A patent for joie de vivre

Lt Gen RS Sujlana (retd)

Time passes by rapidly, or ‘tempus fugit’ as they say. We joined the military academies in 1967, trained for four years, became officers and served in our service for 20 to 40 years. A decade back, all of us hung our uniform and over a score of us settled in the lovely environs of the tricity and adjoining areas. Bygone years create linkages among people, so have our military linkages connected us in lifelong friendships and camaraderie.

The times were tough but eventful, now that we have arrived safely in ‘flaming June’, the past deserves to be remembered and celebrated. Our continued togetherness could help in making our future equally memorable, something akin to the words of Robert Browning in his poem ‘Rabbi Ben Ezra’ — ‘Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, the last of life, for which the first was made.’

Thus, we set out to rejuvenate our fond relationship. Nothing could be better than meeting socially, but we decided to create a special format. To call it a ‘course get-together’ was too drab, it had to be special to the tricity fraternity. We decided two names — ‘Double Outdoors’ and ‘Tricity Company Operating Base (COB)’.

The first name was a throwback to our training years when on particular days, the physicals were taxing, say drill followed by physical training and other variants. The COB was a touchback to the environment in which most of us spent years in the Army battling the enemy and the environment. Different indeed, but we still felt that the name should be more specific to our activities during these meets.

Brains racked, we stuck to the acronym COB, but the full form changed to ‘Charcha Over Beer’! That decided, ‘Double Outdoors’ also needed to be addressed, and so a game of golf was proposed prior to the COB. What an idea! One never had such unanimity in agreement, true to the words, ‘Once more (we had decided) on my (our) adventure brave and new: fearless and unperplexed, when I wage battle next, what weapons to select, what armour to indue.’

A monthly affair, hosted by one among us, it would be, weather permitting, a round of golf followed by 90 minutes of ‘charcha’, snacks, accompanied by a potion of one’s choice as a thirst quencher. Months passed by, the fun was loaded, reminiscences, leg-pulling and an all-prevailing spirit of joie de vivre. But then struck the pandemic and all this came to a grinding halt. Sadly, the cruel hands of Covid took away one amongst us.

We took this in our stride and hope for better times to continue, our incomparable COB encouraged by the words: ‘When things go wrong, as they sometimes will, when the road you're trudging seems all uphill, and you smile but have to sigh, when care is pressing you down a bit, rest, if you must, but don’t you quit.’ We only slipped in patenting it!

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