THE HIJACKER

hiiiiii(jacker)........try singing it.......hiiiii(jacker)...funny??...I know its not but then the guy 4 whom it was made wasn't either..

STRIKE 1-"hi!i'm capt. Dhiresh Chandra 4m the merchant navy,father of Lt. Niraj chandra"....I looked up and saw a portly,stout man.White beard and glasses in place.
A huge belly and heavily strapped legs gave me some indication of his problems.
"hello sir!i'm med cadet hitesh 4m AFMC"....pleasantaries exchanged,he proceeded 2 his bed.

A new day....uncle(for my convenience,we call him uncle 4m nw)gets up early and he seems to be on the lookout for something....

actually..he's on the lookout of 'someone'....and the funny part,which i later come to know-that 'someone' could be anybody...anybody who's in his senses and responds even slightly to whatever he's uttering..

that day...i turned out to be that person...not that i had the slightest intention of getting into a conversation at 6 in the morning(i'm a fierce lover of my
morning sleep)...it just happened...i got up to take my medicines(empty stomach,early in the morning..doc's recommendation,you see)and uncle found his target...

sleepy eyes!!....i was popping pills one by one....eight in total...there were 3 more to go when he came to my bed dragging his chair along and almost startled me
with his "goooood morning"....showing fake enthusiasm i tried to reply back in the same vein but all i managed was a weak '"morning sir",the 'good' disappearing
somewhere.

Soon,i was to be given a lecture on pills,average doctors and how i could become a great doctor...all this at the expense of my morning sleep....grrrrrr
Ignorant of the impending danger,I was thinking of taking a nap after I was through with my pills...

STRIKE 2-"do u know the difference between a good doctor and a great doctor??"
"compassion"I replied quickly,wanting to ward him off....
giving a dissatisfied expression,he went on.."its continuous reading son...keeping oneself updated"...least interested in the topic,i gave him a sleepy look,
my eyes almost pleading him to grant me my morning sleep.But he went on with his monologue suddenly breaking into sentences starting with "i'll tell u..."
and "see son!my 29 years of xperience in the seas have taught me...."

Finally,i decided,being rude was my only option....i yawned right in front of his face with him blabbering away to glory....thankfully,he understood i
wasn't interested and i got a chance to catch up on some morning sleep.

As days passed by,the whole ward came to know that uncle was a garrulous fellow who loved to have what he termed 'CHITCHATS',irrespective of the time of the day and the
mood of the person in front of him...the only good thing abt him was that he victimised everybody...4m the young army captain Negi to NDA cadet Yadav,everyone had
been part of his 'chitchat' sessions which had only one speaker,Uncle himself.

We had even heard him muttering in sleep...the last time i had seen somemone like that was on the silver screen...'Kareena' in JAB WE MET..

As if that wasn't enough,slowly we began to discover that uncle had a fetish for breaking into a conversation almost anywhere...mess,water cooler,bathroom..everywhere!

Capt. negi told me one day"yaar!ab main tumhare bed ki ore nahi aaonga...uncle pakad lete hain"...

I couldn't help smiling.."okkay!so i'm not the only one who's being hounded".....

poor chap!!!......i remember the day when he was going to the toilet,liquid soap and towel in his hands,and he was made to sit and listen abt INDIA'S foreign policy..
HAHAHAHAHA....imagine having to listen abt india's foreign policy with ur stomach threatening to give away any time.....he gave obvious hints but as usual,uncle
turned a blind eye towards them.....worse than 3rd degree....

With time,uncle earned himself a new name...'the hijacker'....(other names considered were capt 'Jack Sparrow'-my favoured name 4 uncle,Mogambo etc)

Days were passing by and the hijacker continued in the same vein....people refrained from telling him the obvious as it might have hurt his ego....

We just tried avoiding him and avoided eye-contact unless absolutely necessary....

Soon,there were certain things the whole ward came to know about him:

-his son had completed law before joining the IMA
-he insisted everytime that he was not glorifying his son but that was what he ended up doing everytime...the conversation may have begun with any topic but it always
ended up with some story about his son....'PROUD FATHER OF AN ARMY OFFICER'-thats what ppl thought initially only to realise later that he was obsessed with his son..
-he had earned 11 crores in his 29 years of sailing which had now turned into 36 crores through investments....(and this had been hammered into our minds)
-his weight was 120 kgs and he wore specially ordered XXXL clothes
-he had fallen in love twice before settling down for his current wife who was a lawyer..(the only part I found interesting)
-he considered all doctors to be leeches,hungry 4 sucking out patient's money.....but he made sure he apologised to me everytime he made such a comment abt the
medical fraternity....not that i cared a fig!!
-he had a bungalow with 16 rooms and 3 servants..(what was i or for that matter anybody supposed to do with that??)
-he knew that his son's best friend had a crush on his son but his son himself didn't...he was planning to bring them together the next time he came home on a vacation
....i couldn't help but sympathise with his son
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-
-
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-the list of things he boasted about was almost endless......

but the big Q-who'd bell the cat??who'd be the one to tell him that nobody was interested in his talks??
NO ONE HAD AN ANSWER TO THIS.....

then one day...we had a new member in the ward....AMRITPAL singh(APS..in short)-a commando.....the guy spoke very little and looked like a toughie.
Whatever little i came to know abt him was 4m capt. negi...the guy was just back 4m his commando training schedule and looked very much an introvert....

However,the glee in uncle's eyes was too obvious to miss...he had someone new to talk to...

It didn't take long for uncle to grill him and of course he rattled off each one of those things about himself and his son that we had heard umpteen nmbr of times..
the commando guy responded with due respect and heard him out with patience...disinterest visible almost everytime.....

APS was quite weird in his habits coz he remained untraceable throughout the day only to return at night...we presumed he was out for some tests.

Now,the hijacker had this habit of asking everyone about the progress of their condition everyday almost like a doctor...its another thing that he used that as an
oppurtunity to strike up conversations which we all dreaded.....he mostly did so during the evenings or just before lights were to be out....

On that particular day,APS had been back early.He looked tired and he went to bed right after dinner...soon he was fast asleep..

At around 11,Uncle entered the ward after his gossip sessions with like-minded oldies..
Soon,he was on his daily rounds...
Having hounded almost everybody in the ward he was returning to his bed when he saw APS,all huddled up..
Inexplicably,uncle walked towards the commando's bed...rest of the ward members exchanged curious glances as to what was to happen next??
we all watched with bated breath as uncle fired the first salvo"what's been the progress in your case young man??"...no answer.
the guy was sleeping and somehow,that fact escaped uncle..he repeated his question but still didn't get an answer...

What he did next came as a shock to all of us as we expected him to back off since the guy was sleeping....he shook the guy and repeated the question simultaneously
....still,no answer....the shaking became more vigorous and the sequence of events that followed was A REAL SHOCKER.....

APS suddenly sprang to life and grabbed uncle's throat and acted as if he had a gun pointed at uncle's temple...all this was accompanied by some fierce expressions,a reddish face and some heavy breathing.....
too stunned to react,we just watched....

All this hardly took a few seconds...another few seconds and suddenly,his grip loosened.APS acted as if nothing had happened....suddenly everything became normal-his face,his breathing and he was back in his huddled position as if he was a stranger to what had just happened...and soon he was asleep again leaving us all dazed..

Everything was happening like a hollywood pyscho-thriller and we reacted just as an average audience would.....with shell-shocked expressions.

Uncle looked shaken...he tried to shrug off the incident with a fake smile..........we felt bad for the old man and at the same time we were shocked and amazed at APS's audacity....
the night passed by...
Next morning,having heard of the incident,the nursing assistant was initially shocked only to tell us later that APS had been part of a special squad which had been attacked by insurgents when they were asleep at night....
that being APS's 1st assignment after training...the young commando still had nightmares of that bloody encounter and him acting in the way he did was not totally unwarranted...

Things were suddenly crystal clear...

The next day...i found APS sitting beside me in the dining hall...uncle was through with dinner and there were just the 4 of us-Capt. Negi,cadet Yadav,myself and APS.
None of us had talked to him post last night's incident.....
"what did you think of last night's incident buddy??"...it took me a while to realise that the question was 4 me..

All i could do was give a surprised expression coz i thought he was supposed to remember nothing......

With a chuckle and an expression that bordered on the wicked he dropped a bombshell.."i did all that on purpose".

"WHAAAAT????"...the 3 of us reacted almost simultaneously....

"Don't be shocked..I sensed ur discomfort at the way the man pulled you and almost everybody into unwanted conversations...even i had been victimised...you see!!
i'm a bit rougish but still i found it difficult to ward him off....i did feel bad doing this to the old man but then i couldn't help it....being a commando,i've done far worse things at times,my fragile temper being an able aide...
i knew my previous history could easily save me from the suspicion that i did it on purpose...
that was my little confession".....saying this,he left the dining hall giving us a second shocker in as many days..

STRIKEBACK 1-YES!!..THAT WAS IT.....IT HAD COME AND HOW!!...IN THE MOST UNEXPECTED WAY from THE MOST UNEXPECTED PERSON WITH THE MOST UNEXPECTED RESULT....




NEEDLESS TO SAY......UNCLE WAS A CHANGED MAN........but was it for real??...

P.S.-after this incident,something else that i discovered about uncle proved to be the biggest irritant....his habit of hijacking the ward's newspaper as soon as the ward boy delivered it...he kept it hidden under his pillow so that nobody else could read it before him while we kept wondering whether it had been delivered
....OLD HABITS DIE HARD....don't they??...especially if they've come with an experience of 29 years generating 36 crores in the process.....HAHAHAHAHA