You are what you eat (and drink!)

 

A small observation. 

Much of the world’s misery could be traced to India, more precisely, to the Indians’ obsession with food.

 

Purely as an example, we have seen the water in the kettle boil. George Stephenson saw this and went on to invent the steam engine which changed everything. An Indian saw the same thing and invented the ‘idli,’ presumably the greater invention. Till date, no one has succeeded in fully mechanising (at reasonable cost) the humble chapati, another great invention.

 

Indians invented the spices, saffron and fasting (fastidiously called ‘dieting’). The fame spread far and near. So much so that many intrepid souls ventured out from different shores in search of India.

 

One guy called Columbus went and saw some land and was thrilled thinking he had found India. Later, another guy, Cook, landed up there and, probably to justify his name, thought he could start ‘cook’ing immediately. That piece of land is modern day America. Many expeditions failed but meanwhile, wherever the English, Portuguese, Spanish and the French stopped to pick up food and water, they also colonised. This is how most of the world was colonised.

 

Someone gave me this theory when I was on a UN deputation in Sierra Leone. He was not an Indian. He was Portuguese. And a coloniser to boot.

 

Whatever be the problems between the two countries, the Indian and Pakistani officers get along well in the multilateral work environments like UN deputations. When both the contingents landed almost simultaneously in the Mozambique mission, the initial situation looked a little daunting. Until we, the Indian and Pakistani officers discovered an Indian restaurant called Taj. On our first outing there, when the bill arrived in Meticals (1 USD = 8,000 Meticals), one Pakistani officer exclaimed, “Ghar mein pata chalega to beta bolega, baap lakh lakh ka kha gaya!” [“When they get to hear about this at home, my son will complain that his father has eaten through millions!”]

 

On being allotted our assignments at Mozambique, an IPS batchmate and I reached our duty station, Pemba at around 4 in the afternoon after a 500 km drive. We hadn’t had lunch, were bone weary, and famished. The UN office was in a four-storey building which was earlier a hotel. The owner retained the ground floor and rented out the other floors to the UN. He used the ground floor as his residence-cum-restaurant. He was of Indian origin. We thought we would approach him for our immediate requirement of some nourishment, any nourishment. He was very helpful and polite. Only problem was the language barrier. He could speak and understand any language provided it was Portuguese and we had zero knowledge of that language. Anyway, with a lot of hand gestures and mouth gestures, we managed to convey, after a labour of about 15 minutes, that what we wanted was omelettes and bread. Finally, when he understood our frantic gesticulations which included sound effects of a hen laying an egg, etc., he said, “Ahh, um momento,” or something to that effect which we took to mean, “one moment.” Our choice of the cuisine was predicated on the premise that any restaurant would have these basics and even the worst cook in the world couldn’t really spoil an omelette. After a few minutes, we found the guy revving up his scooter and going off. We could see his travel trajectory. He went into a shop at a distance, bought the eggs, bread, butter and so on, came back, prepared the food and served. From the point of order through the comprehension of the order, procurement of the ingredients, preparation and service was in excess of an hour and a half. JIT (Just-In-Time management) was not even a glimmer in the eye of the management gurus then but this guy was already practising it.

 

Over time, the guy actually became our go-to guy for everything. Pemba was a place where we lived our lives cyclically, i.e., cycles of plenty and cycles of famine alternating with each other. Everything was imported – eggs, matchboxes, vegetables, rice, everything. Once in a month or two at unpredictable times, a ship used to dock and all the shops, roadsides were awash with foodstuff and essentials for a few days. Then the town used to lapse into prolonged barrenness. This UN office guy became our storekeeper and procurer for all these essential items. The booze on offer was generally whiskey and beer (called cerveja). These were of fancy brands like Chivas Regal, Johnny Walker, Heineken and so on. They were all too mild for the Indian palate and taste and the Indian officers used to keep pestering him for procuring something “stronger.” He used to make frantic trips in search of this something stronger. Increasingly stronger stuff was just not meeting the Indians’ exacting requirements. Finally, one day, he announced that he had managed to get hold of the strongest whiskey in the world and, with a flourish, produced it before our astonished eyes. On the label, there was no name of the manufacturer, bottler, or anything. There were just three letters in huge, bold type. R U M. He pronounced it as room (whiskey). That “whiskey” was really coarse, hard and rough and was an infinitely rum experience.

 

At Pemba, we had a most interesting boss. His name was Mattie and he was from Finland. We didn’t see him the first two days. On the third day, he arrived and after a few pleasantries, begged off saying he had a hangover because of a bit too much the previous evening and went home. Later, we found that this was his regular pattern – he would appear for an hour or two every 3/4 days, completely hung over. The officers used to talk about different sizes of drinks, small peg, large peg, extra-large peg and, finally, Mattie peg.

 

Two officers who were IPS batchmates and posted at another station, stayed together and started fighting from day one. Some of these fights spilled over to the workplace also. One of them was Paramjit Bajaj. When the incumbent  Provincial Commander returned to his country after completing his term, Paramjit lobbied long and hard for becoming the Provincial Commander. When the other guy was made the Provincial Commander, he locked the Provincial Commander’s office room and disappeared with the key – to be traced a thousand miles away later. I was in a nearby station and one batch senior to them. Once when we met socially, I asked Paramjit why bother to fight; it was a short assignment; money was the same for everyone; the fight was creating an adverse opinion on the Indian contingent; and so on. He was fairly convinced but suddenly asked, “But Sir, how can I stand him – the guy doesn’t even eat non-veg?”

[Rum-maging for “whiskey”]

 

 

[Some names changed to protect identities]

HEWK

I have always wondered why cops are given firearms - they could always kill brutally with the particularly fascinating form of language which passes for cop-English. 

I was first exposed to it when I received a leave application from a subordinate staff:

 

"Most respected Sir,

With reverence and reference to the above, I most humbly submit that my wife has been suffering from various female diseases for the last so many years when I have been working under your kind control to the entire satisfaction of my superiors.

Kindly give me leave for 10 days and oblige for which act of your profound kindness I shall remain eternally grateful to your kind self,

your most obedient servant, ..."

Much of Police communication takes place over the wireless. A typical wireless message:

"The situation was extremely tense but the police tackled it with a cold brain" (meaning, thande dimagse niptaya).

I once rushed with a huge contingent of force because of the following wireless transmission:

"One Miss Shikha is lying in a pool of blood on the tram line," “One Miss Shikha is lying …, “one Miss Shikha …” I went and found there was no Miss Shikha, no commotion, no nothing. Turned out, the guy was trying to communicate: Ek chhoti gai (i.e., one Miss She Calf) tram line pe mari padi hai.

 

The Police wireless is very abuzz whenever there is a VIP movement and all the persons speak very excitedly. One day, during the movement of the then Chief Minister, every point of Police deployment en route was confirming the movement of the cavalcade. Suddenly, “The CM has just passed away, the CM has just passed away …,” meaning the cavalcade had just crossed that point.

 

The important cases like murder, dacoity, etc. are designated as SR (Special Report) cases, i.e., they are supervised and monitored by senior officers and are disposed off only with the approval of the Deputy Inspector General. The monitoring is mainly through progress reports (PRs) which are initiated by the Circle Inspector and goes up the line where the SDPO, Additional SP, SP and DIG keep recording their orders for investigative actions. There was a bit of dispute about one of my Circle Inspector’s English. He thought it was brilliant; everyone else thought it was unspeakable. For some reason, he used to give his English (and his imagination) full flow while writing the PR of rape cases:

 

“X espied Miss Y at a marriage function of mutually interdicted couple and their four eyes became interlocked into two pairs. This increased into an affair which prospered into physical proportions. This propinquity continued not once, not twice, but again and again over a period of five years and three months. When the inevitable marriage was summoned, X’s wife objected vociferously and X declined stertorously …”

 

Another Circle Inspector used the English language creatively to escape having too many SR cases. Of all the cases, Dacoity with Murder is considered the most heinous. Such cases are recorded under section 396 IPC and are expected to be supervised by senior officers without any loss of time. One morning I heard that there was such a case in a particular Police Station the previous night and rushed there. The Circle Inspector feigned ignorance and said that there was no SR case. I decided to check all the cases of the previous night and found that there indeed had been such a case. What he had done was, he had written up the case as an Unnatural Death case. Now, an Unnatural Death can range from anything from an accident through drowning to suicide, etc. and a specific case is not even registered. He had recorded a complaint under section 424 IPC which pertains to fraudulent removal of property which is a minor, bailable offence. When I berated him, he offered to start a case under section 404 IPC – dishonest misappropriation of property possessed by a person at the time of his death. Hello!

 

Pre-computer days, one had to depend on the steno to take dictation in short-hand and transfigure it on a typewriter. I had a steno who could understand any language provided it was Bengali so it was a laborious process. Mostly, whatever he produced had very little resemblance with what I had dictated and the first output had to be heavily edited, emended, corrected. Around the third effort, it would be somewhat passable. There was an urgent query from the CM’s office which needed to be replied to immediately so I asked the steno to do it carefully. I gave him dictation for about half an hour because I had to choose the words with some care. Suddenly I saw that his pencil was not moving on the notepad so I asked him how come. He politely informed me that he hadn’t understood a word of what I’d dictated in the previous 15 minutes or so, hence he had stopped taking it in short hand. I was flabbergasted and asked him why he didn’t stop me and ask. He said, “Sir, aapnaar flow ta nashto hoi jeto” [Sir, your flow of thoughts would have been disrupted]!!!

 

I didn’t say anything but was reminded of the Ajit-Raabert joke:

Scene:  Ajit thoroughly disgusted with Mona daaa..arrling's typing.

Ajit:                   Raaberrt, Mona ke dono hathon ko kaat do.

Raabert:           Magar kyon baas ?

Ajit:                   Typing to nahi aatee, kamsekam shaarthand to kar legi.

 

 

I have also wondered what would have happened if Shashi Tharoor had become a cop and was blessed to have that steno …

 

Have English, Will Kill (HEWK).

 

[Second episode later! It will be called USEL -

Unconditional Surrender of the English Language.]

Marriage and morals

 

This week, I attended a Bengali wedding reception after a long time – for the daughter of a very dear IIMB batchmate and a (highly prolific) fellow blogger. It was a well-arranged and joyous affair with a charming crowd and very nice. In an earlier life as a cop, I have had a few brushes with weddings in Bengal, some joyous and some not-so-joyous. 

I was just a few days into my first assignment as Sub Divisional Police Officer (SDPO) when, one early morning, a very young boy and an equally young girl landed up in my residence-cum-office seeking help and solace. Turned out, cupid had struck and they had gone and quietly got married without the knowledge and against the wishes of their parents. Both the sets of parents (and, of course, the inevitable relatives) were furious and the girl’s parents had threatened them with severe punishment including and up to death. I rang up the local Police Station and asked them to look into it. Shortly thereafter, the agitated parents of the girl also landed up and were extremely adamant and extremely furious, in parts. I referred them also to the Police Station and set out for another Police Station area where a heinous crime had been committed the previous night.

 

After supervising the incident, raids and interrogation of the arrested accused persons in the latter case, I returned home fairly late in the evening. My house complex (residential office) was choc-a-bloc with two sets of crowds from the boy’s and the girl’s sides. They had parried and thrusted under the guidance, cajoling and persuasion of the Police Sub Inspector but could not reach any common ground. The boy’s parents were unhappy at the marriage having taken place without their knowledge but had nothing against the girl. The girl’s family were in a how-dare-they-elope mode even though they didn’t know much about the boy.

 

I asked them what they expected me to do, it being a civil, social matter. Both the sets of parents and relatives said, “Ja SDPO saheb bolben oita final.” [Whatever SDPO saheb says will be final.] I told them that as I wasn’t married, my knowledge about these matters was zilch so I won’t be able to advise or prescribe anything. I reiterated that it was a civil and social matter. However, both the sides were adamant and threatened not to leave until I decided. Very reluctantly, I intervened and a “formal” marriage ceremony was held. I hope, the couple had a blessed married life. My career practically started on the dubious note of jumping into something where I had no expertise or jurisdiction.

 

This posting was also in the same place where I had undergone the district training. Usually, in a uniformed service, there is a lot of social distance between the ranks. However, since the junior officers had trained me, all of them treated me as family. One day, a Sub Inspector named Karmakar turned up with an emotional pitch when I was sitting in the Kotwali (town) Police Station. His brother was getting married (another love marriage) and he said he didn’t have much in terms of family and would be grateful if the other officers and I attended the marriage. I accompanied the Inspector of the Police Station and other Sub Inspectors to the “Bou bhaat” function. In Bengali marriages, this is an important part when the new bride feeds the guests in the groom’s place with food cooked by herself.

 

The occasion was bubbly, the feast was lavish, and the bride was very friendly, smart and chirpy. We didn’t see anyone from her side of the family but I didn’t enquire closely into it as it was a love marriage and it was better not to be inquisitive. We came back after thanking Karmakar who was thrilled at his close colleagues attending the wedding en masse.

 

A month or so later, the Inspector (Bodo babu) of the Police Station rang me up one morning and told me there was a problem. There was a complaint of dowry death. This was a time when the country had become very agitated over a spate of dowry deaths and bride burning continuously highlighted in the media. In response to the public hue and cry and in legislative wisdom, a new section 304 B was inserted in the Indian Penal Code and another section in the Indian Evidence Act whereby, in the case of any unnatural death of the bride within the first seven years of marriage, it was liable to be treated as a dowry death and the accused persons had to prove that they were innocent, not the other way around (presumed innocent until proven guilty) as obtained in other crimes. We were also instructed to give such cases priority and immediately effect arrests first and ask questions later. So I told the Inspector he should go ahead with lodging the FIR and asked where was the problem. He told me that Karmakar’s sister-in-law whose Bou bhaat we had attended had committed suicide and her parents were at the Police Station demanding that an FIR be lodged. I still didn’t see the problem and asked him so what. Then he revealed that they had collected a list of all the persons who had attended the Bou bhaat and had named them as accused. This, of course, included himself and me.

 

I dropped everything and rushed to the Police Station. I talked to the deceased bride’s parents who were actually very decent folk and friendly but absolutely determined about the FIR. In the polite discussions, I also asked them about their absence during the marriage. They said, “Ora toh CPM kore, aamra Congress kori; ei jonno gelam na.” [They support CPM, we support Congress; there was no question of our attending the marriage.] That was my first inkling of how deeply party politics had got entrenched in every aspect of everyone’s life in the Bengal of those days. Anyway, the Inspector, with his exceptional persuasive skills, managed to convince them that we were innocent so they pared down the list of the accused to just the husband and the in-laws. Phew! If they had insisted on their original list of accused, I would’ve probably ended up arresting myself!

 

When I joined as Superintendent of Police (SP) of a district, my tenure started with an all-out clash with the local big leader of the ruling party. However, over time, he became very friendly (or probably gave up), ceased to try any intervention and used to drop in for occasional friendly chats completely unconcerned with administration or politics. During one such visit, I found him a little down in spirit so asked him why. He said he was feeling sad. His daughter had just been married off. I was solicitous and offered a few general platitudes. Then, he burst out with, “Everything is fine. The boy is very decent, doing a handsome job, is from a very good family. Everything is great. Except that we are CPM, they are RSP; I’m somehow just not able to reconcile myself to this …” This was at a time when CPM and RSP were constituent parties to the same Left Front government. I was stunned! And not a little amused.

 

My Police career which practically started with intervention into a marriage when I had no experience of the institution has drawn to a close. Since that incident, I have been married and now my kids are about to get married. I presume to have some domain knowledge about marriage now. However, no one asks me for advice or intervention in matters related to it any more. Not even my kids.

 

 

[Name changed to protect identity]

 

Something (more) about West Bengal cadre

 

These chronicles will not be complete without mentioning an officer named B.B. Biswas (now deceased). He was from the State Police Service. When I first met him, he was Additional Superintendent of Police in the adjacent district of Coochbehar. In Police, when a law and order situation develops, it is communicated urgently on the wireless. This being a one-to-many communication, all important officials and stations get to hear it simultaneously and take action, as required. Whenever there was any such situation reported on the wireless in Coochebehar district or any district where B.B. Biswas was posted, such a message was almost immediately followed by a message that the Additional SP (i.e., Biswas) had rushed to the spot. However, someone did some research and found that although there were numerous reports of B.B. Biswas having started off immediately for all the trouble spots, there never was any report or evidence of his EVER having reached any of them. All the SHOs of all those Police Station areas are still awaiting his arrival. 

When the post of Additional SP, South 24 Parganas was falling vacant, B.B. Biswas moved heaven and earth to get posted there. That was not because the jurisdiction was huge or because it was close to Calcutta. One reason he was desperate to be posted there was that he had three wives belonging to three different Police Station areas of the concerned zone. It was a logistical nightmare for him to coordinate his domestic arrangements from a remote posting. The second reason, as stated by him, was that there were 19 Police Stations in the zone so if each one contributed at least Rs. 2,000 per month, he could keep his assorted wives in relative comfort. His logic and his efforts to achieve the outcome became widely known. However, unfortunately for him, I got posted in the zone instead. This sent him into depression but when someone was trying to commiserate with him, he replied that he was almost posted there but at the last minute, the typist made a mistake and typed out B.B. Dash instead of B.B. Biswas. May his soul rest in peace.

 

In Bengal, no one used to attend office before 11 A.M.. On the other hand, there was a rush to leave office at around 5 PM. In one of the offices, in a fit of idiotic insanity, I thought there should be more discipline and asked the Bodo Babu (Section Officer) as to what actually was the government-mandated office time. He hemmed and hawed and scratched his head and indicated that he had never come across any order specifying it. I set him and others to search for the order but to no avail. One day, I just walked into the office at 9.30 AM and marked everyone absent for the day. People started rolling in at 11 AM as usual and were horrified. By 11.05 AM, all the relevant orders pertaining to attendance magically appeared on my table.

 

The actual office timing turned out to be 10 AM to 5.30 PM. Later on, while I made it a point to land up in office at 10 AM, I generally deferred to the local custom of 11 AM start to the office by the others. When I was IG (Admn), sitting at Writers’ Buildings, the bastion of state administration and also then the bastion of militant unionism, one day, a Section Officer turned up casually at around noon. There was something important to be dealt with and I was upset and made known my displeasure at his tardiness although as per his calculations, he was late by only one hour. The same evening, I was discussing a file with him and immediately after 5 PM, he kept looking at his watch pointedly. I was annoyed, pointed out that he had come inordinately late in the morning and asked why then was he looking at his watch at 5 PM? He said, “Dekhen Sir, Sakale ek baar late hoychhilam; eki dine dubaar late hote pari naa.” [See Sir, in the morning, I was late once (arriving); can’t afford to be late twice (while leaving also) in one single day.]

 

To go with the militant trade unionism of the subordinate staff, we also had a fairly militant IPS association, albeit without the rights of industrial action. One particular year, there was a hotly contested election between two groups of officers who openly branded themselves as “the haves” vs the “the have-nots.” The “haves” were further divided into “grass-eaters” and “man-eaters” but that’s for a later blog. The “haves” took the floor first and held forth on how they will transform the cadre by increasing the cadre strength, creating extra posts at the senior levels, etc.. The “have-nots” talked about district assignments for all, reducing arbitrariness in posting, and so forth. Meanwhile, a senior officer, known for his excessive militancy, wanted to have his say and rushed towards the microphone. Many other senior officers tried to grab and restrain him because with him at the mike, anything could happen. Somehow, he managed to escape all the clutching hands and shouted into the mike, “All these big things are bunkum. Tell me what you’re going to do about medical reimbursements.” When everyone was surprised at the question, he added, “I still haven’t been reimbursed for my wife’s first delivery. The child is now grown up and about to get married …”

 

In the state Intelligence Branch, two officers of the same batch were posted as Addl Director General. One of them was heading the Branch and the other one was holding another important post. There was constant struggle for establishing supremacy. Things came to a head when the second officer landed up in the office early one day and parked his car under a portico leading to the offices. Traditionally, the car of the head of the Branch used to be parked there and there never was any trouble earlier because the other officers in the Branch were always either junior or from junior batches. When the big chief arrived, he was aghast to see that “his” spot was taken. The other officer refused to get his car moved. Things escalated through the Home Secretary, the Chief Secretary and finally to the Chief Minister. After a lot of heated discussion, it was finally resolved that the car of one of the officers will occupy that space for three days in the week and the car of the other officer, the remaining two days. Why the cars couldn’t drop off the officers and be parked elsewhere is a question that was never asked.

[Names changed to protect identities]

Something about West Bengal cadre

 

Even before eight of us IPS probationers landed up in our allotted cadre, West Bengal, we were exposed to tales of what a unique cadre it was. There was a case of a DIG (Deputy Inspector General) at Barrackpore who, in a fit of exaggerated conjugality, picked up his service revolver and shot at his wife. Thrice. He hit a few valuable things but not the wife who ran to the local Police Station to lodge an FIR against him. For an SHO of a Police Station, this was equivalent to several kilotons of atom bombs bursting on his head without warning. Caught in the Scylla vs Charybdis, he did what every SHO does in such a circumstance – delegated the decision upwards. His immediate superior, the Circle Inspector did his bit and passed it up to the SDPO who passed it to the SP and so on up the line right up to the supreme authority, the Head of the Police Force (used to be IG then). The IG heard out the whole story on the phone, merely said, “Oh, I always knew that DIG was a bad shot,” put the phone down and went back to his newspaper. In the enquiry, the DIG’s explanation: “Hadn’t been to the firing range for a while so I missed.” 

When we heard the tale, as a curtain-raiser before arriving in the cadre, we thought it was semi-fictional but later, several sources confirmed it to be true. When we arrived, the first bit was a month-and-a-half-long training at the Police Training College (PTC), Barrackpore for learning about local laws, local problems, local customs, local language, etc.. One night, at about 2 AM, we were jolted awake by a huge commotion in the neighbourhood of our Mess. We didn’t know Bengali then. Our cook, Ravi who stayed in the Mess, didn’t know Hindi or English. However, since he was from Orissa, I was designated to find out from him what was happening. I nudged him awake with some urgency and asked him what was which. To which, he nonchalantly replied, “Oh, it’s nothing. Just the recruit constables bashing up the Superintendent of Police.” We were stunned.

 

What had happened was that a recruit constable had taken ill in the evening and his associates had taken him to the Command Hospital in the PTC campus. Since it was outside the OPD hours, the doctor was not available so they took him to the doctor’s house. However, the doctor (reportedly inebriated) didn’t wish to attend to him at his house. Later, the patient’s condition worsened and he died. His associates went ballistic and went to the doctor’s house to attack him. Having learnt the news, the doctor had fled. When they didn’t find him, the recruits vented their anger on the Principal whom they could find in the campus. The latter probably didn’t have any inkling of the situation leading up to the death till then.

 

As the Principal was getting beaten, his panicked colleagues rang up a senior officer in Calcutta, informed him of the situation and requested him to come handle it. The senior officer asked thrice, “Is the situation serious?” Each time, he was told that, indeed, it was as serious as could be. Realising the seriousness of the situation, he refused to come. We were pretty shaken by the incident. Those were the days of severely militant trade unionism informing all walks of life in West Bengal.

 

At the National Police Academy, Hyderabad, we had attained proficiency in many physical activities including swimming for which there was a nice swimming pool there. At PTC, West Bengal, we had to do swimming and we happily marched out under the diligent supervision of the ustaad (trainer). However, we couldn’t find a swimming pool. What we saw was a "pukur," practically a ditch where water had collected since prehistoric times. When we looked askance, the ustaad just smiled and said, “Nahin, zyada gandaa nahi hai!”

 

After that "idyllic" month and a half at PTC, Barrackpore, it was time to go for our district training and confront what is called “real life.” Prior to that, we needed to submit a Travelling Allowance (TA) claim for a troubled area visit (to Darjeeling) which we had undertaken as a part of our training. The claim needed to be submitted on the last day and we trooped in to the TA clerk’s office at about 1030 hrs. to collect the form. The TA clerk was nowhere to be seen. We kept visiting his office at half-hour intervals, only to be rebuffed by an empty chair and other signs of non-occupation. 

Time was ticking by and we had to catch our trains in the afternoon so on our third visit, in desperation, we went to the next-door room which was the office of the Head Clerk (Bodo Babu) who was around. When we told him about our predicament, he said we should just wait a while; the TA clerk would appear like magic when we least expected it. When we insisted, he said, “Aare baba, bollaam toh aasbe, ektu wait karun.” [Uff, I told you, he will come, wait just a bit.] We told him we had been waiting and waiting and had trains to catch and so on and he kept repeating the same answer. Finally, we asked him exactly where the TA Clerk or his house was so that we could visit him and plead. To this, he replied, “Ei toh aamar saamene base achhe, aamra ektu golpo korchhi.” [Umm, he’s sitting right here opposite me. We’re just chatting a bit.] This was 1988. I submitted that TA bill for Rs. 263 and some paise. The reimbursement is still awaited. Hell hath no fury like a TA clerk whose gossip session has been interrupted.

[The swimming pool]

[To be concluded]