North East India has long been conflict-ridden. First came fights among tribes, then tribals versus non-tribals, then tribals and non-tribals against invaders, followed by cries for independence, protests against discrimination, and so on. It was this way before the British arrived, it remained so after they left, and it continued unchanged as part of India. The 70s and 80s saw mass insurgency, agitations, and political unrest. And yet, if there was one man who was the undisputed and omnipresent aspirational icon across the region, it was Bruce Lee.
My generation grew up under his stern, steely, daring, all-seeing eyes. He was everywhere, staring down from posters on the walls of bedrooms, roadside eateries, garages, and barbershops. Fights in ticket queues outside theatres screening his movies put those in the films to shame.
With much of the population having Mongoloid features, teenagers and young men imitated his look and strut, sporting the Lee-cut hairstyle that resembled wild boar bristles. They maintained perpetual scowls, or the wary, all-seeing Chinaman look. Many joined martial arts classes, and even those who didn’t still radiated the aura of kung fu and karate experts.
Traders made a killing selling Jalandhar-made fake Chinese nunchakus. Both original and pirated reprints of Kung Fu Weekly, with the inevitable Bruce Lee poster, sold like hot cakes. The Tao of Jeet Kune Do and Official Karate magazine carelessly graced the coffee tables of the more well-heeled. Cheap, smuggled Chinese black cloth slip-ons, dubbed “Lee Shoes,” were on the feet of every self-respecting teenager. If anyone had started selling yellow tracksuits with a black strip, he would have become a billionaire overnight.
By the time I got into martial arts in the late ’80s, Bruce Lee had been dead for over 18 years. Newcomer taekwondo became the most popular “kicking sport,” karate still had a modest following, and kung fu was all but forgotten. Several martial arts clubs thrived in town, their dedicated members religiously doing their morning and evening “hu and ha” sessions. They attracted an oddball mix - aggressive bullies as well passive types, the posers and wannabes, a handful of angry feminists, and both cocky and frightened kids whose parents mistakenly believed martial arts would teach them discipline, self-confidence, and self-defence.
The instructors, meanwhile, were a veritable rogue’s gallery: a notorious gay paedophile, two brothers who moonlighted as muscle-for-hire, a con artist who used his student goons to extort donations for his “foreign black-belt exam tours” while he hid in his village, and a brash young woman rumoured to provide more pleasant “services.” I shunned all the prominent schools, primarily because I knew most of their resident bullies very well, and there was no way I was going to let them humiliate me as a bumbling novice.
So I selected Judo. Unlike karate with its dance-like katas, it offered close-contact sparring and, most importantly, its unique appeal was that it was almost unknown.
The dojo was nestled on the top floor of the stadium’s crumbling gymnastics hall. Apart from the coach, there were only two students: an unbelievably good-natured Bengali and a Bodo of indeterminable age, perpetually sneering, suffering from what I can only describe as “Angry Nigger Syndrome.”
My loud mouth and wide circle of friends piqued curiosity, resulting in a steady stream of aspiring students to the dojo almost overnight. Most vanished after day one. A few stayed and became serious judokas. For me, it was recreational at best. My heavyweight ensured I was always paired with gorillas twice my size and strength, so competition results were predetermined.
I also lacked the “cool and aloof” aura martial artists magically acquire the moment they tie a gi. Which explains why you never see them fighting on the streets, with equals anyway, except in kung fu movies. Their sacred art is reserved for the dojo alone.
So when I smashed the face of a college senior, the holier than thou sermons were endless. I had allegedly used a "secret" judo move. The morons didn't realize that standard Judo is just grabbing laundry and sweating on people, hoping to make them trip; it doesn't break cheekbones.
Atemi-waza, the striking techniques of judo and jujitsu, which I admit I practised privately, had long been banned in competition sport and hence not taught at all. Even our coach knew nothing about them, despite his expert know-all act.
The senior, a known bully shoved me from behind with a slur without any provocation. As I turned to hit him back, I was jumped by students “breaking up the fight” because it was on campus. So I went around the building and caught him at the next corner. Again, I was grabbed by others trying to play peacemaker. But this time, even with my back to him, I wriggled one hand free and threw a reverse backhand punch that looked like a cross between an uncontrolled upswinging pendulum and Pugachev’s Cobra. For bystanders it might have looked like a move borrowed from "Snake in the Monkey's Shadow." In reality it was zero technique, just pure improvisation and violence.
He complained to the student body, the college authorities, and later even tried hiring goons, without much luck. Despite being a fresher, I faced no disciplinary action.
I was told, I cracked his cheekbone. When I saw him months later, he still looked wrecked, one eye shut. After that, nobody tried physical bullying again. Unless you count the moral lectures about my use of “secret fighting techniques" against unequals.
Once, one of the stadium senseis sternly called me aside. I braced myself for another rebuke about some female-related issue, as I had unknowingly acquired the ill-deserved reputation of a Lothario. Most of my problems back then were either caused by or related to women. Not much has changed. Usually it was moralising lectures like the TT coach said the girls were complaining that you were an oggling at them. In most cases nobody complained, it was just their way of asserting dominance.
No, he just wanted my help buying a telephone call metering machine. Long before mobile phones, cities were dotted with manned telephone booths called Public Call Offices, or PCOs. One shop in town held a monopoly on selling such equipment, and high demand meant deliveries often took months. The owners were acquaintances, and I was good friends with the eldest brother, despite him being decades older.
The sensei heard about my good relations with them and wanted me to get him a machine out of turn, and at a discount. However, instead of politely asking, he threw what the Japanese call an aete, a challenge or dare, as if the onus was on me to prove my worth by fulfilling his demand.
Still relatively polite in those days, I offered to accompany him to the shop and put in a request on his behalf. But no, that wasn’t enough.
“Can you do it or not?” he demanded, grinning confidently, snapping his fingers beaming at the gathering crowd.
I repeated my offer to put in a word.
“So, you can’t!” he jeered.
I shrugged and walked away.
Weeks later, while walking through the town market, the eldest brother from the telephone shop yelled my name and beckoned me over.
“Hey man, come here! I’ve got a great story for you!”
Apparently, the impatient sensei had visited their shop on his own, using me as a reference, but in a manner worthy of a true dojo knucklehead.
Sensei: Are you so-and-so?
Shop owner: Yes, how can I help you?
Sensei: Aren’t you friends with Ravi Pagal?
Shop owner: I know many Ravis, but none of them are mad.
Sensei: … Heh heh…
Shop owner: Can you be more specific? I really don’t know any “pagals.”
Sensei: I mean Ravi Deka, we all call him that!
Shop owner: Well, let me tell you this. I know Ravi very well and consider him one of the most intelligent young men I’ve met. When brainless people fail to recognize superior intelligence, they call it madness.
At this point, the whole shop bursts out laughing.
Sensei: Er… heh heh… no, no, he’s my good friend, like a younger brother! Actually, I wanted a PCO machine…
Shop owner: We’re out of stock and not taking bookings.
(He later admitted he had a spare box under his desk.)
Sensei: But Ravi said...
Shop owner, cutting him off: I don’t know what he said. But feel free to come back with him, and we’ll see what we can do.
Red-faced, the sensei left, never to be seen again. He never again raised the topic with me either.
Not being Putin, the novelty of tumbling around daily in sweat-soaked gis with equally perspiration-drenched men, who collectively stank like horse farts, wore off after a few years. The judo coach never conducted exams, citing various excuses, and we remained yellow belts even after three years, while our contemporaries in karate and taekwondo were inching towards their second dan black belts. It only dawned on me much later in adulthood that this was his secret technique for job security, ensuring he remained the only judo black belt in the state.
Finally fed up with persistent back pain and swollen wrists, I traded it all in for motorbikes, peace, love, and Rastaman vibrations with their hazy fumes.
Truth be told, I found the world of martial arts riddled with bullshit, posers, and fallacies. While it may look cool in photos and deadly in films, in reality it is much like Facebook where human flaws like posturing, insecurity, ego, envy, ambition, and bullying take centre stage. The core difference? Martial arts leave behind not just bruised egos, but also broken bones and bodies crippled for life.
Years later, I learned from newspapers that the sneering Bodo had been jailed for planting a bomb in a city marketplace, killing many. Another judo student was caught with a kilo of heroin, though it miraculously turned into flour at the forensic lab, the same miracle also emptied his father’s bank account. The sensei himself was arrested for extortion, claiming to belong to a militant outfit. The rest, they just drifted off, attritions of time and adult life commitments.
Incidentlly, the PCO equipment shop owner too went on the run, because his criminal friends robbed a railway warehouse, stole a bunch of ticketing dumb terminals thinking they were computers, and dropped them at his shop for repairs. That’s where the police found them. The last I heard, he was trading Himalayan wild herbs and berries.
A sprinkling of Japanese wisdom aside, and counting ich, ni, san, shi, years of judo neither taught discipline nor provided inner peace. It didn’t improve concentration, and it certainly didn’t attract female attention. There is, however, one invaluable principle: kuzushi, using the opponent’s weight to unbalance him. Metaphorically speaking, its also the perfect tool to counter any aetes thrown your way. Works in the literal sense too, but I... you haven't heard me saying so...
Reflecting on all the toxic bullying I’ve witnessed throughout my life, from friends, relatives, employers, and clients alike, all packaged as aetes or dares to manipulate others into doing impossible tasks, and usually for free. Now grey haired I have finally started applying the kuzushi principle in real life. I no longer play defence, justify myself, negotiate, or argue. I listen patiently and then shift the burden back onto them. I ask for a wish list and a budget, then respond with what I can do, when, and at what cost.
After all, judo in Japanese means “The Gentle Way.”
PS: I told you its a load of bullshit!
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