NOEL ELLIS' GOOGLE BLOG

  LT COL NOEL ELLIS   24/V/2025   It was a lovely morning, the sun shone bright and the sky was as blue. My visit to the Mandir side beyond our colony boundary wall was due in quite some time. They had put barriers by deploying thorny Kikkar branches to block the entry of stray cows, near the mandir. It was time to give it a check.   Aim was to meet my very old good friends ‘The Peafowl’ family. I keep hearing their calls, beckoning me to say hello to them but I did not respond. Today, was the time to spend some time with them.   As I reached the side gate, there was a flock of BIRDS trying to scavenge some scattered grains. People were not feeding them like they used to. Maybe, people had gone on summer holidays. Even their water bowls were dry. I requested the guard there, who seemed totally disinterested.   I asked the ‘Tittahri’, about the rest of her friends. She too just kept feeding. Then I asked Robin. She was busy singing and bobbing her tail with ...

  LT COL NOEL ELLIS   23/V/2025   How do you like to have your drink? Some like it shaken and not stirred, some ‘on the rocks’, some like it ‘neat’, some hide it in coke, some straight for the bottle, and some don’t mind ‘Tharra’. I will not talk about ‘Hooching’. “Alcoholics’ can drink all the above.   But what about my birdie friends? Birds can drink water from anywhere. It could be from a river, a pond, a nala, even a drain. Some get used to a homely environment, love to have it from their bar aka an earthen bowl. It is like having a cold drink in this heat.   For birds their ‘bar’ is like the ritual of going to fetch water at the village well where they congregate. They gossip, tease, fight, nudge and even shoo each other away. Two to three sips and it is all done. No one wastes it, no one gets drunk and no one minds drinking straight from the same bottle.   It was like the younger days when we shared one beer bottle amongst frie...

  PADHARO MAHRE DESH

  Egret at Kaylana lake

  LT COL NOEL ELLIS   20/V/2025   Having finished the garden chores, I sat down with a cup of tea to watch a few reels on my mobile. The first one was my favourite song “Hello” by Lionel Riche”. I started drifting into nostalgia.   I sailed to my childhood to those black and white nascent TV days.   Those were the good old Door Darshan (DD) days. Being in Punjab and very close to Lahore as the crow flew, we used to receive two TV stations. DD Amritsar and PTV (Pakistan Television).   We grew up watching Paki TV plays, and serials like I love Lucy, Mind your language, Disney cartoons, and the 4pm WWF. Like the opening music of DD, we got well versed with the Paki “Kaumi Tarana’ and National Anthem too.   TV stations on both sides used to function for a few hours only. Then there used to be ‘Ceasefire’, till transmission began the next day.   Two things one can never forget. On DD we used to hate to see a “takhti” or ...

    LT COL NOEL ELLIS   17/V/2025   I had just finished schooling and was through to NDA. I was to join the summer course once the formalities were done. One had to visit Delhi for ‘NDA medicals’ 1981.   An uncle used to stay in an extremely stinky place called Raigarpura, Karol Bagh. From there to Base hospital meant changing two buses. I still remember the routes. A ‘double decker’ on route 88 to Central Secretariat. Then 560/570 to Kirby Place near ‘Base Hospital’.   The 560 route always fascinated me as it ran along a well-maintained road which passed many Embassies. One of them bugged me no end as I was about to join a career which meant fighting that country. It was the Pakistan Embassy.   The surroundings were covered with dense tree cover. A prominent green gate and some blue domes like that over Masjids used to be visible from my bus window seat. It looked more like a religious place. I used to conjecture that all sinis...

A trip around the Blue City with my daughter

  LT COL NOEL ELLIS   16/V/2025   Once upon a time there was a country called Pakistan. For our story we call it “Pygmy stan”. It separated from India and became too big for its boots. It would fight, create chaos, kill innocents, and become the most innocent person on the other side of Indus, as if it knew, saw, and did nothing.   As time went by, they kept feeling threatened by their huge neighbour and started conspiring with all those whom they could. Finally, they made the “Atom Bamb” and threatened all and sundry, like holding a Katta without any Goli. Their nuclear bluff was called out so many times, but then some besharam people are incorrigible.   Their kingdom started going into bankruptcy and deep debt. Its rulers were corrupt. Still, they made a mighty army who took over governance time and again. They created pygmy fighters who could not tackle the giant called India. Their small and ineffective bows and arrows could not even prick ...

  WATER LILIES 14 MAY 25

 

  LT COL NOEL ELLIS   13/V/2025   Enough of Indo-Pak dhishoom-dhishoom for the time being. Thoughts kept flashing in the mind but now after a pause in the battle there is peace. We made enough “Choorma” of the enemy. Time now is to ‘chew the stew’.   That reminded me of what I have just finished doing. Making ‘Choorma’ for my birdie friends. Each day, they wait for me desperately to enjoy the roti morsels I serve to them. These days we have set a signal to indicate “Bhojan Prastut hai Shirman” as our Mess Havildar used to report when food was laid for the officers to proceed for a meal.   Pieces of roti are spread on a tin sheet. Birds come to feed/rest & take a break. We have shade, food, and water, plus security from cats. It is a nice perch for them to spread their wings for a while.   Though they are alert and waiting but moment I spread their “dastarkhwaan”, I bang the plate on the tin sheet. Boy, you have to hear the ‘chirpy ...

      LT COL NOEL ELLIS   12/V/2025   Was it a little too early to declare ‘Ceasefire’ with Pakistan? This question has been churning in my mind since the time it was declared. Personally, I am very disappointed. As the famous saying goes “Ye Dil Mange More”. More of and from Pakistan, with an end to their nefarious activities forever.   I do not know what transpired at the highest levels, but as a Veteran who was deployed twice for over a year, once when Kargil happened in1999. We had our ammunition and missiles loaded, waiting for the ‘green signal’ which never came as the operation was localised to Kargil area.   The second time, when the attack on our Parliament happened in 2001. That time I was heading a ‘logistics train’ of an offensive Armoured formation and could never hear “Tally Ho” to unleash our fire power against the enemy who had hurt us and got away with the impression that they could carry out attacks and get away wi...