Covid is not going away soon. Even after vaccinations, people are getting infected. But yes, because of the vaccination, the infection is mild. But the after-effects like muscle pain, cough, fatigue and run down feeling linger on.
When a whole family is infected, you have to isolate each person in a different room. All others agree to wear a mask but 92-year-old granny refuses. After few days, she starts coughing at night. Another 68-year-old lady had already got infected a few days ago. Now, both ladies are isolated and sleeping in different rooms. From your room, you hear someone coughing. Cough syrup in hand, you wear a mask, go shake up one lady, feed a spoon of cough syrup. Hoping for some relief. Go back to your room and try and catch some sleep.
Some time later, you hear the coughing again. This time, it seems to be from the other room. Once again, you mask up and take the cough syrup in another spoon. You feed the cough syrup to the second lady. It gives her some relief. You realise that you had fed the first dose of syrup to the wrong patient who wasn't coughing. Case of mistaken identity. You return to your room only to be reminded of a similar incident on a warship some 50 years ago.
A ship at sea is manned 24 hours divided into 'watches' (like shifts in the factories) of four hours each (except the period between 4 to 8 PM which is further sub divided into1st Dog watch and 2nd Dog Watch). These watches are named like 'Middle watch' from midnight to 4 AM. 'Morning watch' comes next from 4 AM to 8 AM and so on. For those personnel required to close up for duty at 4 AM, the quarter master is informed in advance to give a shake-up at 3.30 AM. Depending on the size of a ship, it has number of officers under training (or watch keeping officers as the Navy calls it). These under-trainees live in a small compartment called Junior Officers Mess. It has number of multi-tier bunks. Now the quarter master's assistant comes at 3.30 AM with his torch in one hand. He doesn't know who is sleeping in which bunk. He shakes up one officer and flashes his torchlight saying 'Good morning Sir, shake up routine for morning watch'! The officer mutters saying, 'Not me!' 'Sorry Sir' says the duty sailor. He then shakes up the officer in the next bunk and gets a very disapproving 'Not me!' again. This goes on till one of the officers points him to the corner bunk on top. By that time, the watch keeper had already got up with the commotion caused by shaking up seven other officers wrongly!
My waking up and feeding the wrong Covid patient with cough syrup brought back the memories of our Watch-Keeping days in the Navy almost 50 years ago! Covid can induce humour too. Besides all that gloom.
During the Covid lock down, Ghumakkad kept up the spirit of our readers. Some of the stories which the readers liked are listed below. You may click to browse the picture stories.
We have to live with the virus and its mutations. Just follow the precautions and get vaccinated. Keep going with your life as usual.
The Contest
We had featured a picture of Covid Testing Strips in our online captions contest KBG-77, the 77th edition of Kaun Banega Ghumakkad. One testing strip showed Negative result and the other had two lines indicating 'Covid Positive'. Our readers were very imaginative in interpreting the picture. We received 47 interesting captions as listed below. We thank all the readers.
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No.
|
Name
|
Caption for KBG-77 Contest
|
|
1
|
Ajai
Bhumri
|
हाय मार डाला
|
|
2
|
Amandeep
Kaur
|
Golmaal
hai bhai sab Golmaal hai
|
|
3
|
Anonymous
|
ज़िंदगी एक लाइनवा, फिर भी घमंडवा
|
|
4
|
Rakesh
Bajaj
|
So
Far so Good one or two!
|
|
5
|
Anonymous
|
Only
jabs and precautions will help to eject the unwelcome guest - sorry pest.
|
|
6
|
Avinash
Tiwari
|
Yeh
to bas lakeeron ka chakkar hai
|
|
7
|
Avinash
Tiwari
|
Rekhaon
ka khel hai mukaddar. Rekhaon se maat kha rahe ho!
|
|
8
|
Bharat
Ladha
|
Negative
is the new positive
|
|
9
|
BR
Natarajan
|
It's
Now or Never!!
|
|
10
|
CD
Sawant
|
Yeh
Line Kuchh Ajib thi, Dusri Line Kuchh Dara Wani Hai |
|
|
11
|
C
Raghuram
|
Read
between the lines
|
|
12
|
Deepak
Jena
|
Don't
worry.. God is always on time.
|
|
13
|
Deepak
Jena
|
Every
day may not be good, but there's something good in every day.
|
|
14
|
GR
Sreenivasan
|
Though
Covid is unwelcome, testing made easy is welcome!
|
|
15
|
Himani
Tiwari
|
Stay
positive, test negative. If you test positive, don't be negative!
|
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16
|
Himani
Tiwari
|
Do laina
sunaariya hoon, oops gala kharab hai, phir
milengey quarantine ke baad.
|
|
17
|
J
Ramamoorty
|
This
Corona is not a crown but something to be kept away.
|
|
18
|
Jaishankar
|
One
is happy when single
|
|
19
|
Kausalya
Govindan
|
You
shall overcome!
|
|
20
|
LS
Bhargava
|
बुखार आया तो लिया दो लाइन का सहारा।
लाइन हाजिर है तो परेशानी गैरहाज़िर है तो ज्यादा परेशानी।
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|
21
|
M
Vasudevan
|
Me,
Wuhan born, inetrnational invisible, make many cry, for a few I am the money
spinner!
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|
22
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Nidhi
Bhargava
|
Two
for sorrow, one for joy
|
|
23
|
Peter
de Padua
|
Should
happiness lie, in lines?
|
|
24
|
Peter
de Padua
|
With
hope in the heart and a positive mind, all difficult lines dissappear.
|
|
25
|
Poonam
Bhargava
|
एक कहावत है-एक से भले दो,
कोविड ने इसे बदल दिया-दो नहीं, एक ही भला
|
|
26
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Poonam
Bhargava
|
Number
one is the winner!
|
|
27
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Pradeep
Siwach
|
Oh My
God!
|
|
28
|
Pradeep
Siwach
|
Oh No
Not Me!
|
|
29
|
Prashant
Jadenavar
|
Unless
we are this corona test, let’s keep our negativity somewhere else
|
|
30
|
Radhika
Sareen
|
Lakshman
rekha....Raavan on the other side.
|
|
31
|
Radhika
Sareen
|
One
is happy and two is sad..
|
|
32
|
Radhika
Sareen
|
ये लकीर इम्तिहां लेती है। भाग्य की एक ही लकीर काफ़ी।
|
|
33
|
Radhika
Sareen
|
थोड़ा बहुत ज़्यादा की नहीँ ज़रुरत
|
|
34
|
Rajendra
Singh
|
Precaution
is better than cure !
|
|
35
|
RB
Dhavare
|
Winning over Covid is like crossing a Hurdle in
life.
|
|
36
|
Rekha
Bhargava
|
Hum machinon ke
daas hain ye siddh karta hai
|
|
37
|
Ritu
Bhargava
|
जीवन मैं आप कितने भी positive हो पर वर्तमान मैं रिपोर्ट negative आनी बहुत जरूरी है
|
|
38
|
Ritu
Bhargava
|
The word negative is the most positive word today
|
|
39
|
Ritu
Bhargava
|
Ek rekha se shanti, doosri rekha se ashanti! एक रेखा से शान्ति , दूसरी से अशांति !
|
|
40
|
Rohini
Tiwari
|
A
second chance given to live life to the fullest!!
|
|
41
|
Ruma
Purkayastha
|
Standstill
! Endure!! Be patient !!!
|
|
42
|
Shereen
Sultana
|
Ya is paar ya uss paar.
|
|
43
|
Supradeep
Sen
|
Hell
on Earth!
|
|
44
|
Veeky
Baths
|
If
you stay positive in a negative situation you win
|
|
45
|
Vinod
Dhanuka
|
Unreliable
|
|
46
|
VV
Ramani
|
Beauty
and enlightenment
|
|
47
|
Yogesh
|
Beware,
no shortcuts!
|
The Winners
Our Jury has selected the following five captions as winners of KBG-77. Congratulations to each one of them.
Bharat Ladha has won the KBG Caption Contest earlier too. An engineer from BITS Pilani, he lives in Vidisha MP in the lap of Nature. His caption 'Negative is the new Positive' was crisp and appealing.
Himani Tiwari is passionate about working with people with disabilities. She is currently working as the accessibility and Veteran's services manager at a Community College. Himani is a foody and enjoys everything that has to do with art and music. A creative person and her caption encapsulated both the pictures of Covid testing.
'One is happy when single!', was Jaishankar's caption which hooked the Jury. It conveys the lighter side of Covid test results. A former Colonel, he has won the KBG contests several times. A blogger and an adventurer, Jai loves nature and wildlife.
'Two for sorrow, one for joy!' was the winning caption given by Nidhi Bhargava. She is no stranger to KBG readers having won the Contest several times. She creates designs with paper, jute, cloth or anything reusable. An environmentalist, she loves to be with Nature.
Ritu Bhargava's caption in Hindi "एक रेखा से शान्ति , दूसरी से अशांति !" which means 'Single line brings happiness, the second brings misery!' interpreted the two lines of Covid testing beautifully. Ritu has a masters in English literature from Jaipur University. Her interests are cooking music, dance and writing. She is a regular participant and has won several KBG Contests.
Once again, congratulations to all the winners.
Despite such a drab and negative set of pictures, the readers continued to be creative. Special thanks to all the readers.
We promise the next caption contest will have a more pleasing picture!
Bye till then.
Stay connected.
- Harsh-the-Ghumakkad with Neeta Bhargava/1st October 2022
Postscript 2nd Oct 22
From Col Jaishankar who recalled another anecdote from his rich 'humour in uniform' collection. Thanks for sharing Jai.
Reminds me of my young officer (YO) days when I lived in the single officers" annexe of the Officers' Mess The adjutant would give unearthly timings to the YO detailed as duty officer for night guard check rounds of the unit area .
This took over an hour going around the peripheral posts, the bada muayna (inspection) at the quarter-guard and at the kot (armoury) in a jonga (an army vehicle larger than a jeep).
The duty NCO (non commissioned officer) would arrive in the jonga a clear 20 minutes before time and start a loud knocking on the door of the YO detailed as duty officer. He would persistently knock till either you pulled on your fatigues and boots and went out or the senior subaltern yelled at you from his room to get out and let him sleep in peace.
😊😊
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