SIRENS AND SAND MODELS

WARNING: Sirens and sand models are not always sexy page three items. Sometimes they are about serious soldering.

I dug into the pillow determined to snooze through the alarm and the drill master’s mutterings.

Never mind that we are ex fauji’s now. When you are married to a fauji, you live on war footing forever. ‘Time’ is a sacred issue and ‘the alarm’ is the senior officer’s sacrosanct hollering command, without which the day cannot begin. Not even a Sunday.

When there’s a mission, like catching a train or a flight, this hollering amounts to a red alert. The siren must go off several hours before the operation and must keep trumpeting the counting down in increasing decibels. A general pandemonium is a must to get the blood cruising through the veins in all efforts to fan a do or die excitement. I am a thorough bred in that custom and can be up in flash to don my war pain and be ready in a jiffy.

So when the alarm woke us up at 1pm to make sure we got out of the house by 2 pm to catch 4.40 flight, I jumped up, feigned excitement but pleaded for cover. No one in a fauji household requires sixty ticking minutes to get ready. We are groomed over a period of time to a fire alarm routine and I was pro. I absolutely needed those 50 valuable minutes, to do a deep alpha level de stress mediation to prepare myself for the actual war – the 10 days holiday in Egypt.

I was actually dreading the general knowledge fussilade (guess when, guess who, guess what) that would start the moment I woke up. There’s was no running away from fact finding drills. A sand model discussion was a must before embarking on the real war scenario.

It was the taxi that pulled the plug on my sleep. It arrived at 1.15pm. Way to early! (Was it part of the conspiracy? I will never know). He wanted us to leave immediately. “Please hurry Sir. I have a fast all day. I must eat before sun goes up. You can rest at the airport.” I could not ignore that line for fear human rights violation and sheepishly complied. Drill master couldn’t be happier. There was a “Aab ayee na line pe!” glee writ large on his face.

The fusillade began without much ado– What do you do think is the population of Egypt? Who rules Egypt? Who came after the Pharaohs? Who was the last king of Egypt? Duh! My knowledge was limited to the Pyramids and Sphinx and the Nile. I also knew for some blessed reason that Egypt grew long staple cotton. My geography book was however written at a time when Pluto was a planet. A lot would have surely changed since...No not the Pyramids, Sphinx and the Nile, but everything else. My drill master was only too happy to educate me, as always.

“Aab accha Punjabi bol lete ho,” commented Arbaas the driver when my husband directed him to the terminal in his “thoda mota ” knowledge of that language. The driver thought it was more than “changa” coming from a Bong from India. “I hope you get home soon enough to start your Suhoor,” my husband continued in Punjabi. “Yes Sir, and you have a nice stay in Egypt," came a prompt reply in English.

A traveling tutorial on Egypt must have been very appetizing for this hungry driver who got some interesting food for thought to begin his new day.