LALIT "TIGER" TALWAR AND ME - A TIMELINE

January 1956. I begin my second term in NDA transferred from 'Fox' to the newly-formed 'King' squadron.  Fresh 15th course cadets arrive and two of them impress me as they have a certain air about them: Vijay Malhotra and Lalit Talwar. They are both naval cadets with consecutive academy numbers of 2420 and 2421 respectively, and since they are in the same division as me, we have cabins on the same floor. Over my five remaining terms, I keep bumping into them though we have little to do with each other being from different courses. But that lays the foundation of a lifelong friendship with both.

December 1963-May 1965. I am posted in NDA as a Divisional Officer and so is Lalit Talwar. Both are bachelors and stay in the Officer's Mess with cabins near each other on the same floor. We now meet almost every day and spend a lot of time together in the evenings along with other naval bachelors like Subodh "Guppy" Gupta, Mel Charles Kendall and Sudhir "Ike" Isaacs. Guppy and Lalit take up golf and insist that I join them. After some resistance holding that golf is an old man's game, I cave in and join them but not before a few lessons from the Russian blue-blooded Dimitri Jouravlov, NDA golf coach, who is well-known for his remark that water is the best drink in life but as he can't afford the best, we can give him the second best, Rum.

Somewhere down the line, we start calling Lalit, "Tiger". I suspect it was because of his prowess at golf that the nickname got associated with a champion golfer as borne out years later by Eldrick Tont Woods appropriating the nickname for himself. For some reason, maybe wayward golf and kiddish temperament, Tiger and Guppy call me "Child". Tiger continued to address me as such all through his life.

Apart from golf, I discover another passion of Tiger's- Indian classical music. From Ravi Shankar to Ali Akbar Khan and Bismillah Khan, he has a big library of tapes which he makes me listen to whenever I visit his cabin. I too become a fan of this class of music and Tiger gladly transfers his collection on to my tapes. 

Mid-end1965. I am transferred to New Delhi as Flag Lt to Admiral Chatterji, Commandant, National Defence College. Tiger is selected for the new Submarine branch and comes to Delhi to learn Russian while standing by to go to the USSR. Both of us apply to join the Delhi Golf Club, become permanent members within a month and start playing there.

One Saturday evening, I invite Tiger to have drinks and dinner with me at the NDC where I stay. We sit outside on the huge lawn and after just 2 whiskies, Tiger says he is feeling groggy and leaves without dinner. We have a game planned the next morning and when I go to pick him up from Kotah House, he is still in bed. He says he has a massive hangover and won't be playing. I go back to my cabin and while putting away the bottles taken out the previous evening, discover that a gin bottle, which was more than half full, is empty. It then dawns upon me that Tiger was mixing gin instead of water with his whisky and hence the hangover!

We attend many classical music performances. I vividly recall a jugalbandi with Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan accompanied by the tabla wizard Allah Rakha.

Tiger gets engaged to Rashmi and both families decide that he is too handsome to be left alone in the hands of Russian girls. So Rashmi and Tiger are married before Tiger goes abroad. 

1966-1990. We operate in different spheres with Tiger leaving the Navy in 1980 and settling in Noida while I am at Navy's call shuttling between different cities. 

1990-2020. I settle down in Delhi after taking retirement from the Navy and meet Tiger off and on and we play some rounds of golf at the DGC. I am playing regularly at the Army GC and I invite Tiger to join me there. For some reason, the Army course is Tiger's Achilles heel, so he doesnt't come as often as I would like him to.

Summer 2005, after visiting Ruchir in New York, Akhila and I are returning to India and are at Heathrow changing flights. Suddenly I hear someone shouting 'Ravi'. I turn around and am pleasantly surprised to see Tiger. He tells me he is on his way to US after a stay in London. He has one daughter in UK and one in USA so it is convenient for him to break journey in London both ways rather than take long connecting flights.

2020-2024. Thanks to the lockdown, we keep in touch on WhatsApp. The first message I have from him is a forward of a youtube recording of Ustad Shujaat Khan playing Sitar and singing the ghazal 'Zindagi Se Badi Saza Hi Nahin' at Jashn-e-Rekhta. Tiger's forwarding message says, "Enjoy, my favourite artist." There are regular exchanges of music including a sufi qawwali with a dervish dance. And, of course, "Dama Dam Mast Qalandar"! Tiger also says he enjoys my blog and often sends appreciative comments which boost my morale.

14 October 2024. We meet at Kailash Kohli's last rites. This would turn out to be the last time I would see him in person.

03 January 2025. I am on a visit to the NDA and go to our old Squadron 'King' now 'Charlie'. There is an album with old photographs and I find some of Tiger's on joining the NDA in 1956. I send these to him. I also send some of the NDA golf course where it all started. He mentions Jouravlov in his response and I tell him that the course is now appropriately named after our old friend.

24 January-14 May 2025. Tiger undergoes a complex liver surgery. He is in and out of hospital. His daughters create a site on WhatsApp on which they keep his friends apprised of his condition.

15 May 2025. We get a message that Tiger is no more.

So rest in peace, my friend. Thanks for the happy times we spent together and many, many thanks for introducing me to golf and Indian classical music.

If there is a golf course in Heaven, you and Kailash will already be playing. If not, I am sure you will convince St. Peter to make one. And music, they are all there, Ravi Shankar, Ali Akbar Khan, Vilayat Khan, Bismillah Khan, Allah Rakha and his son Zakir Hussain.

ALILA FORT BISHANGARH- A HIDDEN GEM

I haven't kept count of the number of trips I have done between Delhi and Jaipur on National Highway 48, but if someone said 100, it would be grossly short. After settling down in Delhi in 1990 post-retirement and with one leg in Jaipur, 3-4 trips per year have been the norm. For 35 years, you do the math.

Once one enters Rajasthan at Shahjahanpur, one sees a number of forts atop hills. The first one is Neemrana, a pathbreaker of sorts since it set the pace for converting forts into heritage hotels. Then there is one at Shahpura followed by Achrol which featured in the popular 1984 TV miniseries "The Far Pavilions". Driving on, when you see the majestic well-known Amer fort, you know you have reached Jaipur. The same hill range has the Jaigarh fort famous for its cannon named "Jaivana" which was manufactured in 1720 in the foundry within the fort, and was then the largest cannon on wheels in the world. Finally, we see the Nahargarh fort which keeps a watchful eye on the whole of Jaipur. Don't go there at night; it is believed to be haunted!

Sometime back, searching for heritage hotels around Jaipur, I came across one named Alila Fort located near Manoharpur which is on NH 48 next to Shahpura and just 50 kms. from Jaipur. I wondered why we had never seen it from the highway and then forgot about it....

Till last month when we got an invitation from Akhila's cousin, Anup, to the wedding of his daughter, Anusha, with a boy also named Anup! This was followed by a number of calls from Anup and his wife, Sarita, and the venue for the wedding was Alila fort.

We decided we must go for the wedding and hit the road a day before the date. In three and a half hours, we had crossed Shahpura and turned off the highway to the right for the fort. After about 5 kms. we sighted the fort for the first time, a quaint structure on a small granite hill. When thinking of forts, one generally pictures a fortification spread over a large area. This fort is different as it is only as wide as the small hill it is perched on but is nine stories high more like a modern multi-storey building. Appropriate, as the fort was originally built 240 years ago as a watchtower with a long-range panoramic view of the surroundings to provide early warning to Amer/Jaipur for any approaching aggressors.

Originally called Bishangarh fort after the village it is located in, it is now popular as Alila, a name given by Hyatt for a luxury class of hotels. ‘Alila’  means ‘surprise’ in Sanskrit which Hyatt hopes to achieve for their guests in these hotels by offering glimpses of local culture combined with ultra-modern facilities.

For many years, Bishangarh fort lay unoccupied, neglected and deserted. A "For Sale" sign was up on the highway when it caught the eye of one Rahul Kapur. He decided to have a look and after sighting it, roped in his architect brother and friends to buy and convert it into a heritage hotel. His account of their travails to do that makes interesting reading. There was no road and to reach the fort, they had to clamber up on hands and knees. They had to be careful not to annoy hordes of monkeys for whom the fort was a safe haven from leopards. The fort was in a state of decay and covered with vegetation consisting of thorns and brambles. And when they attempted to enter the fort, "zillions of bats" flew out. 

With no road, when the renovation work started, Rahul Kapur became the proud owner of 22 donkeys to cart the material to a height of 145 metres. Extreme caution was exercised not to cause any damage to the original structure the complex nature of which required three lifts to reach different levels much like changing trains at railway junctions! Finally, 15 years from its rediscovery and 9 years of renovation, Hyatt started running a 58 room hotel with two presidential suites in 2017. 

Its potential was then recognised as a venue for weddings. 60 more rooms were added at ground level along with lawns, gardens, halls and special sites for different Indian wedding ceremonies. To say that we were glad to attend a wedding at this spectacular fort would be an understatement.

The wedding evening started with the reception of the 'baraat' at the gate of the ramparts of the fort. That was followed by the 'Varmala'  ceremony with the bride walking slowly down the slope escorted by other young girls and the bridegroom receiving her at the bottom of the hill. They then moved to a gazebo by a small pool for the exchange of garlands. Finally the 'Pheraas' which were held down in a 'Baaori'.

Watching the ceremonies, I thought the scene was ideal for a romantic movie. Which story would be better: Romeo scaling the walls of the fort to abduct Juliet or Juliet running down the winding road in the dark to elope with Romeo?

Any royalties from the story would be mine!

THREE SONGS BROUGHT TO MIND BY TODAY'S GOOD WEATHER

April was a hot, hot month. Temperatures in Delhi were around five degrees above normal. Add pollution to that and you get the depressing picture!

The last day of April was just as bad. The first of May was slightly better but I had a runny nose and felt fatigued and missed my golf date. My usual golf companion said the breeze was cool and he enjoyed his round. And then on 2nd May, I was woken up in the early hours of the morning by flashes of lightning and loud rumblings of thunder. It was pouring heavily and pleasantly surprised, I went back to sleep.

When I finally got up, the weather was beautiful. From 5 degrees above average, it had plunged to seven degrees below normal. The lawn outside our apartment was flooded and it was still raining. An easterly breeze of 15-20 knots made it appear cooler than the actual temperature and kept the pollution levels low. With this spell, the next few days should be cool and there is more rain predicted.

Gone was the fatigue and my runny nose. I was in the mood for a song and what should come to mind but the old song Vinnie Mama taught me way back in early '50s soon after he joined the Navy, "She wore a yellow ribbon". The following lines will make it clear why I remembered this particular song : 

"And in her hair, she wore a yellow ribbon

She wore a yellow ribbon in the merry month of May

Hey, hey, and if you ask, oh why the hell she wore it

She wore it for a sailor who is far, far away."

In this mood, remembering old times, can Shashi Mama be far behind? No, and promptly, I was swaying to his favourite, "Balma ja ja ja, balma ja." Any party or get-together and you would have Shashi Mama singing and dancing and adding to the merry-making with this song.

The third song was a surprise. Quite out of context and on a serious note was Tom Jones' "Delilah". A lot of us would be familiar with this number in which the singer discovers the unfaithfulness of his lover, Delilah, by seeing 'flickering shadow of love on her blind....as she deceived me I watched and went out of my mind.... she stood there laughing, I felt the knife in my hand and she laughed no more. My, my, my Delilah! Why, why, why Delilah?' 

Perhaps the reason for recalling this song is the revival of Agatha Christie in my mind. In the '50s-70s, she was my favourite author of mystery novels featuring either the eccentric but sharp Hercule Poirot or the clever and observant Miss Marple. The other day, I read a news item that BBC is adapting her novel, "Towards Zero", for a TV serial. That put Agatha Christie back into my reading list and I have just finished the brilliant book which features a love triangle. 

Anyway, "Delilah" was one of Tom Jones' extremely popular numbers which we used to sing happily and boisterously in parties, never mind its murderous lyrics! 

May your May be happy and bright!