The secret to a healthy and happy life as per my father’s drill ustaad (instructor): ‘पैर गर्म, पेट नर्म, सर ठंडा’
Translation: Warm feet, healthy gut, cool head.
No one could have put it more succinctly.
When, at one time, knowing a few drill ustaads himself, my brother wondered if this gentleman dispensing such perfectly pithy advice ever took it himself, given how hot-headed (and constipated) they all came across on the drill square, I remember my father laughing and commenting on it that if he (my brother) had the guts, he could ask his ustaad himself, for no one he (my father) knew could gather the nerve to do so in his time. My brother simply nodded in agreement, and it was never spoken of again.
