It is the ambition of every beginner writer that his/her work must be recognised and published in some newspaper or magazine. The writer then would fly in cloud nine at seeing his writing in print. But what happens if you get into trouble for writing it, not ordinary trouble but diplomatic trouble? Read on.
Wouldn’t you like to be Shakespeare – II?
Your very first article, after you had gone through a course on ‘freelance writing’, was accepted by a newspaper and got published too. Hurrah ! Great news indeed and you celebrated the occasion with your family members and friends with gusto. Then you heard a small whisper from within, “Hey, you have the talent. Why not go in for ‘dialogue’ writing; there is more money in it, boy.”
The right opportunity for it arose when I was posted as a member of the UN commission for Vietnam in the year 1959. Vietnam then had been divided into North Vietnam and South Vietnam, the 17th parallel acting as the dividing line and known as the DZ (Demilitarised Zone) for us. There was to be no intercommunication whatever between the North (under the Communist control) and the South (under control of United States). And if anyone dared, they were pushed back mercilessly to the home side. The UN commission members alone were the personnel hopping between the two sectors.
In December 1959, I was posted at Hanoi, the capital of North Vietnam, for a 3 month tenure as the Communication officer of the UN set up. I was an young Captain of the Indian Army then.
The UN Commission was composed of three Nations – India (Chairman), Canada and Poland. The role of the Commission was to supervise the ceasefire between the two parts of Vietnam and of course stopping any kind of infiltration.
Life in the evenings used to be a nightmare in Hanoi. There was hardly any entertainment there; no movies, no stage plays and no nothing. The diplomats of the different Western countries threw dinner parties left right and centre not only to while away their time but also to spend off the entertainment allowance granted to them. The Indian Army officers were invariably invited to these socials possibly due to diplomatic courtesies.
I had never thought that the diplomatic pow-wows would be so dull and so colour less and so restrained in conversations. No one spoke to you freely. The only aural sounds one heard was the clanking of whisky glasses and Scotch flowed like rivers. Even the reactions to a joke were subdued often ending in simple clucks. This wasn’t my concept of relaxation at all, having been used to total informality and gay abandon in the
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