A Revelation - My Eureka Moment

Way back in 82 or 83, a lecture on Transcendental Meditation by the great Swami Chinmayananda ji was organised at Shivaji. As young officers we were naturally detailed to attend. The Swami ji was a good orator and set about explaining the meaning of TM. He said "TM means simply doing nothing. Just relax! Let your mind free to wander".

My brain which had normally only two speeds, slow and stop, and was dreamily idling along, suddenly went into high gear as something familiar was recognised by some long dormant neuron.

That was my Aha moment. It suddenly struck me that I must be something of an expert in TM as I had indeed been doing nothing for years, the foundation of which had been laid no doubt in Class IV (Non Tech) and Kilo Squadron. It helped in Kilo to be completely spaced out as one went through various F*** fall-ins.

In fact my wandering mind helped so much that without giving it too much thought, I wandered dreamily into the Tech branches in Service despite the honest efforts of several Arts instructors in NDA. 

I guess the Gods of the Navy also needed something to amuse themselves as I carried on airily.

I continued to build up my expertise in TM as I went along through Service, letting my mind wander as the aforesaid celestial bodies continued to amuse themselves. Coming to think of it, maybe thats why they taught us Astro Navigation in NDA, so that whenever things went wrong we could always pass the blame on to Rigel, Deneb, Arcturus, Sirius, Vega or one of the other stars in much the same way as seasoned astrologers blame Rahu and Ketu for the resident ills.

As for getting out of unforeseen trouble, a repetitive pattern of run-ins with resident aspirants for the title of Tinpot Dictator led to a discovery - that no problem lasted more than 3 to 4 days till the next storm broke and one merely had to stay out of sight for that period for things to soothe themselves out.

I also learned a few more truths along the way - to remain out of sight as long as possible and when unavoidable to look busy, that a closed mouth and a blank expression worked better than a moving mouth and the Keen Kumar look. 

Most of all, I learned the following about my buddies:
(a) To let Sunil Jain do the talking, thinking and decision making without butting in. He continued without stopping in any case and did a good job of everything
(b) To let Akshai Malhotra do the sorting-out of others and smile appreciatively at his carvings and artistic aspirations, after which one could get work out of him
(c) To take all precautions and avoid coming under the influence of Rangarajan. Anyone who wanted Ranga to do something ended up doing it himself thinking that Ranga was doing it
(d) To let Anand Sonsale do the job. He did it better anyway
(e) To allow Vivek Chawla his share of grumbling without interruption. Because thereafter he did whatever you wanted
(f) To agree with Sabyasachi Sarkar's views on life, politics, society etc. There was no point disagreeing because you couldn't win any argument with him
(g) That it wasn't difficult to convince Chalapati to plan outings, picnics etc and make superb upma at the same time

My wife of course knew how to get the better of my shooting stars and soon enough began to prefix and suffix every statement with the line, "Are You Listening?" and "Have you heard?". Naturally my otherwise slow moving brain soon got hard-wired to recognise those phrases and to prod my head to nod vigorously thereafter, while simultaneously sending a FLASH signal "Jaise The" to my mouth. 

Suited me just fine anyway, to let others do the talking.

In fact today I often wonder, how I ever got here. The answer - you guessed it, TM in my own style.
(With due respects and apologies to Swami Chinmayananda ji and all my instructors, seniors, juniors, coursemates and everyone else who had sleepless nights on my account)