The military ingests perfectly normal, fairly intelligent human beings and converts them jnto soldiers. The hard nuts refuse to get digested and are excreted out intact while the pliable ones are metabolized and assimilated into the system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To be candid, the general populace does carry the impression that defence personnel are a tad dense in their upper floor \u2013 a notion which is difficult to dispel. Unfortunately there exists a host of factual and fictional anecdotes which augment the belief. I have one such anecdote to narrate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Capt RK is a retired army officer serving with us \u2013 a smart energetic person. Now, we all know that the city of Mumbai plays host to a variety of viruses \u2013 some known, other mutants. RK happened to get afflicted with the mutant variety. Initially, like a true fauji, he refused to accept the fact that he was ill. When the fever persisted and we insisted, he reluctantly took sick leave. The local doctors could not get a handle on the mutated virus. He finally went to a swank clinic where all those pedigreed foreign returned doctors practice. The good old days of General Practitioner who examined the patient, drew on his experience and diagnosed are long gone. Today it\u2019s science and gadgets. So poor RK was subjected to a battery of tests, diagnosed as having some unpronounceable disease and was prescribed a 3 day course of different medicines. These medicines came packaged in a single strip with day 1, 2 and 3 marked in column. The patient was required to take the daily set of red, blue and white pill placed column wise every day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
RK started the medicinal course convinced it will cure him of every ill. However at the end of third day, he felt worse and had blood in his sputum. He went back to the flabbergasted doctors complaining of worsening condition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The flummoxed doctors ran another battery of tests which yielded the same earlier unpronounceable result. Now those fancy foreign returned doctors just couldn\u2019t fathom what was wrong \u2013 the diagnosis was positive, the prescribed medicine appropriate but the end result opposite and inappropriate. For once, the super gadgets seemed to let them down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The clinic had an ex fauji as the Administrator. He overheard the case discussions in the executive lunch room and looked up the medicine strip. He went to RK and asked \u201cDid you eat the medicines regularly?\u201d RK nodded his head in affirmative. \u201cSo you ate the red, blue and white coloured tablets each day?\u201d the ex fauji asked indicating the set of medicine meant for Day 1, 2 and 3. \u201cNo sir\u201d came the classic reply from RK, \u201d I ate the red coloured ones on the first day, blue coloured ones the second day and white ones on the last\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"