CQ? Dot Dot Dash!

At dusk, HC Opr. Thangpuii of the MPRO would sit down in front of an awe-inspiring set of radio tech and call out, “CQ! CQ!” My siblings and I were always suitably impressed. We’d gather round her and listen as she rattled off some letters and words and sometimes got news and sometimes took attendance, I think? I don’t really know. All I knew is she would listen on her earpiece then courtly and diligently note down things maybe grown-ups understood.

Dad encouraged this behaviour of ours because he wanted us to understand and memorise the NATO Alphabet. Sometimes he’d quiz us on them. My dad has always been big on quizzes. Very annoying behaviour if he calls you up at 6AM in Delhi and ask: Who among you can tell me when the last Mautam was? (It was in 2007, if you care. If you know this one novelty song Zo Sport, you would remember it from the lyrics that go thusly: Sanghnih pasarih Mautam Zosport! Why I cram my head with useless trivia, I don’t know.) But as far the phonetic alphabet goes, I have to grudgingly say, his method was effective.

Things you memorise as an impressionable kid is retained somewhere in the recess of your brain. If you want to know the scientific explanation of this, watch the excellent documentary called Inside Out by Pixar. This is how my mother can recite all the Post Offices from Silchar to Tlabung in order. This is how I also, less impressively, can still sing the ketchup song Asereje at the drop of a hat. In Spanglish, no less. Or the NATO alphabet. You can quiz me on this. I’d welcome the challenge to show off my rather useless talent.

All of this was back in the 90s. The setting was Luangmual, Lunglei at the Sentry House near the Commandant, 2nd Bn MAP Residence Quarters. Mike. Alpha. Papa. If you can understand that. NATO Alphabets are very useful, actually. If more people knew this set, there’d be less communication gaps. I mean over a bad reception, I could say Mike. Golf. November. Romeo. Echo. Golf. Sierra., for example, and the other person would understand and correctly note down MGNREGS. And not have to resort to say M for Mango, Mmmango, MANGO, MAN-GO! Theihai! No, it doesn’t work.

I don’t know why dad wanted us to know it. But he also was – still is, actually – always excited about these communication devices. For example, if you give him a flashlight, he’d grin and flash it three times and go: dot dot dash! Dot dot dot dash is the Morse Code for V. For Victory. The only other code I know is dot dot dot - dash dash dash - dot dot dot which is the international distress signal SOS. My dad only says dot dot dash so I don’t think anyone would understand him if he tried to communicate in Morse Code. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.

CQ, by the way, is just the radio call. The MPRO used it as a way to deliver news and take attendance. Still do, I guess. We used it again during General Elections 2018 in Champhai for some network shadow areas; that brought back fond memories. These days, internet has more or less rendered it redundant but as a back-up, still solid!

One of the reasons dad wanted us to learn CQ and NATO alphabet and all that is also because he brought work home. Often we’d sit in front of typewriters (yes, the bulky ones from days of yore!) and he’d dictate his piece and we’d type for him. So he wanted us to be familiar with his lingo. As in when he said Greetings STOP It is the 7th of March 2024 STOP… he wanted us to be able to understand STOP just means a period signalling the end of a sentence. And when we didn’t understand each other’s pronunciations, it was easy to resort to India Delta India Oscar Tango! Very effective. I kid. I don’t think he ever learned A for Apple, B for Boy as a kid, so maybe NATO Alphabet was It for him and he just wanted us to know.

I don’t really know. I just have fun with it.