A CENTURY OF BLOGS

The Blogspot count says my Beatles blog was the 100th and this is my 101st blog. I differ slightly- the first blog counted by the site was all of three sentences stating who I am and announcing my intentions of starting a blog. The introduction was short because actually I don't quite know who I really am. So I shall treat this piece as my 100th blog.

It is hard to believe. I am no writer. After a few essays in school and NDA, whatever writing we did in the Navy was governed by rules of ‘service writing’ with its official format and phraseology. That left little scope for personal flair. For example, a Commanding Officer (CO), on transfer of an officer, was required to give a very brief summary of his impressions on the latter’s performance on a short form called ‘Flimsy’ which began with the printed line, “The officer has carried out his duties to my….” The usual words that the CO was expected to use to complete the sentence were “to my entire satisfaction”, “to my satisfaction” or occasionally “not to my satisfaction”. I once heard of a CO who used the words “to his own satisfaction” and the whole Navy was full of admiration and “Wah wahs” for this most original piece of writing.

After leaving the Navy and settling down in Delhi, certain naval events like the decommissioning of ships I had served on, Trishul and Vikrant, ignited a desire within me to write about them which I did. The pieces were accepted by newspapers which published them. In 1997, The Sunday Observer Chairman offered to make me its Defence Editor. I worked in that capacity for a few months but there were pressures from certain quarters to publish what they wanted and I decided to quit that job.

Meanwhile, I was reading ‘middles’ in newspapers written by ex-defence officers including my uncle, Cmde Vinnie Sharma. That gave me the idea to pen down my own experiences and anecdotes and the Times Of India and the Indian Express readily accepted them. Two naval veterans in particular liked my 'middles', Vice Admiral RKS Ghandhi and Commodore RS Malia. Admiral Russi Ghandhi who I had never served under and who didn’t know me at all traced my whereabouts and wrote a very appreciative letter. Thereafter, I met him a number of times during my visits to Bombay when he recounted some funny stories of his own.  We then kept in regular touch till he passed away.

On another occasion, I ran into Commodore Randhir Malia during a walk on Cuffe Parade. I introduced myself and his immediate reaction was, “Oh, you are the writer!” He too filled me in with some humorous anecdotes.

I expanded my field to golf, travel and music. Sometime in 2010s, newspapers stopped publishing ‘middles’ and my writings dried up. A number of friends told me to write a book about my life but I didn’t take them seriously wondering who would be interested in it. On a visit to Bombay, Akhila’s cousin, Yogesh, himself a journalist of stature, insisted that I write. When asked ‘what about’, he quoted the example of Alexander McCall Smith who he said religiously penned down 1000 words every day no matter what.

In 2018, Akhila took on the task of researching her family history including two major events, the 1915 robbery by Sultana Daku which ended in the gruesome murder of her grandmother witnessed by her 5- year old father and 2-year old uncle, and the 1946 train accident which killed her elder uncle, Tauji, and Phupaji. She put all that down in a book and also wrote about her early days in Bijnor and family customs and traditions. Watching her, I was inspired to write about my own past and interests. I was firm in my belief that nobody would be interested in a book but why not write a blog? That way, I would be able to pen down whatever I wanted without worrying about publishers, content and whether others found it interesting or not. I would let my close relatives and friends know about it and then have complete freedom to write whatever came to my mind regardless of whether anyone read it or not.

Thus was born ''Ravi's Ruminations'' and as music has been my passion since my kiddie days, I chose to go through my life recalling songs as years advanced. Songs have a strange connect with me: a song flashes some memory within me while an incident brings to mind some song. So I titled my first blog, "Life- A Musical Journey". Response from my well-wishers was good and from then on, I have taken to write about my naval career, nautical stories, golf, travel, movies, music, of course, and whatever comes to mind. With the result that, unbelievably, I have reached a century of blogs!

Tailpiece. Not exactly writing but related to it. In 1996, British Airways (BA) ran a contest asking people to write a short piece on what they liked about London. Off the cuff, I wrote 2 limericks and sent in the entries in Akhila's and my name. The one for Akhila won her a prize of two return tickets, a 4-day stay in a studio apartment in Hyde Park, London, and tickets to a one-day match between India and England at Lord's. As Shumita had not seen London, Akhila took her along and they had a lovely trip. And I won a consolation prize of 6 BA coasters!

Then in 1998, Delta Airlines put out a contest in Economic Times. One had to complete the sentence, "I love Delta Airlines and Economic Times because.....".  I wrote ".....Delta gives me cool trips and ET gives me hot tips." That got me a free business class return ticket to New York. A ticket for Akhila was all that was required for our first visit to the US.