Musings on the Margins

Raj Kamal Johri

Musings on the Margins is my second collection of blogs.

After spending nearly thirty-five years in public service, from the exuberance of youth to the quiet retirement, it is only natural that many of these writings revisit the roads I once travelled. These blogs are woven with autobiographical fragments of my own journey - memories of childhood and youth, years in khaki uniform, encounters with people and places, moments of triumph and embarrassment, laughter and loss, and a realization that arrives unannounced with age.

The margins often offer a clearer view than the centre. It is at the edges of life that one notices the unnoticed. This collection, therefore, is not merely a chronicle of events, but an attempt to preserve fleeting emotions, observations, and experiences before they dissolve into silence. If these musings provoke a smile, awaken a forgotten memory, or encourage a gentler look at life and its overlooked corners, they will have served their purpose.

Join me in looking a little closer at the margins. Because someday one might move from the centre to margins.

Raj Kamal Johri writes from the ‘margins’ where life is less about headlines and more about the quiet, observant edges of experience. A retired officer of the Indian Police Service, he carries with him decades of encounters with people, power, absurdity, and grace. Born in the Hindi heartland and shaped professionally in West Bengal, he has spent over fifty years not merely serving in a different cultural landscape but learning, comparing and slowly absorbing its rhythm into his own sensibility.

This collection invites the reader to step into the space, where the serious and the trivial meet, where memory softens into insight, and where an observer finds meaning in the margins. It promises no grand conclusions, but a friendly voice that nudges you to pause, smile, and perhaps find a similarity with some of your own life experiences.

Raj Kamal Johri is a recipient of the Indian Police Medal for Meritorious Service and the President’s Police Medal for Distinguished Service.

Contents

On The Margins

Acknowledgement

1. Between the Two Ears
2. Decorated Ignorance
3. The Struggle and The Triumph
4. Dhaka Kachori
5. Double Breasted Suit and Samosa
6. EGO
7. Flattery
8. Fly by Night
9. FUN-K, FUN-D, FUN-2 Of the 52nd Re-union
10. A Gift without a Price-tag
11. Ikigai: Waking Up with a Reason
12. In Search of the Soul-Mate
13. Is That So?
14. Jeans, Sneakers and Uniform
15. Jyoti Basu and the Flight from Trivandrum
16. Murari Lal
17. Of Bends, Blunders and the Bladder
18. The Roots
19. Something is Rotten…
20. The Spit and Spat
21. The Cruelty of Forgotten Fame
22. The Dress Order
23. The Food and Mirza Ghalib
24. The Generation Next
25. The Library of Mind
26. The Long and Short of it
27. The Night Before the Calendar Turned
28. The Other Stage
29. The Rise and Fall of a File
30. The School That Failed a Child
31. The Stolen Bag
32. The World is Lucky to Have Me
33. Thereby Hangs the Tail
34. Whose Slogan is It Anyway