s atrocities grew to purge the ‘bengali’ gene

Solemn verses of ‘Rabindra Sangeet’ couldn’t cull the dismal scene

As a feeble voice for equality, freedom and justice rose

as ‘Mukti Bahini’ with swords drawn, their freedom chose

the faint voice, now morphed into the ‘Bengal tigers’ bellows

As the guerrillas hit hard, giving the ‘khaki’ foe a bloody nose

The western neighbour’s soon reached out a helping hand

To give their Bengali brothers, their own promised land

Under Sam Manekshaw’s grand design for victory  

The tanks rolled and guns boomed to rewrite history

Within a strategic fortnight, the enemy forces in utter shock fell

As 90,000 enemy soldiers surrendered to flee wars living hell  

Never was so much, owed by so many, to so few

As a new ‘Bangladesh’, from the war debris grewas ‘Mukti Bahini’ with swords drawn, their freedom chose

 

the faint voice,  now morphed into the ‘Bengal tigers’ bellows

As the guerrillas hit hard, giving the ‘khaki’ foe a bloody nose

 

The western neighbour’s soon reached out a helping hand

To give their Bengali brothers,  their own promised land

 

Under Sam Manekshaw’s grand design for victory  

The tanks rolled and guns boomed to rewrite history

 

Within a strategic fortnight, the enemy forces in utter shock fell

As 90,000 enemy soldiers surrendered  to flee wars living hell  

 

Never was so much, owed by so many, to so few

As a new ‘Bangladesh’, from the war debris grew

JEEVAN Lunches

Gone are the days of a wonderful past with facebook, baatcheet and media trends

Of an Olive green bunch of the G1s who kinda seemed like some long lost friends

We were all stuck in that old dungeon of granite called the South Block

Where it was only those G1 lunches, which made the darn place rock

What with Pancholi’s Artillery of adventures in fratricide and Islam

And Vishal Sir’s aloo da Paranthas, to make you absolutely calm

Awesome Lunches where Vidhyarthi’s anecdotes of Punjabi troops

Kept the workaholic mood light and jovial like tequila with fruity loops

With Archie’s frequent tripping and taunting of General Anshul Gaur

making him stop his ‘hands on’ eating style and turn his mood sour 

As Marian quietly watched with her baatcheet aura and little lunch boxes 

which with its rice and rotis could still amazingly feed a pack of hungry foxes

Sprinkled with Col Vamsi’s tales of cardio and draught beer

The G1’s went on director bashing with absolutely no fear

Be it Hairy Pillai’s rebounding drafts or Rattu’s daily morning steamy blows

These lunches were what brought a smile and sanity into the buggering lows

Can’t forget Bopanna’s Coorgi taste of some awesome fried Pork

while Anshul went about hogging on his greens n dals without a fork

Or the Biryani feast and 100 idli’s that Bhagwan and Col Vamsi brought

making each fill their belly twice and charge all out on the yummy pot 

The small dingy room filled with stories of elves, chudails and ghosts

As the monitoring room and its exhausted four turned into warm hosts

And despite Rattu’s frequent exasperating calls for who is on duty

It still was a place of laughter, jokes, anecdotes and culinary beauty

Col Amit’s slowly quips about military humour on handling horrible bosses

As he silently devoured his sandwiches and chapathi’s like holy Moses

Col Vishal’s anglicised quotes from Military leaders and life’s philosophy

Made us steer clean out of trouble through PI’s seas- so damn choppy

Col Chaudhary’s adventures in Bars and other places

Kept us glued with a smirk on our bright eyed faces

But who cared as long as there was awesome food to eat 

With all charging like crazy if someone brought any meat

With Col Bahuguna and his Engineers YO tales to lighten the mood

As you felt that in this gruesome place  he was the only cool dude

While Anurag feverishly typed on his COAS questionnaire with no care

And smiled coyly as we cracked jokes and laid out eachs character bare

Oh yes and then Kunals regular promises for taking us to his friends bar

While he tried convincing us on buying bitcoins and become a financial star

Or Rastogi sirs claim to fame designing that made it a mandate for future 

As we tried devouring each others paneer chicken and sweets like a vulture

And don’t forget Mr congeniality Pradeep with his princely suits

While he was stuck in media room procurements till his boots

Or Sumit sir with his Gorkha demeanour all gentlemanly

As he came from Hairy Pillais den flustered and insanely

We hhad them all from vaishnav sirs armoured thrust of fauji gyan

To Kotnala’s professional and subtle Perceptiin Management charm

Or  Amit Bhatnagars crib for being shunted around the place

And Aluwalias talent as a mature man with superb grace

We all broke bread together, as we shared our frequent daily blunders

in Facebook, monitoring or drafting amidst our bosses vocal thunders

t’was a place to vent out the brewing steam

while cribbing about the system as a team

Which ##@& in his right mind would put an end to these lunches?

Must be a Form 10 arsehole says my incredibly accurate hunches

Why would those envious bastards pass such pissed off orders

Might as well post us out and pack us off to the active borders

Hope the lunch tradition continues despite all odds

Even if it meant rebellion against those military gods

Please understand our deepest pain

And Let us break bread in peace again