An Officer, A Gentleman and A Man

I saw him every day and he noticed me too. He and my dad would exchange a nod and a smile. In that space between his military nod and my dad’s civil smile, I tried my best smile at him but he held his facial muscles as if he was from ice age. He had a close cropped head, a clean-shaven visage like a smooth boiled egg and his jaw had a permanent tilt like saying, “Forward March”. I felt he must be a martian. 

Dad disagreed, "No, not Martian. He is a Colonel"

I try to pronounce it the best way I could and Dad gives a disdainful linguist look at my repeated mispronunciation of it.

An army officer, dad explains further, as we walk down the road, my little footsteps trying to match his manly ones.

"I think he wants to smile at me," I tell my dad who knows what that entails and he quickly says,“He is an officer and a gentleman. Don’t disturb him with your stories" 

“Can I ask him for the gun to shoot thieves…" but busy adult dad hardly hears my question to bother a reply.

Curiosity in me is an oddity I am born with, so I ask my ‘grown up’ cousin "what is a colonel?" 

She shoots off her ill-earned theory "An officer, a gentleman who has leadership, courage, bearing, integrity, power of expression to name a few qualities"
I try to imagine what all could be. I write them down on misty blue paper, tuck my half-chewed pencil in my pocket and decide to discover all that myself.
So on a Sunday noon when the rest at home rest, I sneak out.

I break two rules of my house: 1. I step outside the gate/ the line of control. 2. I leave without informing anyone.
The officer lives in a big house. I climb up the compound wall, hang myself upside down and just when I reach the doorbell placed between the wall and the gate, I feel a stiff shadow behind me. 
He glares at my path of entry but waits for me to speak. An officer and a gentleman.

 I hang there till he growls, “Hop down”

Hopping from the wall I decide to be civilized and wish him," Colonel Uncle, Good afternoon"

He has a bass toned voice and my mispronounced title irritates him, “Call me colonel”

I decide , that is his way of letting people know he is from a different world. Power of Expression ticks away.

I don't get it and try to pronounce it but he waves the attempt away with a shift of a stiff chin. 'Bearing' ticks itself.

He leads me to his house in perfect etiquette and I settle on  repeatedly polished wooden furniture, polished like his shiny, eggy visage.

"So what brings you here, young lady" he asks in his bass toned voice.

I explain to him my need to own a gun. He watches me more than he listens and declares," I cannot give you my gun. But the next time robbers come call me. I can handle them single"

Power of expression at its peak! I smile at the offer made.

" Do your parents know you are here?" he narrows his eyes as I evade the question.

Integrity, I tick away.

And then a lady walks in with snacks and offers them to me. The officer's wife but the moment she steps in, the officer loses a little bearing. Courage ticks away too.

They argue and while I bite greedily into a sweet bun, the weekend hysteria of  a wife springs fresh!

 Then real action starts, the first to fly by is the second plate of sweet buns. The second is  a saucepan from the kitchen, it misses my head by half an inch but almost scathes the colonel’s shoulders. And then she eyes me, and I know that familiar look in an adult woman’s eyes and I scoot before she can hold that glance  a second longer.

I get out of his house the way I entered but at a speed that makes me hit hard the ground on the other side of the wall. I can’t withhold the temptation to peer inside again and I hold the ‘grilly’ gate and peer through the narrow gaps. I see his helpless, haunting eyes , I understand why he can’t part with his revolver. I see the man in the officer and the gentleman.

That night I feel a sense of remorse that there was nothing martian about him, but I write down in my misty blue notepad with my half chewed pencil, “A colonel is a man.”