Nirmal Jayasinghe

I’ve been reading this fascinating book lately, Tail of the Storm. Actually I first read it sometime ago, about last April I guess. But still it is a mainstay in my reading list. There’s something new to be discovered in it almost each time I read it. Perhaps because I like the book’s background so it may be an explanation, but I think it’s narration deserves special consideration as well

Tail of the Storm is written by an ex-USAF/Air National Guard C-141 aircraft commander, Major Alan Cockrell. He served in the titanic airlift effort that was mobilized by the US Air Force to supply the Desert Storm operation, which was mounted to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi invasion. The book is partial autobiography, written in first person view, and also a graphic description of the Desert Storm airlift operation. I kind of like nonfiction than fiction, and this was a rare treat. The author would have as well made a decent living as a writer as well as an Air Force major. It also describes the life of an Air Force (and later Air National Guard) pilot’s life in a thrilling manner. It describes how the author joined the Air Force, how he graduated, and life as a reservist. It describes how he got involved in the airlift operation, and goes into describe some other experiences he had in the course as well.The reader is given a vivid description of how life of a crew went as the colossal operation unfolded. The crews were flying overage jets, battling fatigue, indecent facilities at staging bases, and the like. The airlift operation was mostly carried on by people who were called into active duty from Air Force Reserve Command, so some of them had to cope up with the stresses of being suddenly mobilized, such as devastating careers and deteriorating businesses and families. The narration is excellent, and can be very well read and enjoyed by a person not involved in flying.

This of course isn’t an action thriller. Sometimes it wanders off the main stream to describe the people the author has encountered, his friends, their beliefs and the incidents they stumbled upon. One that caught my particular interest was the chapter on how they flew to earthquake-shattered Soviet Armenia with disaster relief supplies and their meetings with Soviet pilots and people. The author’s unit, Mississippi Air Guard, “Wings of Deep South”, were the first US unit to respond with supplies, and at that time it was a symbolic act of friendship between the USSR and USA, as Soviets had enough airlift capacity to do the job.

This is excellent nonfiction stuff I came around recently. It might not interest you a lot is you aren’t an ‘airplane buff’, but you need not be one: there’s so much more to read. Also an excellent glossary is supplied. One downside is I’m not sure where to buy it from. I borrowed it from British Council Colombo: you may get it from there but you’ll need membership (which might probably cost more!). I think some copies maybe available over amazon, that’s where I got the image from. Worth a readin’ anyway, if yeh ask me.

I love the Sun. Actually, clear sunny mornings and afternoons. Thank goodness Colombo had some during this and last weekends. I can remember cause last Saturday I woke up [actually exaggeration, I didn't sleep at all] thinking the person whom I cared about most in this world was, well, let’s say I woke up thinking I’d never see her (alive). It was so awful and there wasn’t anything I could do about it and I went out in the morning. It was such a fresh and clear great morning I couldn’t stop noticing even amongst my anxiety. It was the Sun who gave me power to standup and face that potentially fateful day.

They have such a power of washing you off of all stupid, downy down feelings and give you their undying power. Clear days do. Every weekend morning I walk through about a kilometer through Green Path to school, when I can very well take a bus: but I don’t. I need the morning to charge me up for the day.
The air is so clear and the sunlight is so sparkling brilliant. It’s so refreshing. You can see through a clear stratosphere straight upto the Moon. Even at midday. One who is fortunate enough to notice can’t help but mesmerize in the clear wonder of nature. When I’m home during weekdays, if it’s clear and sunny, I take a quite stroll in calm backlanes in my suburb at around 4pm. It’s so great and now I just need it to absorb stuff I’ve been doing whole day. It simply is a wonder.

I wish the clear weather would last. Now that one whom I care is back here safely, and I look forward so eagerly to share all these small wonders I’ve been treasuring, with her.

In the middle of exams, with me in hot water, the last thing I want is to lose all my dad’s important documents from his account in my computer and have a standing order placed on me to try my best to find them! Well that’s exactly what I did.

This is the story. My dad uses the same computer as me at home and I have created a seperate user account for him [so he won't see all the stuff I do on it, ha ha]. We continued to live in harmony til I was possessed by some freak spirit or something which convinced me that I should try tinkering with his account, well which in other words, LOOKING FOR TROUBLE!!

What I did was decreasing the status of his account from “Normal User” to “Guest” [I use Windows 2000]. That’s all, and I happily went along with my life, only until next day he sat at the computer and demanded, “where are my spreadsheets??”

I thought as usual he must’ve mixed up My Documents with My Network Places or something [kidding, ok?] and went over to look. Well I should’ve noted something coz the image my sister had selected him as a wallpaper was missing. I also should’ve noted the little speech box pointing to the start button saying “Click Here To Continue” or something. I didn’t.

I straight double-clicked My Documents and, what the??.. , there was only one folder called My Pictures. I sensed that something was seriously wrong here. My dad also felt it, and asked whether I needed time to find his docs, and I gratefully sank into the seat he vacated.

I couldn’t believe it. The complete account was, well, reset. All the docs were gone. Oh, oh.. this meant trouble. I only changed its privileges, and there was absolutely No warning about this. Oh no.

My dad had previously asked me to backup his files regularly. Fortunately he had forgotten it or else I’d have been dead [coz I forgot to back them up!]. Later I got a recovery tool via LifeHacker but I could only see stuff that were deleted through the Rubbish Bin. Nowadays I don’t have much time to look at it as well, I’m overrun in tests, and well.., I dunno. My sis had some of her photos in the same account and she’s only not eating my head off. And me, well don’t laugh, so-called IT undergraduate.

I’m sure the system didn’t warn me of this when I switched privileges. Or there was the warning and I didn’t read it. Whatever way, I’m dead, lol.

Be careful when fraternizing with the particular OS from Redmond, ha ha.

I’ve been thinking about this war crisis going on in our country. Now there are people who were saying like, it’s kind of good to “give them” what they deserve. I think they mean destroying the terrorists. Sometimes even the people who say that don’t seem to be very sure what they’re talking about. They just vaguely seem to say things out of really thinking out stuff, like whether this is the real solutions, do we actually know what is going on, etc., etc.

But the bitter truth here is that our country has a war going on. One that eats up a big portion of our GDP, what we’d have spent on having a nicer country, better hospitals, better education facilities if we weren’t at war. What I’m trying to say here is not whether the war is good or bad. Not whether it would bring lasting peace or anything. What I wanted to do was to look at it at a grassroots level. How it affects us kind of individually.

Let’s take the forces, who are battling it out hand-to-hand out there, for instance. I don’t think any of the people there would like the idea of a war. I’m not talking about the bigwigs, majors- and lieutenants- general of any side. No, the people who are at it. I think they actually have the broadest view of the war than anyone. Not that they’re cowards and like the war to end, on the contrary, we have had enough examples to witness the selfless, heroic manners of them. They know when they have to battle it out. But certainly not the way people out of it (and the ones who mostly shout about it as if they know everything about it) know and feel about it.

The people who know about it are the people who are at it. Who are affected of it, and the loved ones of the people who are at the frontline. They’re the people who feel it really in their hearts. It’s not that if you’re-a-hawk-you-should-go-to-war kind of thing, but what I’m saying is if you’re connected to it in a direct manner, then the way you look at will undergo a whole, rational transformation. You’ll know what’s important about it, what’s not, and how terrible it is and you would be eager to find an effective solution, something less terrible.

I myself wanted to join the Air Force when I graduated. Not that I was a war hawk or anything, it was my dream. But my father, who is a born hawk, didn’t let me. He knows one of his friends whose son flies Mi-24s for the AF, and he says that the guy is on constant alert about what’s going on. Once his helicopter was fired upon and was forced to land in enemy territory, and he had been really upset until he knew his son was safe. So my dad didn’t want me to go in and get enlisted and get into it.

What I think is that the gravity of the whole war thing is not comprehended by most of the people in the country, so we must think twice before opening our mouths to voice our opinions about it. Will we hold the same opinion if we were directly affected by it? Sometimes hard to imagine. But it’s there, it is.