NOEL ELLIS' GOOGLE BLOG

  Droplets 💦 💦 make my ❤ DIL KHUSH 💙

  LOSS OF LIFE IS UNEXCEPTABLE   LT COL NOEL ELLIS 14/IX/2023 Sons of India got martyred yesterday and many are battling for their lives in various hospitals. A tragic day for 19 RR, their parent units, J&K Police, and our country. My heartfelt condolences to the bereaved families of the brave hearts. May their souls rest in peace. ‘Lashkar’ is the group involved, they say. Where does this group have its origins? And we are playing cricket with those Bs. Telecasting rights earn revenue. My foot! Life of a soldier doesn’t come cheap. Another soldier will replace him, but cricket cannot wait. What nonsense! To take on terrorists in such mountainous and forested terrain is not a joke. Hats off to the CO who led from the front. Both he and his Company Commander were already decorated with gallantry awards. Another decoration will find no chest to proudly wear them. Widows and orphans will keep feeling the pain, every time they see those medals, with no one to wip...

  ELLIS' GARDEN 🥀 🧡 DIL KHUSH 💙

  Moon 🌙 this morning made my 💙 Dil Khush 🧡

New Spotted Water Lily 🌷 Colour blooms in the Ellis' Garden, 🧡 DIL KHUSH ❤

  SAB KI LIFE SET HAI   LT COL NOEL ELLIS 09/IX/2023   It is time to bloom again. Plants are happy and so are birds and insects. Some birds are still nesting but many frolic around. They sing, dance and fight but keep the environment alive. Often, we see Crows chasing Koels. Probably the crows have found out the Koel’s secret and caught them red handed laying eggs in their nest. They, like fools, were raising the Koel’s chicks. Koel is a swift and agile bird. It can dodge and manoeuvre much faster than a crow in flight. The poor crow is drawn away from the nest and the Koel it was in a hot pursuit with, suddenly vanishes in thin air. She turns around a tree but the crow keeps going in the same direction. The crow gives up and sits to rest on a lamp post, while the Koel re turns to Coo on a tree close by. There is also a ‘Drumstick’ tree in our vicinity. Fresh pods will sprout soon. White flowers have covered the tree which is attracting birds, butterflies, bees, and bumbl...

 Ellis' Garden 🧡 DIL KHUSH ❤️

  CHANGE IN DRESS   LT COL NOEL ELLIS 06/IX/2023   India is changing to Bharat. So, the Armed Forces are also ‘Bharatizing’. Bhartiya Navy is at samundar and in the lead as it adopts a smart new Bhartiya ‘Mess Dress’. Brings down so many memories and ‘fauji idiosyncrasies’ to mind. We were the ‘first course’ who passed out from IMA Dehradun to change from Cotton Olive Greens to Terry-Cot uniforms. Starched pants and trousers had their own charm. Everyone wanted them to be as stiff as stiff could be. Then that era faded away. Full sleeves uniform shirts were changed to half sleeves. We had to rush to the unit tailor to get our sleeves cut to size. My first posting was in Jaisalmer as a 2Lt. Dungaree was the dress for all occasions. Nice starched ones which had multiple pockets on the sleeves and sides. More the number of pockets, the more the style. My Dad told me to buy Khaki cloth. ‘Desert colour’ was his logic. It was the ‘Nark Army’ uniform colour. That l...

  THANK YOU TEACHERS   LT COL NOEL ELLIS 05/IX/2023 Teachers tried their level best to teach me subjects which I could never make head or tail of. My father was a teacher for English and I still am poor in grammar. My spellings get mixed up. I write ‘i’ before the ‘e’ so many times. I think in Punjabi and then translate it to English. Sometimes in Hindi just to see if I remember ‘Sandhi-Viched’ or whatever it means. In NDA they taught us a variety of subjects, English was one. Believe you me, it wasn’t a cake walk. Prose, poetry, essay, precis writing, and what not. Out of all the poems in the world they taught us Byzantium by Yeats. What had an Army Cadet got to do with ‘Hades Bobin’ wrapped on a mummy, I haven’t been able to figure out till now. The poem haunts me till now. Byzantium put me on the relegation warning list for being ‘hopeless’ in English. On top of that the stamp of St’Kaps, (my school) added to the misery. I told the teacher during my interview ...

 Meet my 🐿 friends 🐦 🧡 DIL KHUSH ❤

  BULBULS BREAKFAST   LT COL NOEL ELLIS 04/IX/2023 When the morning starts with songs & greetings from birds, smiles from colourful flowers and blessings of wind when it touches you, what more can one ask for? It all started with grooming of the Champa tree. Dry and wilted flowers get stuck between the leaves giving it a shabby look. As I was removing them, a very familiar insect brought a big smile to my face. A ladybug. No, not the red one but a yellow spotted one. It was after ages I saw one. If one ladybug had come more can’t be far behind. It was hiding behind a leaf. Rightly so, as the early morning birds were on the hunt for their worm. Moment, it got exposed, down came a bulbul to snatch it. I released the branch just in time. The bird got startled and flew away to where the rest of her pack was. A little down our lane yellow bummed Bulbuls were creating a ruckus. Their chatter and flutter caught my attention. It was time to investigate. Their commoti...

  💛 DIL KHUSH ❤️

  Koel Bole ...... 🖤 DIL KHUSH 🖤

 Pink 🌷 Water lilies 💟 DIL KHUSH 💗

  QAIDI NUMBER 804   LT COL NOEL ELLIS 30/VIII/2023 If someone is wearing a white shirt with blue stripes and a matching ill fitting pyjama. This person stands in line for food which is a ‘watery’ kind of dal and thick rotis as hard as stone are given to them to eat. What comes to the mind? High above on the boundary wall, an observation post keeps a keen eye on them. At night a search light revolves around their abode. High walls, barbed wire fences, ferocious guard dogs are all around. Inmates stay in smelly & dirty cells. After long years in “Umr Kaid”, a man walks out of a trap door in the main door. Someone offers a fag and a light. The ‘first puff’ to freedom goes deep into the lungs. This person swears to get the real culprits behind the bars and prove his innocence. This is a story of “Qaidi number 804” and his country, locked up in Attock jail. A heartthrob, a Casanova, a cricketer, a philanthropist turned politician who rose to become the PM of hi...

 Super Moon 🌕 through my lens ❤ DIL KHUSH