Rum, Bum and Mouthorgan and other Indian Army stories

THE BLACKBEARD


I had just been posted to Secunderabad.

By the virtue of my rank and appointment, I was a one of the senior officer of the Station.

My looks were, however, deceptive.

I had not greyed and I had firm skin. I was slim and lean and I always correctly attired, befitting my rank. In fact, I was the only officer who wore a hand tied bow always and every time. And most importantly, I had the confidence that should come with service.

Yet, I had a problem.

My contemporaries were stouter; they were either grey or balding and most were conscious of their rank and position.

My ‘young’ looks caused the perennial problem of being mistaken for a junior officer. The problem was compounded since Secunderabad was a military college town and there was a surfeit of young student officers. The positive side of my mistaken “youth” was that it led to hilarious situations.

It happened soon enough.

A Major General, celebrating his marriage anniversary, invited my wife and me to his private party at the College Officers Mess. He, too, had been just posted to Secunderabad and had not yet been allotted official accommodation. Therefore, the venue.

The environs of the party were magnificent. The Officers’ Mess had an immense cascading waterfall at one corner duly illuminated. Inventive lighting had enhanced the effect of the area of the party and added to the ambience.

There was already a sizeable gathering when we arrived. The General and his wife received us at the entrance. Formalities over, we moved on and circulated amongst the guests. This party was an ideal opportunity for us to meet a large cross section of the officer community of the Station.

I spotted a friend, and, between the sumptuous hors d’ouvres and drinks, engaged him in conversation.

It was then that I spotted a slim, well dressed Sikh officer in one corner of the lawn. He had an arresting presence that possibly was contributing to the large gathering around him. Obviously, he was an accomplished conversationalist since huge guffaws intermittently, though regularly, emanated from that side.

I meandered to the side where this Sikh officer was regaling the crowd and since that was where the action was.

One could not be brazen and so while I did not join the group, I remained on the periphery, hoping to spot someone I knew and then join the group.

On close quarters, the Sikh officer looked younger and slimmer than me. His beard well tucked in the beard net and arrestingly black! Though young, the officer carried himself well and with immense confidence and was smart. It always pleased me to see young officers who knew their beans and carried themselves with confidence. This was one such officer.

Having ‘sized’ the ‘centre of attraction’ of the group, I went across and joined them discreetly, still staying in the periphery. The conversation centred on the shopping malls of Secunderabad. Edgewise, I could discern the Sikh officer was ‘sizing me’ up. However, I did not join the conversation. Instead, I awaited my time to put my two-penny bit when the time came.

The Sikh officer got impatient and so he edged himself towards me. He looked even younger now since I could see him better with the garden light falling full on his face.

“So, young man, enjoying yourself?” the Sikh officer asked of me.

This was rich. Once again, I was being taken as a youngster, especially by a chap who was much younger than I was. Further, even if I were not enjoying myself, it was more than apparent that I did not appear ‘in mourning’, to solicit this question.

“Yup, old fellow. Bless your heart, it could not have been better”, I replied.

It was perceptible that the young fellow was taken aback with my answer. However, he did not express anything to indicated so.

“What brings you here?” asked this officer. I was, at this juncture, distracted and besotted by a housefly that had settled on his rather aquiline nose playing a housefly rendition of hop scotch.

So, unwittingly and without realising, I said, “By car.”

It was a foolish answer I must confess and I did not grudge him asking it, irrespective of the fact that he was obviously a junior officer acting cocky. He looked rather cross at my obtuse answer. But then, wasn’t it obvious that I would not have walked since there was no residential accommodation within 4 kms and no one, not even a fitness freak, would walk this distance to a party and arrive smelling like a pigsty with sweat!

“Obviously by car you came. I just wanted to know if you had been invited and if so who are you?”

Now, this was rather cheeky for a youngster. More so, he did not even know me!

“Look, son. I am the Deputy General Officer Commanding around here and obviously, it would not behove my rank, service and appointment to gate crash. Got that? Further, if you have too much of a problem about my antecedents, do drop in at my office for my further explanation and don’t forget to take an appointment from my Personal Assistant or else you may be disappointed.” I had no desire to be there any further and so I continued, “It was nice to have known you old fellow.” With that said, I departed.

I helped myself to another drink from the passing waiter and as I was pouring the soda, I heard someone say to me, “Enjoying yourself?”

I thought it was another of those confidence bubbling youngsters and so I swivelled around and replied with the Americanism, “Yup’.

I found that it was my host.

“Oh yes, I am thoroughly enjoying myself, sir. A great party”, I said.

I was dying of curiosity and so I continued, “By the way, sir, who is that young looking Sikh chap out there?” pointing to the Sikh lad whose company I just forsaken.

“Oh him? He is no young chap. Should be around 59 years of age, I reckon.”

That was crazy. This Sikh guy was young. I was sure that my host had seen the wrong man. So, I pointed out the officer once again.

“Yes, I was talking about him’, replied the Major General, my host. “He is a Lieutenant General. He is the Commandant.”

No wonder the Sikh chap was cocky! I had made a real bloomer! I had to make amends.

I went back to the Sikh chap.

He was not too pleased to see me.

“So sorry, sir. I am new around here and I didn’t realise you are the Commandant. You looked real young”

The last part of the statement got him further miffed and it showed on his face.

It is then that I saw, under the full glare of the floodlight that had been lit to show the path to the next lawn where the dinner had been served, that the hair, tucked neatly into his turban, was WHITE – whiter than the snow on Mount Etna!

Marvels of the cosmetic industry will never cease!

BLADDER BEDLAM

This is about the interesting ‘chemistry’ between Major J, Brigadier N [my Boss] and the human Bladder.

It happened in Ferozpur, a one-horse frontier dusty town in the Punjab. The period was in the late 1980s.

Major J was one of my Company Commanders. He was massive, fat and immensely swarthy. Shakespeare’s Othello, near bred to the burnished sun, was fairer in complexion.

Major J had a fetish for wearing things in Black. This may have been a fallout from his days in the ranks {Sepoy} when possibly he did not have time to wash his clothes and it was practical to wear black; black rarely looked dirty. The Tamil politicians, who wore dark glasses [‘cooling glasses’ as they call them in the South] even at night, could have also influenced his fetish for black. He was also known as the ‘Midnight Cowboy’ by the irreverent.

On the other hand, Brigadier N, the Brigade Commander, was a polished person, but a trifle officious and highly conscious of his rank and station. Notwithstanding his polish, he was still nonetheless, a ‘true blue’ from the Land of the Five Rivers (Punjab)!

I had just recently taken over the Battalion and I was totally at sea. I had come from a ‘pure’ Mahar [one class Maharastrian composition] unit while the unit I was commanding was an All India mix. The ethos obviously was different. My new unit did not do anything in half measures. Everything here gave the impression that the Moguls were back in business. Providentially, the harems were not.

Brigadier N enjoyed parties and if his social rota was unoccupied, gentle hints by his staff ensured that the evening became ‘occupied’. One such evening was organised by my unit. I really do not know the reasons why it was organised, but then the President Mess Committee {PMC} must have had his ears to the ground and so he played by the nose! I was still finding my feet in the Battalion and did not want to upset the ‘style’ of the unit. The army man management pamphlet had wisely advised us to ‘Take it Easy and look Busy’!

N, I was informed, liked good food, exquisite liquor and rather expensive though ‘light in tar’ imported cigarettes. I was ‘educated’ by the PMC that such delicacies were always available with the unit and the Mess and that the unit was trained to ‘know their onions’. He added that as per the traditions of the unit, COs {Commanding Officers} were never bothered with the mundane; one of the ‘mundane’ issues being when parties are to be organised. The CO was expected to merely arrive and ‘grace’ such occasions!

Since I was never to be bothered with the mundane and instead had to only ‘grace’ such occasions, I decided to be just another guest. In my previous unit, the CO was not just a ceremonious figure. Although I wasn’t too happy, it was too early to enforce my views.

I was living in a room adjacent to the Mess as my wife had not yet joined me. To be in time for the Party was no great shakes. The dress code was to be ‘Shirt and Tie’ [trousers were assumed to be worn] and the time given was 7.30 PM . I was in a position to saunter in, just before the brigadier arrived and simply ‘grace’ the mundane, such as the arrival of the Brigadier!

I got ready and considering that I had time to kill, I was halfway through a whisky in my room, when the Intelligence Officer, Lieutenant SP Singh arrived to inform me that the Brigadier had just left his residence and would be at the Mess in exactly three minutes! This was interesting. Such was the ‘taped up’ drill of the unit that a minute-to-minute progress of persons who mattered was always available! I thanked him and as casually as I could, I walked out of my room. SP Singh followed in my wake with the deference of a tug in the wake of QE II entering the New York harbour.

As I walked out, I saw the red dome light of the Brigadier’s vehicle flashing on the roof as it passed along the wall of the Mess. The car entered the gate. I took up my position as nonchalantly as I could, to receive the guest. I tried to remain cool as a cucumber since it was but the mundane that I was experiencing, namely receiving my Boss! This, in any walk of life, would have been an important matter of protocol, but in this unit, it was mundane!

The MP {Military Police} opened the car door and the Brigadier’s bulk descended on the porch, beaming from cheek to cheek in a most controlled, though uppity manner, of contrived bonhomie.

The party was organised both in the lawns and in the Mess. I would have preferred the lawns since Ferozpur could be very stuffy in summer. I reckon the Brigadier preferred the better-lit anteroom, perhaps to make sure that he was being served whisky that had been matured in oak in bonny old Scotland - the traditional offering that he was used to being proffered at parties in homage and tribute. Since he did not offer the same at home, I realised that this was not his preference under the domestic portals. I wanted to make him ‘feel at home’ especially since the Officers’ Mess is supposed to be a ‘home’. So, I instructed the PMC [much against his counsel that it was tantamount to sacrilege] to offer a good old Indian whisky, preferably Peter Scot, which in those days was considered a premium whisky.

This must have got the Brigadier’s goat. To be fair, he never insisted on Scotch. Nonetheless, with the first sip, he made a face as if he were choking on cyanide! His lips had become so contorted that it seemed a swig of Tik 20 [a cockroach killing pesticide] might have elicited a more pleasant reaction.

“Interesting whisky”, said good man. It appeared that he had no intentions to take that horrible grimace off his rather huge jowled double chinned face. Possibly, he felt that sewerage gutter water had been served. He wore a look as if he was waiting anxiously for a slow death or something equally horrible and painful to strike him.

I cared to ignore the Brigadier’s curled lips and contracted stomach. I was in no temperament to use the magic antidote i.e. Scotch on the rocks or on salt petre, if you wish or whatever.

“Ah, yes sir. Jolly interesting. It is Peter Scot and I am told that it is the best Indian whisky. One must try the Indian stuff. Be Indian, Buy Indian and all that. Keeps the national economy in fit shape. What ho, sir?” said I, with a straight face. In fact, I was pleased with myself for having invoked the Nation to my rescue. It always worked. Army blokes may be odd fishes, but their loyalty to the Nation could not be contested.

“Yep”. He had this penchant for Americanism. “Is the Nation having some hassles?” he asked. As though he could do anything about it on the measly pay we got!

“Fledging economy. Third World and all that. Things can always get better. All of us have to tighten our belts, sir” was my reply as if I were an MP {Member of Parliament and not Military Police} speaking to the media. Vague stuff, but very hard to dispute.

The waiter arrived as if on cue. A ‘555’ or maybe it was a ‘B&H’ cigarette that was offered to the good man. Whatever it was, it brought some cheer and untwisted, to some extent, the huge body till then convulsing in ‘excruciating pain’. The ‘555’ sop must have convinced him to imagine that I genuinely wanted him to try Indian whisky to shore up the national economy. Fortunately for me, he, as a rule, did not read the newspapers enough in detail to know if the economy was in dire straits or not.

Alcohol is a great social leveller. With the dosage being imbibed, the party got happier by the hour. All, including the Brigadier, appeared to be enjoying themselves.

Then, suddenly the lights went out! Whether it was load shedding or an electrical short circuit, one does not know.

Coincidentally, the band was playing the song, ‘The lights went out in Massachusetts’. I thought this was another of the deliberate mundane acts that I was not supposed to be bothered with. The gimmicks were getting my goat since it was contrary to the way I had been groomed in the Army.

SP Singh came into view on cue. ‘The Ferozpur electricity has failed’, he whispered in his sombre best.

There was a controlled pandemonium. Some officers ‘unobtrusively’ rushed to get the standby generator started. Others were generally taking it easy but looking busy, taking full advantage of the ensuing darkness to be their actual self, except when they spotted me, their Commanding Officer, in their vicinity.

Those in the lawn had moved in since some candles had been lit within the Mess.

I gravitated towards the veranda with the fervent, though irrational hope, that by moving out I could somehow ‘will’ the generator into operation.

Suddenly there was a yelp, the tenor being more of astonishment than hurt. It came from the far corner of the lawn, where there was a large mango tree. In the darkness, I could vaguely discern that something large had fallen on the lawn.

I hotfooted towards this site to investigate.

The Brigadier and Major J lay sprawled on the lawn.

It transpired that the Brigadier tried to take advantage of the dark and use the lawn as a public toilet. Being immensely full of bladder, he took the easy way out, rather than grope in the dark for the toilet. Swift in his pursuit for instant relief and determined to find the ‘corner’ and possibly a trifle disconcerted by this illegal methodology for relief, he must have been less than aware of his surroundings. Thus, there was this immense collision with the gigantic Major J, to lie crumpled in the horizontal on the lawn with all his blubber bouncing in mighty glee!

J had been ‘invisible’ to the bladder crazed Brigadier because of his natural hue [those repeated dabs of powder were in vain] and his Zorro outfit!

The Brigadier was ‘mighty’ angry obviously having been ‘caught in the act’.

So, because J was in black, I felt blue the next day, when I was summoned to the Brigadier’s office!

Such is the burden of command!

MADHO AND THE BBC

It was in Kerimarg, near Rajauri, where my Battalion was deployed on the Forward Defended Localities [FDLs] or ‘Posts’ along the Line of Control {LC}. The period was just before the 1971 war.

The Commanding Officer was Lieutenant Colonel K. He had an aversion to anything that was not British. He had been commissioned into the Army when the British influence was still quite pervasive.

On the Posts, the only means of communications was by field telephone. This was notorious for bad speech reception since the WD Cable was laid over long distances. Our Battalion was spread over 16 kilometres and there were deep gullies between the Posts. This increased the reckonable spread of the unit. It took 6 hours walk on treacherous mountain tracks to reach the Tactical HQ from either end of the Battalion’s Area of Responsibility. To make matters worse, the WD cable had repair patches at regular intervals, having been cut quite frequently by trees or branches falling on them or by the swaying in bad weather. The cable was also very old and much frayed.

The comprehension of speech was further convoluted as officers had regional intonations while speaking in English; and English was the only language that K would allow to be spoken since that was the language for officers; Hindoosthani was for the troops! The Punjabi officers were the most difficult to understand because, as per the CO, they had this fetish to drop the articles like the ‘the’, ‘a’ etc at will. Thus, ‘CO come, go’ would mean that the CO had come and gone. He forgot that if that were true, then it had an added advantage – one didn’t have to ‘scramble’ the speech for security!

Extraordinarily, for Lt Col K, a shaven Sikh, it was difficult for him to understand us! Maybe it was because he was of the British vintage, who knocked down gins in the afternoon and got pink in the face. To be fair, I don’t know if he took gin in the afternoon because I confess I never saw him sporting a pink face.

To obviate the problem, it was decided by K, the CO, during one of the rare congregations we officers attended at the Tactical HQ that all the officers were to listen to the BBC so that we improved our English accent and learnt to make complete sentences. He ordered that we religiously listen to the BBC News, amongst other BBC programmes. All India Radio was a congregation of kalus [native Indians] as far as K was concerned.

We started listening to the BBC since we were quite sure, knowing K, that he would ask us about the programmes we listened to on the BBC. Initially, we were also enthused about improving our accent and so we listened to the BBC conscientiously.

Being Indians and being the stubborn characters we are, no matter how much we listened to the BBC, not much of England washed off on our accent. To be fair, we started pronouncing Bangladesh [which was in the news but only as a concept, it being early 1971] as ‘Bang-la-daash’, Pakistan as ‘Pack-his-sten’ and Lahore as ‘La Whore’. Beyond that, we remained the Indian regional characters that we were. The CO was still not happy with our effort since he still had problems understanding us over the telephone!

After a month, we were called to the Tactical HQ for a conference.

The conference went on for quite sometime. It was an important conference since the influx of the East Pakistan refugees was creating problems for India and Mujabir Rehman was being a thorn in Pakistan’s flesh. The CO felt that there could be some sort of a backlash from Pakistan and so we were being instructed on the manner how to ensure that they did not surprise us and how to contain the situation in such an eventuality, without escalating the tension.

BBC, that day, was nowhere on our minds!

Suddenly and totally out of context, the CO looked at Captain Mahado, one of our Company Commanders and asked, “Madho, are you listening to the BBC?”

While earlier during the CO’s discourse, Pakistan held our rapt attention and BBC was in the oblivion, it suddenly became our total focus. K was capable of sending us on a ‘padyatra’ [a long haul around the Posts in a stipulated period of time, the time allotted being immensely less. It required practically moving on the trot].

Each one of us quickly wracked our brains at lightening speed for the details of the programmes we had listened to and the excuses that we could trot out in case K remained unsatisfied. I, fortunately, had heard ‘Outlook’ just the day previous and was not very perturbed. Majors Shammy Singh and GS Singh looked definitely disconcerted.

“Yes, Madho, I am waiting. Did you listen to the BBC?” asked K rather testily.

We all looked apprehensively at both K and Madho alternately. Madho was a decent chap but he was a ‘be Indian, buy Indian’ chap. Being patriotic is one thing and facing K’s wrath was another!

“Yes, sir”, Madho answered most blandly. His slightly Mongoloid features gave him an almost Buddha like beatification on his face.

K appeared unconvinced!

“Good. Which BBC programme did you hear last night?”

“I heard the BBC,………………â� �¦ but the Hindi BBC, sir!”

The anticlimax was too much. I burst out laughing.

Madho returned to his Post. I went on a padyatra.

MADHO AND THE BBC

It was in Kerimarg, near Rajauri, where my Battalion was deployed on the Forward Defended Localities [FDLs] or ‘Posts’ along the Line of Control {LC}. The period was just before the 1971 war.

The Commanding Officer was Lieutenant Colonel K. He had an aversion to anything that was not British. He had been commissioned into the Army when the British influence was still quite pervasive.

On the Posts, the only means of communications was by field telephone. This was notorious for bad speech reception since the WD Cable was laid over long distances. Our Battalion was spread over 16 kilometres and there were deep gullies between the Posts. This increased the reckonable spread of the unit. It took 6 hours walk on treacherous mountain tracks to reach the Tactical HQ from either end of the Battalion’s Area of Responsibility. To make matters worse, the WD cable had repair patches at regular intervals, having been cut quite frequently by trees or branches falling on them or by the swaying in bad weather. The cable was also very old and much frayed.

The comprehension of speech was further convoluted as officers had regional intonations while speaking in English; and English was the only language that K would allow to be spoken since that was the language for officers; Hindoosthani was for the troops! The Punjabi officers were the most difficult to understand because, as per the CO, they had this fetish to drop the articles like the ‘the’, ‘a’ etc at will. Thus, ‘CO come, go’ would mean that the CO had come and gone. He forgot that if that were true, then it had an added advantage – one didn’t have to ‘scramble’ the speech for security!

Extraordinarily, for Lt Col K, a shaven Sikh, it was difficult for him to understand us! Maybe it was because he was of the British vintage, who knocked down gins in the afternoon and got pink in the face. To be fair, I don’t know if he took gin in the afternoon because I confess I never saw him sporting a pink face.

To obviate the problem, it was decided by K, the CO, during one of the rare congregations we officers attended at the Tactical HQ that all the officers were to listen to the BBC so that we improved our English accent and learnt to make complete sentences. He ordered that we religiously listen to the BBC News, amongst other BBC programmes. All India Radio was a congregation of kalus [native Indians] as far as K was concerned.

We started listening to the BBC since we were quite sure, knowing K, that he would ask us about the programmes we listened to on the BBC. Initially, we were also enthused about improving our accent and so we listened to the BBC conscientiously.

Being Indians and being the stubborn characters we are, no matter how much we listened to the BBC, not much of England washed off on our accent. To be fair, we started pronouncing Bangladesh [which was in the news but only as a concept, it being early 1971] as ‘Bang-la-daash’, Pakistan as ‘Pack-his-sten’ and Lahore as ‘La Whore’. Beyond that, we remained the Indian regional characters that we were. The CO was still not happy with our effort since he still had problems understanding us over the telephone!

After a month, we were called to the Tactical HQ for a conference.

The conference went on for quite sometime. It was an important conference since the influx of the East Pakistan refugees was creating problems for India and Mujabir Rehman was being a thorn in Pakistan’s flesh. The CO felt that there could be some sort of a backlash from Pakistan and so we were being instructed on the manner how to ensure that they did not surprise us and how to contain the situation in such an eventuality, without escalating the tension.

BBC, that day, was nowhere on our minds!

Suddenly and totally out of context, the CO looked at Captain Mahado, one of our Company Commanders and asked, “Madho, are you listening to the BBC?”

While earlier during the CO’s discourse, Pakistan held our rapt attention and BBC was in the oblivion, it suddenly became our total focus. K was capable of sending us on a ‘padyatra’ [a long haul around the Posts in a stipulated period of time, the time allotted being immensely less. It required practically moving on the trot].

Each one of us quickly wracked our brains at lightening speed for the details of the programmes we had listened to and the excuses that we could trot out in case K remained unsatisfied. I, fortunately, had heard ‘Outlook’ just the day previous and was not very perturbed. Majors Shammy Singh and GS Singh looked definitely disconcerted.

“Yes, Madho, I am waiting. Did you listen to the BBC?” asked K rather testily.

We all looked apprehensively at both K and Madho alternately. Madho was a decent chap but he was a ‘be Indian, buy Indian’ chap. Being patriotic is one thing and facing K’s wrath was another!

“Yes, sir”, Madho answered most blandly. His slightly Mongoloid features gave him an almost Buddha like beatification on his face.

K appeared unconvinced!

“Good. Which BBC programme did you hear last night?”

“I heard the BBC,………………â� �¦ but the Hindi BBC, sir!”

The anticlimax was too much. I burst out laughing.

Madho returned to his Post. I went on a padyatra.

WHO SAYS A ROSE IS NOT A ROSE AND ONE CAN CALL IT BY ANY NAME?


Corps Commanders are Lieutenant Generals and they are in seniority just below the Army Commander. Army being a narrow pyramid like organisation unlike other government services, those who reach such heights are generally competent. However, most such men forget that they are also endowed with an immense amount of luck to have reached these ranks! As the days go by, they deluded themselves that it was by their sheer brilliance alone that they earned the dizzy heights. As a consequence the majority get afflicted by an elephantine ego that almost nudges God off the mantle. Notwithstanding, the most unfortunate part is that the wives of such personalities acquire greater delusion that the Queen Mum was not the last Empress of India.

Paradoxically, we had a Corps Commander who was immensely humble. His uncomplicated simplicity made one wonder if the high rank embarrassed him. There was none of the hoity toity air that went with the rank, nor did he appear overly enamoured by his rank that offered him the luxury of feeling he was the Lord of Tartary and king of all that he surveyed! His wife, though sophisticated, was down to earth. She was busier with her personal affairs than with the imperial missives expected of such senior wives that upset lesser mortals. Her name was Jyoti.

An interesting event happened. It happened at a party held in the honour of the Corps Commander and his wife when he came visiting our Division in Secunderabad.

The party was being held in the Division HQ Officers’ Mess large lawns. The breeze was balmy, the stars were twinkling in the sky above and the sodas in the whisky were winking at the brim, in the hands of officers, on the lawns below. This party was being held after a long time. In short, all were enjoying themselves with a carefree attitude, especially since it was common knowledge that the Corps Commander was a person who preferred solitude and his own company; hence, a man of few words. Consequently, there was no requirement to fawn around him and fan his ego. In fact, it was definitely a dangerous thing to do. The Corps Commander was also famed to have a dry, cutting wit which pierced like the sabre of the Three Musketeers with the addition of the sharp precision of the Hindi film heroes, who even if they swiped totally into thin air, somehow got the villain! Thus, a witticism directed apparently at someone, also encompassed the large majority. The worst part was that it took time to understand that ‘one has been had’!

Given the characteristics of the Corps Commander, he was generally surrounded by the mandatory group of senior officers, who had no option other than ‘being had’. The senior officers good humouredly accepted the ribbing since options was non existent. One or two bold juniors ventured to be in the earshot to enjoy the wit and watch the senior officers around the Corps Commander squirm with immense discomfort and yet put on a façade of total enjoyment! Indeed, it was a great spectacle to watch.

The Corps Commander’s wife, who was equally witty, however was not cutting in her wit. Hence, naturally she had a larger group around her. In this capacity, she acted like the Huguenots who were reputed to be the ‘ears and eyes of Cardinal Richelieu’. After all, the fastest means of ‘news’ travelling is – tell-a-woman and not telegraph or telephone. Cardinal Richelieu, in this case, was obviously the Corps Commander.

The Corps Commander was nursing his Cola, since he was a teetotaller. The senior officers around him, including me, were with stuff that was more potent. The conversation was getting interesting. The Aide de Camp [ADC] was in the group that was in the close vicinity to the Corps Commander and within earshot and call.

Interrupting his conversation with the officers around him, the Corps Commander suddenly leaned out and asked of an officer in the ADC’s group, “Why, is my wife no more?”

We were all thunderstruck.

It had no bearing on the conversation the Corps Commander was having with us and we had not the foggiest of what the officer being addressed by the Corps Commander had said. Further, we had received no news to the effect that something so horrible had happened as the Corps Commander’s wife having breathed her last!

We anxiously and most gingerly swung our gaze to the group where the Corps Commander’s wife was. We spotted her. She appeared hale and hearty and seemed to be enjoying herself thoroughly. At that moment, it appeared that a fantastic joke had been cracked in her group since the guffaws were loud and prolonged. This confused us more, especially since it was very difficult to fathom the Corps Commander. We were confident that he could not have a second wife who had expired, since bigamy is a Court Martial offence!

“No sir, she is very much alive. I was just checking her name and spelling from the ADC for the invitation card for the lunch tomorrow”, said the hapless officer, now being subjected to what is known as ‘dirty stares’ of senior officers. Dirty stares of senior officers, by the way, are worse than being shot at dawn!

“Oh, I see. Sorry old chap. I thought you said ‘Jothi’”, said the Corps Commander.

“Yes sir, that’s what I said, Jothi, which the ADC tells me is her name.”

“No my friend, she is not ‘Jo-thi’. She is Jyoti, pronounced “Joe-ti”. Thank heavens that she is not dead, as I first misunderstood you having said. Remember to be careful of your pronunciation; she is ‘Jo Hai’(who is there). And so I reckon, she is Jyoti jo hai [Jyoti who still is there] and not Jo-thi [the person who is no longer there]!”

The officer asking for the name was obviously a South Indian. They add a ‘thi’ to North Indian names which have a ‘t’. Thus, Lata is La-tha, Jyoti is Jo-thi and so on.

Hence, the Corps Commander’s wife had nearly become a ‘has been’. A close shave indeed for her!

And for us too!

ALL HOLES OPEN

This happened long ago and it is not a fairy tale.

General Sunderjee of the Mahar Regiment had taken over as the Chief of the Army Staff. He was a ‘sci-fi’ solider and apparently ahead of his time. He had done a course in the USA and so he had imbibed some egalitarianism that sent shivers through the Indian Army military relics of the British Raj. His celebrated ‘Dear Brother Officer’ letter to all officers of the Army, exhorting us to be ‘men’ and quit the cult of sycophancy, was blasphemous in military protocol, to say the least. Generals NEVER wrote to the rank and file!

The General had kick-started the Army the computerisation way. He was cranking in new fangled ‘concepts’ and making the uniform more ‘practical’ was one of the low end razzmatazz. In short, the Army was on the road to various ‘experiments’.

Sunderjee’s mobile brain was too électrique for the plebeian. Of the experiments with the uniform, one was to have Regimental insignias on the collar. The Adjutant General was exhausted and out of his depth with whether to have the Regimental insignia on the collar or have it not, since some British relic Colonels of the Regiment were having serious misgivings in having their officers lit up like Christmas trees, while some others liked the idea – if only to show ‘solidarity’ with the Chief for obvious reasons. The result was like Alice in Wonderland. Instead of the heads, the regimental insignias were on one day and off the next day! The only thing permanent in this exercise to ‘practicality’ in the uniform was the ensuing holes in the collars where the insignia jumped off and on like cats on the hot tin roof. Further, it was ‘impractical’ financially to have sets of uniform to suit the mood of the day of the Adjutant General!

The Mahar Regiment, to which I belonged, opted not to have the insignia. Hence, they had holes in their collar since the insignia was no longer there. Notwithstanding, the Adjutant General remained confused as to what he had ordered and what he had not! And we preferred the holes – lest there was another change of heart for the collar insignia.

During this ‘momentous’ era of the Indian Army, I was an instructor at the College of Combat, Mhow in the Junior Command Wing.

Since he was an enigma, General Sunderjee was touring the Army and was projecting his thoughts first hand so as to have a closer interaction with the officers and ‘feel the pulse’.

The day came when he visited Mhow.

It was a balmy day when General Sunderjee arrived at Mhow. There was interest amongst those who did not know him since they wanted to know 'yeh kia cheez hain' [what type of ‘thing’ is he?] After all, in the rigid military hierarchy, no Chief had ever written a letter to all officers or had so openly talked or admitted about the growing cult of 'ji huzoor-ness' [the ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’ syndrome]. Sunderjee had already had a fan following, thanks to the ‘dear Brother’ letter. Further, his fondness for things ultra modern had made him Mohamed Tuglak-ish [the crazy, but way ahead of his time, Emperor of India]. The anticipation was as keen as would some unique specimen brought to the zoo from a strange part of the world!

While the General nestled in Guest Room No 1, the instructors and the students were all hustled into Lecture Hall No 3. In spite of the Madhya Pradesh heat and the profuse sweating, none really realised the discomfort; such was the excitement!

The lecture was still a good one hour away, but like all good things of the Army, we were herded with a large time cushion that even Army husbands don’t normally insist of their wives even when they are going for an important social event! The time lag was preposterous which matched the ‘Havildar Major timing’! For the uninitiated the Havildar Major is the Non Commissioned Officer who is responsible for the discipline of the troops who congregates troops two hours before an event, if he is a bit soft in the head, and six hours earlier, if he was not!

We arrived in the Lecture Hall No 3.

In front of us we found whole lot of gizmos and arrays of wire and some sort of a contraption that was to project the slides. Remember, in those days we did not even know what ‘slides’ or ‘view-foils’ were! Music was also coming out of the battery of weird machines that were still being set up. In fact, I thought RK Film Studios had arrived to show us some film like "Satyam Shivum Sunderumjee" ("Satyam, Shivum Sunderam" was a rather "hot" film of those days). Only Zeenat Aman (the star) in the near raw was missing! In her place it was only Lieutenant Colonel UB G, who I knew from my cadet days. He was sticking various things into place and was to be the Master Of (Information Technology) Ceremonies. Since we were not allowed to move out of our seat, we watched the proceeding with bated breath. It was as if we were to witness the launch of the Apollo satellite from Cape Canaveral!

Then on the appointed hour, the Chief arrived, duly escorted by the Commandant. People craned to have the first glimpse of this man, who was already an icon like Hema Malini, the comely female film star. He was lean, thin and tall. He bettered Malini. He was smart and handsome too! The best part was that he "ran" up the stairs to the lectern on the dais. The man was really in a hurry. If that dash were anything to go by, then the Army was really on the move!

The usual banality of introduction of the guest speakers done, we were informed how fortunate we are that the Chief had ‘so graciously deemed it fit to grace the College of Combat’ etc etc. The Commandant was at his eloquent best. He then gave way, smug as a bug, for the Chief to give his ‘two penny’ bit.

The Chief commenced. There was none of the ‘Good morning, Gentlemen and Officers’ sacrament of commencing the address. He got underway with ‘Brother Officers’. Had he been a politician addressing an election rally, there would have been instant and spontaneous ‘Sunderji ki jai. Bharat Mata ki Jai {Halleluiah to Sunderjee. Victory to Mother India}’ and all the other things the guys, at these election rallies, are paid to shout with total insincerity. However, the difference was that if we were allowed sloganeering, this would have been totally sincere!! Such was the charisma and hope he had generated with his ‘Brother Officer’ letter.

He spoke of innovations that were on the anvil and what was expected of the rank and file. He told us not to overdo the ‘Sir’ part of our life and there was no need to say ‘Haanji, Sirjee, Sir’ (Right sir, sir). He assured us that saying ‘Sir’ once was adequate. In fact, he strongly advocated calling seniors by their rank, giving an example that it was absolutely adequate to call him ‘General’ without adding the ‘Sir’; just like US Army! The stuffy British relics of the Indian Army could take a running jump! The shackles of the British Raj were finally becoming a hoary past!!! The Boston Tea Party so to say – true Indian style!

One could observe the Indian Army brass sitting in the front seats visibly squirming!

He was candid. He said that sycophancy could not be rid of overnight. He exhorted us with an example of two men who were chased by a Tiger and had climbed a tree. One had to come down and face the Tiger and maybe die. But, the other guy would be free. Someone had to sacrifice.

That did not go well with the audience, though. It proved that Sunderjee had no idea of the Indian mentality. Catch a modern Indian sacrificing for community good! That ethos had finished with the struggle for Independence. The current struggle was to find a place in the sun, by hook or by crook and most likely, by crook. I think his over exposure to the US caused this ‘thought-mismatch’ wherein he had lost the touch of reality. It was rather odd for a Tamil Brahmin to have a mismatch since they are known to be shrewd blokes who always had their ear close to the ground and nose in the air and reacted as per the situation for the maximum payoff.

Anyway, the Chief continued and having finished the address, he was given an enthusiastic and warm standing ovation. The standing up and clapping was not a ‘done thing’, but this form of recognition was creeping in. I don’t know if it was a sycophant phenomenon or the 'loose disciplined' US ways.

Then, the address was open to questions from the floor.

There was silence.

Notwithstanding my reputation of asking questions and being awkward, I thought this was a chance to test whether he meant what he said.

So I got up to ask a question.

There was a petrified look writ large on the Commander JC Wing’s face, who was my boss. It was OK to be awkward in-house, but with the Chief…..! But it mattered to me not, at least for the moment. I was like the Gorkha. Having taken out my khukri [battle half sword], it could not return to the sheath un-bloodied.

“General, it’s all very well to take the Army from the bullock cart age into the space age. But, is it possible to do so when such a simple decision as to whether we are to wear our regimental insignia on our collar or not keeps changing practically daily? One day, we are to have holes on the collar to fix the insignia, and, the next day not. It will be appreciated that we can’t continue to have two different sets of dress to suit the mood for the day of the Adjutant General”.

I knew I was being obnoxious. After all, no Chief is capable of answering simple questions. I really wanted to see if the man who climbed down from the tree [namely, me] could survive.

People froze. Sacrilege had been committed! One, a cocky question; and two, instead of addressing as ‘Sir’, the addressing was with just ‘General’ and that too rather cockily which was too close for comfort!

“Hey, aren’t you Rayc of the Mahar Regiment?”

“Yes, General, it’s me”

“It had to be you. Well, as far as you are concerned, irrespective of the order and the mood of the day of the Adjutant General, you have my personal permission as the Chief to keep all your holes open. I mean all your holes!!!!

Indeed, he proved that he was a Tamil Brahmin and not lost his touch! Next day onwards till I retired, I was provided enough evidence that the Chief was right. Ever since, it has always been ensured by the Army that I have all my holes opened!!!!!!!!

THE KNUCKLE DUSTER AND LONG KNIFE GENERAL

A new Major General, General Staff (MGGS) had been posted at our Command HQs. There was none of the ‘introduction’ rigmarole since he was the ‘get down to the job immediately’ type of man. No ‘tamasha’,(circus) no frills.

I was the Colonel General Staff (Training) and two rungs down the pecking order.

As in Staff, working involved just pushing files with notings. Interaction was rare; unless the English defied comprehension or something was earth shatteringly wrong!

Life went on as usual.

Three days past when the MGGS’ runner (peon) presented the MGGS’ ‘salaams’ to me. That was the British Raj meaning that the MGGS wanted you to present yourself to him pronto. Chop chop. The Indian way was ‘X sahib ne apko yaad kiya hai’.

Something must have gone wrong with a noting of mine.

I went to his office.

Protocol perfect, I entered and saluted.

“Sit down, bachhe”, said the MGGS.

It was another of the British Raj condescending hangovers. ‘Son’ replaced by ‘bacche’ Now, I am allergic to this ‘bacche’ business. It is a favourite with the M&S officers – the makki ka roti & sarson da saag(corn flour leaven bread and spinach; a Punjabi delicacy (sic!)) folks. But then with a name like Inder Varma, what else could the MGGS be, but an M&S. Old habits die hard. Imagine a middle aged fogey like me being a ‘bacche’ (kid).

This was the first time I set my eyes on the new MGGS.

I found him rather handsome (even though he must have been on the wrong side of 55). He was also suave unlike some of the guys around. That was his saving grace!

Opened in front of him was a file I had sent. So, something dreadful must have happened! I felt a wee bit discomfited. How did he get the hang of things in just two days to perceive an error; with just two days in a new job?! Could be. These Punjabis could sometimes be smart!

I waited for his opening lines. Deep furrows etched his forehead and then he spoke.

‘Bachhe’, you looked educated but then I don’t think you understand English’.

I was thunderstruck! I was educated in an English public school and here I being told I did not understand English! Yet, I was most uncomfortable - his accent did not waft of the smell or the grunt of a buffalo like the normal true blue Five River sher de putts (offsprings of Tigers as the Punjabis love to claim; though being the rustic types, they keep the company of buffaloes and men are known by the company they keep!)

I thought I should show some lingual empathy.

“Sari sirrr, some prablaams?” I said in my best Punjabi accent of ‘Sorry, Sir, some problems?’

“No problem as such. But the English! Atrocious! Here is the sentence (having run his delicate fingers over the sentences). It should be ‘is’ and not ‘are’” and he showed me the file. He was right. But hang dang it, this was not earth shaking! This man was nuts!

He was rather green behind the ears after all. Soon the files in vernacular English from elsewhere would pour in. Then, the poor man would have to be carried hotfoot to the ICU (Intensive Care Unit) of the Command Hospital! No kidding. I however, kept my counsel.

He asked me more questions. I answered him in the guttural thet (genuine village) Punjabi accent, the rendition of which I was quite proud; as proud as South Indians and Bengalis attempting speaking Hindi.

“I say”, the General, said, “You don’t look a Punjabi, so how come you have this accent?” The way said it and the way he looked at me, it appeared, as I was some rat!

“No sirrrrr, since I thaught that you are Punjabi, I thaaught it be good to talk in Punjabi English so that you understood!” I said.

The General was livid. He was spluttering; spittle leaked in frothy anger from the side of his mouth. Almost like Kishore Kumar (a super film comedian) in Padosan (a Hindi comedy film). He was wild. He would have hit me, but the Army Act saved me.

“You stupid idiot. @#$%^&*. I studied in a premier English school in Calcutta and you have the audacity to tell me that!”

Calcutta? Premier? Well nothing could be more ‘premier’ to my school in Calcutta. Therefore, this was utter bullshit.

Since my school was being degraded, it was my turn to be livid; but you don’t get livid with Generals generally. Therefore, disguised sarcasm was in order.

Flashing a most charming smile with innocence writ all over my demeanour, I asked softly, “That is news (sic!), Sarr. If you permit the liberty of asking, which school?”

He named a school. I concede his school was the first English school in the country but for snob value, it as my school. Because his school was located at Kidderpore, which was near to the docks and mafia, we never gave them that aura!

Internally, I burst out laughing hysterically. Premier! Hah!

Before the General could say anything more, I rushed towards his side of his huge table and frantically started opening the drawers of his table and banging them shut!

Since this type of an action by a junior officer is unthinkable, the General was speechless and thoroughly confused.

Recovering his composure, he yelled, “Hey, what the hell do you think you are doing?”

Rushing back to the right side of the table, I said, “I was just checking for knuckle dusters, butcher’s knives and the like, Sarr”.

“Whatever for, you dumb idiot?”

“Sir, I am from X School in Calcutta and we don’t think that your school produces anything better than hoodlums possessing such weapon of the profession!”

You have to give it to the old timers who passed out from English public schools. Mention their school and they all turn into schoolboys ready to fight without realising that they are grown up men. Thus, he forgot that what I did warranted disciplinary action, and instead he started fighting like a little schoolboy!

“What bullshit”. Without realising, he hurled a filthy Bengali expletive at me, true to his school’s reputation.

“Your school?” he spluttered. “You are all girls. We are he men! Got that? You sissy”.

“Indeed, sir?” This time I spoke with clipped BBC accent. “Yes sir. We play Rugby and you play soccer. Indeed, girls do play Rugby that is supposed to be more dangerous”

That got him!

He spluttered some more and shrieked some more Bengali, English and Punjabi abuses and told me to get out immediately.

This I did.

The General was a gentleman (in spite of being from the school he mentioned). He never held it against me.

In fact, we became good friends (if I can claim) and lived happily thereafter.

THE CADET AND THE POSTERIOR

The English language has always been a problem with Indians.

Indians think they know the language, but then in actuality because of over confidence and a meagre grasp of the language, it lands them in a lot of hot water.

There could be no better example than what happened when I was a Battalion Commander in 1991 in the National Defence Academy {NDA} , Kharakvasla. [NDA is where cadets of the three service train for the first three years].

Though the appointment ‘Battalion Commander’ appears impressive, it is actually a sinecure.

There was hardly much official work that could have kept me busy. The actual interactive level with the cadets was at the Divisional Officer level. The Divisional Officers were youngsters of the rank of Captain of the Indian Army and its equivalent of the other Services. Between the Divisional Officer and the Battalion Commander was the Squadron Commander, an officer of the rank of Major and its equivalents, who looked after the Squadron. Under his command were three Divisional Officers.

I was the No 2 Battalion Commander.

This story is about an ‘infamous’ squadron called Hunter Squadron. The name ‘Hunter’ has no connection with the underlining theme of the story. In actuality, it was ‘H’ Squadron. For radiotelephony clarity over the atmospheric static, internationally, all alphabets have a phonetic identity for clarity. In radio telephony, ‘H’ was ‘Hunter’. Whether they were hunter or hunted or not, only the NDA chaps can tell. I emphasise this because it is a story about a cadet’s ‘wonderful posterior’.

That being the background, lets get on with the story of the Cadet and the Posterior.

There was this cadet who otherwise was an excellent lad. However, like all humans he had made a mistake. The mistake was not serious, but then the Army can make the smallest of mistakes look awfully serious, depending on how the next person up the channel views it. Very subjective, but then that is how, unfortunately, the army runs. That is why civilians, the world over, feel that the Army is peopled by Colonel Blimps and chaps recruited from lunatic asylums!

The Deputy Commandant of the NDA was Major General RKM. He was very officious, though a good-hearted man. The good General had a booming voice. That made his demeanour even more self-important. He was a stickler for rules and demanded absolute discipline.

Now, this cadet has committed the cardinal sin of ‘skipping’ off to Pune without ‘liberty’ [naval term denoting sanction to go to town]. It was a military sin no doubt, but it did not warrant being ‘marched up’ to the Deputy Commandant. Marching Up to the Deputy meant a minimum of 14 days restrictions. This involved reporting behind the Sudan Block in FSMO [a heavy and cumbersome rig] at prescribed times, the last being at 2200 hours with an hour of afternoon punishment on the Drill Square. It also meant ruining of one’s record and consequently a poor order of merit during passing out or even relegation! Relegation meant losing six months.

To my mind, the cardinal sin was not the ‘skipping’, but being caught by the Deputy himself and, more importantly, trying to gyp the Deputy. The Deputy was from the Rajputana Rifles Regiment, but originally was an Artilleryman; the latter call themselves as ‘Gunners’ with much brouhaha and unconcealed glee and pride. The Gunners, also had this motto, ‘Once a Gunner, Always a Gunner’. Absurd, but anything can be expected of Gunners. Thus, in spite of being an Infantryman, he actually was a dyed in wool Artilleryman. One may wonder what’s so great about it. Well, actually Gunners, since they fire artillery shells in the indirect mode and at long ranges with the help of mathematical tables [they cannot see the infantry they are supporting] have to be very precision oriented and thereby they are very hide bound because accidents meant lives lost and a court martial. Thus, the Deputy was a strict bloke and to him rules were rules. Interpretation of such rules could cost lives, lives like that of this poor cadet in question!!!

Before a cadet is ‘marched up’ to the Deputy, it was incumbent on the Battalion Commander to check the Cadet’s dossier.

I called for the dossier from ‘H’ Squadron. The dossier came. I read it carefully. I was astounded!

The cadet had an impeccable record, but the dossier had one entry endorsed as ‘the cadet has an excellent posterior’. Posterior? Now, that was real odd, Hunter Squadron or otherwise. In the US Army the rule was ‘ask not, tell not’. In the Indian Army such things do not exist because we are straight-laced and yet the Divisional Officer was being a trifle explicit. I believe in democracy, but this was taking things too far.

I called for the Squadron Commander. He was a chap from the Deccan Horse called Major W, son of a Major General; not that it is a sin to be a son of a Major General.

Major W came in with the complete swagger and shake that only an Armoured Corps chap [tank chaps] alone can do. I was duly impressed. However, I was on ‘pigs back’ since the North Indians and Americans from the Stateside, in spite of all the supercilious superiority, aren’t too hot in English. I knew while Major W was quite good at spoken English, the written word in this foreign language – English, was not his forte or cup of tea.

“Major W, Cadet X is to be marched up to the Deputy. I have gone through his dossier. How is it written that the boy has a ‘good posterior’?”

“He is an excellent chap, sir. He is a Squadron Cadet Captain [top gun] material. Indeed, sir, I can personally vouch that he does have a wonderful posterior”, Major W confidently answered, giving his left leg a swerve in a 45 degree angle and plonking it on the carpet as would a horse suffering from a bout of serious colic.

I wasn’t impressed. He could not browbeat me, even if he were an Armoured Corps chap or a superiority assuming Punjabi. He was possibly under the fond delusion that we, Bengalis, were docile, non-martial and were perpetually petrified of Sardarjis, as we maybe of ferocious animals in the Alipore Zoo . He didn’t know that I was the Royal Bengal Tiger.

“Do you know the meaning of ‘posterior’, Major W?” I asked him still rather incredulous.

“Of course, sir. Anyone who has learnt English would know”, Major W answered most patronisingly. His confidence startled me, Bengal Tiger or no Bengal Tiger that I thought I was.

This was indeed becoming a queer situation.

“I find that the Divisional Officer has endorsed this remark. Please call for him”, said I since I wanted to get to the bottom. I couldn’t let this type of a queer situation get queerer any further.

The Divisional Officer was a naval chap. They wear half pants. I find this exceeding obscene, especially if they have legs that are more hairy than a Grizzly bear. In winters, one can put on a blanket at night, but you surely cannot carry a blanket in the office on your legs, even if it is only human hair and God given. This naval chap was hairy and funnily, the hair was like the quills on the back of a porcupine. With lot of difficulty, I tore myself from the pastime of imagining what animal his hair on the legs resembled

The naval bloke gave me that naval salute where the hand flips towards Mother Earth in homage! They take pagan rituals too seriously about worshipping Nature.

“Ah ha, old chap,” I said cheerily. After all, if his inclination was what he had endorsed on the dossier was anything to go by, it was better to keep this guy on the correct side – up front and across the table.

“This dossier you have endorsed on Cadet X states that he has a good posterior”, I said with a condescending smirk as if to say ‘Gotcha’ in an official way.

“Yes sir, he has an excellent posterior. I assure you, sir, about the authenticity”, said this naval Divisional Officer.

I was incredulous. This man appeared to be a queer!

“That’s wonderful. Pray, where have you seen this Cadet’s wonderful posterior?” I queried. To be truthful, I was quite intrigued by this time. Both the Squadron Commander and the Divisional Officer had seen it and here was I, the Battalion Commander, deprived of the privilege! The Deputy wouldn’t like this. It was poor command and control on my part, the Deputy would deem. Unforgivable indeed!

“I saw it on the Drill Square. Not once, but repeatedly”, said the naval bloke with his confidence soaring by the minute.

“Drill Square?” I asked, “Do you know the meaning of ‘posterior’? If what you are saying about having seen his posterior repeatedly, may I request you not to indicate your inclination so openly and in writing? Can’t have personal experiences in the official realm, can we? ” I thundered as if I were Thor, the God of Lightning and Thunder himself.

This whole incident by then had got my goat. I had to put a stop to all this nonsense. I opened the dictionary to the word ‘posterior’ and showed them.

Both went red in the face and were immensely embarrassed. Inter alia, the dictionary indicated that it meant ‘buttocks’; not to be mistaken for the ‘buttocks’ that Baldev Singh, India’s first Defence Minister had seen in London. (Buttocks means ducks in Hindi).

“Sorry, sir, what I meant was ‘posture’. In Drill that is an important factor” said the naval Divisional Officer defensively.

“That I know. No matter how wonderful a posterior the Cadet might have, and no matter how many times you have seen the same on the drill square and no matter what your inclination might me, please follow the US way – Ask not, tell not…and further, write not. Just be Bapu ke bandars ” (Bapu ke bandar = three monkeys who see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil).

That stern caution ended the sordid mystery of the Cadet and his excellent posterior.

The Cadet was marched up to the Deputy. I was able to save him from the worst when he was marched up to the Deputy. Yes sir, the Cadet was saved. His posterior was saved!

I wonder if the Deputy, too, had second thoughts because the cadet had a wonderful posterior! Once a Gunner, always a Gunner, as the Artillery saying goes!

GANAPATI, THE ELEPHANT GOD AND HANUMAN, THE MONKEY GOD

It’s not that I have, suddenly, become religious; nor am I nearing the time to meet my Maker and thus being drawn to Gods. Therefore, let the title of the story not fool you.

This is not a story about Gods. This is a story about Captain Ganapati and his transforming into the Monkey God, Hanuman.

It happened before the 1971 War.

I was the Adjutant of my unit and Ganapati was the GSO 3 (Intelligence) at the Brigade HQ. We had a daily interaction since he would take the daily sitreps (Situation Reports that are sent, once in the morning and once in the evening), which the Adjutant gave him over the telephone or over the radio duly coded in case the landline were ‘down’ (not functional).

Ganapati was a pompous oaf. He was a Short Service officer. His appointment at the Brigade HQ had gone to his head.

One day he was not there. Hence, I passed the Sitrep to his Clerk.

An hour later he rang up.

“I have just gone through your Sitrep. What do you mean by ‘FDL 507 ‘saw’ one rifle shot of the enemy from X to Y’? How can anyone see a bullet? I think you people are stupid and you have no idea of the English language!”

That was the most stupid thing I heard. Not only I knew English, but my pronunciation was as good as the BBC, if not better. After all, though my CO was an Indian, he thought he was British and so we were being corrected day in and day out! Naturally, I was enraged and that too hearing tripe from a person whose accent was so strong and unintelligible that there was no requirement to even use the Slidex code to ‘mask’ from the enemy!

“Look here Ganapati” said I. I was being distinctly nasty having given an intonation to his name that without doubt turned it into a Hindi cuss word meaning ‘a ruptured posterior’. “We were explicit in the Sitrep. You have never dared come to the front lines and so you won’t know. One can see the enemy and his rifle. One can even see the flash from his rifle. Further, one can see the puff of mud where the bullet hits. Therefore, if that is not ‘seeing’, what is? A rifle shot can be heard from one point, but can it been ‘heard’ as to where it hit? Don’t be an idiot yourself”.

Ganapati was enraged, especially since I had converted his name to a Hindi cuss word. He banged the telephone down.

Soon I was called by the CO. He had been rung up by the Brigade Major. Obviously, Ganapati had reported to his boss. He was the type who could not fight his own battles!

“What happened with you and Ganapati?”

I told him the whole story including the fact that I had corrupted his name to a cuss word.

“Ah ha! No wonder the Brigade HQ is wild with you and wanting me to change the Adjutant!”

I thought I was going to be changed since none likes to mess around with higher HQs!

My CO was British to the core. “Stupid chaps. They think that I am an Indian scared cat. Bullshit that I will change you. No chance.” I really felt good. He was the type who protected his command, especially when he was in the right.

The CO continued, “Now listen to me.” Thereafter, he told me what to say.

I rang up Ganapati.

I was at my pleasant best.

“Ganapati”. This time I pronounced his name correctly. “Could I have your photograph?”

This was a ridiculous request. He smelt a rat.

“Why?” Ganapati said cautiously.

“Actually, since you have forced my CO to rethink if I should be the Adjutant, a feat that God could not do, could you as a parting favour give me your photograph? I want to install it in our Regimental temple, especially since you have such an uncanny resemblance to a God.”

Curiosity got the better of him.

“God? Which God?” The bloke was real conceited. He actually imagined that he resembled a God!

“Hanuman, the Monkey God. All I have to do is add a tail!”

The second time he banged the telephone down.

This time the Brigade Commander rang me up. He was actually rather fond of me. I recounted the whole incident. Though he did not take sides, I never heard about this incident again!

I still remained the Adjutant!

GENERAL P’s NEPHEW

In my quest for an honourable livelihood, I joined the Army.

In continuation of my training, after graduating from the National Defence Academy, Khadakvasla, I went to the Indian Military Academy (IMA), Dehra Dun, for the next phase of the training.

The Commandant of the IMA those days was Major General P. He was married to a very charming and a graceful lady. Both the General and his wife were cerebral in their attitude and ‘devoured’ books. They also had a daughter and an ancient car – a Lancia, with a wooden steering wheel. The Lancia fascinated me. Of course, it is another matter that another of his possession – his daughter, fascinated the whole Academy. We could observe his Lancia pass the tree-lined roads of the Academy, but unfortunately, rarely his daughter.

One cold day winter day in Dehra Dun, when I came out after the academics class to go to ‘Stand One’ for a tactics class, I found that my bicycle had a puncture or what the cadets called, a ‘flat’. This meant that one abandoned the bicycle to be picked up later in the day, as the ‘break’ between classes was a mere ten minutes. The alternative was to run for the next class lest one got late and invite punishment as a result.

Being late was sacrilege. The punishments invited were in the form of ‘extra drills’ or ‘restrictions’. Both meant running around the drill square, with a rifle on the head with arms stretched up and doing this and other aimless callisthenics. The agony was compounded since this was after lunch, in starched Olive Green uniform, under the supervision of pitiless and moronic NCO (Non Commissioned Officers) drill instructors!

Restrictions were worse since in addition top these moronic activities, it involved reporting at prescribed time, throughout the day, in Field Service Marching Order [a weird, unwieldy and uncomfortably heavy uniform that is worn during battle]. Restrictions were a ‘battle’ against time, physical fitness and humanity! Extra Drill, unlike restrictions, was more humane than Hitler’s gas chambers.

Extra Drills didn’t come singly; they were normally given in figures of ‘7’, whilst Restrictions were normally given in figures of ‘14’. It also meant an embargo to the cadets’ market, café or to the town, something like being ‘gated’ in school. Accumulation of either could result in repeating the term of six months [known as relegation], or, if they were kind, it would invariably affect the overall order of merit. It meant, at the end of one’s service, one’s friends would be Generals and you slogging away as Brigadiers or something even worse!

I had a flat.

I didn’t want extra drills or restrictions. I was about to scoot towards ‘Stand One’ in a similar fashion as the soldier did in the Battle of Thermopylae. It dawned on me then that ‘Stand One’ was about a mile and a half away. It was obvious that only Emil Zatopek, the Czech long distance wonder or Roger Bannister, the four-minute a mile man, alone could accomplish the feat. I was no Bannister or Zatopek. I deflated like my tyre!

I reconciled to fate and could only contemplate which of it would be – extra drills or restrictions!

I could have gone back to my Company and had a well deserved sleep since it was the last three periods of the day and cadets were always short on sleep. However, there was always the danger of some officer ‘catching’ me in my cabin during training time resulting in either more extra drills or restrictions! Therefore, going to the library and read something worthwhile was a better option with lesser chance of getting caught ‘skipping class’. This was contingent on the class senior ‘covering’ me with some official excuse like ‘reporting sick’ or some equally absurd but ‘plausible’ reason.

As I was moving to the library, I spotted the General’s Lancia. My day was made. There was none near the car as the classes had commenced.

I made a beeline for the car.

I started inspecting the car. I felt the wooden steering wheel. The dashboard was heavenly ancient. I looked below the chassis. I checked the polish and the car insignia. It was a beauty. How I would like a drive in it. I was in a dream.

“And what do you think that you are doing?”

I wheeled around. There was the heartthrob of the Academy. It was the General’s daughter. I gave a sheepish but a bright smile.

“You can’t play around with my father’s car like that and that too without permission”, the girl said in her haughtiest best. I don’t blame her. Cadets are not really believed to be gentlemen except that they are called ‘gentlemen cadets’. In fact, right from the civilian orderlies, the ustads [NCO Instructors] to the Commandant, we were taken to be the lowest form of human existence. Protoplasm and amoeba were more respectable! Therefore, I could not blame her. Yet, the prestige was hurt. Agreed it was a General’s car, but so what? I liked cars and I could not afford this beauty. Hence, there was no harm in seeing something you love but you cannot have. Please note: I am talking about the car.

Being a Bengali I could never lose an argument. And she? She was only half a Bengali. Her mother was a Maharastrian. Her father was a Bengali. Therefore, victory was surely mine, even if she threw her weight, unfairly, as the Commandant’s daughter.

I was to get extra drills as it is, since I had skipped the class. Some more would not make any difference. The ‘silver lining’, at least was that I could see what the Commandant’s office looked like, as I would have to be marched up to him for the supreme punishment! It could not have been anything else since I was taking ‘panga’ [‘cocking the snoot’] with the Commandant’s daughter!

Senior officers’ daughters are really bossy.

She went into a harangue. I had no options. I had to be polite in the ‘discussion’.

This interaction was going on, when Mrs P emerged from the library with an armful of books. I rushed to her as any good protoplasm or amoeba would do! I took the pile from her. It rocketed me into her good books for relieving her of the burden of the pile of books!

Daughter P was livid at this chicanery.

She went into a shrill yawp narrating misdemeanours, imagined and otherwise, committed by me, including how I dirtied her father’s car with my lowly cadet’s hand!

Mrs P smiled beatifically throughout this J’Accuse.

“Why did you play with the steering wheel, GC (short for Gentleman Cadet or it could be also for Goru Chor [cow thief]?”) asked the lady. I presume she meant the first interpretation since the car was not a goru and I was no chor.

“Ma’am, I love cars. This one is a beauty. It is so ancient and yet so spanking new. And the best part is the wooden steering wheel. I have never seen a vehicle with a wooden steering wheel. It must be right from the Victorian age” I blabbered. The glint of Daughter P, I observed, was getting nastier.

“Oh, you like cars? Yes, this is an ancient one but it is a real marvellous car,” said the lady.

“By the way, shouldn’t you be in your classes now? I am sure you will get punished and all because you got so interested in the car that you forgot to go to the classes”. Mrs P was a real understanding lady. How I wished that the officer instructors also were so decent and understanding.

“I know Ma’am, I will get punished, but that is a part of growing up,” I said philosophically. “My cycle had a flat and I could have never reached ‘Stand One’. And so punishment is inevitable. Instead, I thought I would read something in the library, but then seeing this beauty of a car, I got enamoured till your daughter came”. I thus appealed to her Academy famed intellectual trait, as also had a dig at her daughter and leaving it unsaid that she was a ‘meany’.

“OK. Let me drop you at your Company [the ghetto where Cadets live] so that you could have your lunch” this excellent lady, with a golden heart, said.

Indeed, I wanted to go in the car since apart from enjoying the drive, the crafty cadets’ mind, honed in the survival instinct, was at work. Many an advantage would accrue, as the reader will soon realise.

“Actually, Ma’am, you needn’t trouble yourself. I’ll walk down. It’s only a twenty minutes walk [actually it was ten but one had to exaggerate so that the lady rose to the bait]. And anyway, you will have to take the detour through ‘A’ Battalion and then come to ‘B’ Battalion. Worse would be that the instructors would be sunbathing, as usual, and they would be highly embarrassed to be found lolling in the sun when the Commandant’s wife passed. They will take out their wrath on me then.”

Daughter P was absolutely furious. But you had to grant it to the girl that she was sharp and could see through the game. I reckon both of us were young and so the grey cells were more deviously active than the nice Mrs P.

“Oh, never mind son. Jump in and I will drop you.”

She was going to drive. There was a mad rush between her daughter and me as to who will sit next to the lady. After all, it was her birthright, while it was my motto ‘Har Maidan Fateh’ {victory in every field [not agricultural field, but fields of life]}. This was my Platoon Commander’s regiment’s {Punjab Regiment} motto and though I disliked him as he did me, I liked the motto. In life, it’s always unfortunately a compromise.

“Oh, let him sit down. The poor boy is so keen on the car. This way at least he can see the controls”, the good lady told her daughter. If looks could kill I was killed. She sulked into the back seat, having no desire to share the front seat with me, even though I would not have minded the least.

The wonderful lady started the car and we were ‘B’ Battalion bound via ‘A’ Battalion. The instructors would see that I got a lift in the Commandant’s car, which they, in their living dreams, would not be able to manage! It was a nice way to strike back on these certified sadists, masquerading as instructors, as Normans did over the Anglo Saxon serfs!

We passed ‘A’ Battalion. As predicted the instructors were lolling in the sun. When they saw us, they were incredulous! They scampered into their offices with as much dignity as rats can muster when deserting a sinking ship. I smirked. This is the first time the daughter shared a gesture of mine. Her mother was dignity personified.

“You are really naughty”, the daughter deigned to inform me. I turned back and gave a mischievous smile.

We turned in towards the ‘B’ Battalion [my battalion]’s lawns. The officers there were leisure personified. Not only were they lolling and basking in the sun, they were having tea in their hands and the Battalion Commander was holding ‘court’ or maybe since most of the officers were from the villages, was holding a panchyat [village council] at the ‘chaupal’ [an area in the village where the elder sit down and gossip]. They were sadly not correctly poised to scamper into their offices since the tea would have spilled.

I requested the lady to stop right in front of the Battalion HQ rows of offices.

“Why? I will drop you at Kohima Company Lines [which is where I stayed]. It’s alright with me”, said Mrs P.

“Thank you ever so much, M’am. I have already taken much of your time and indulgence and it is OK if I got down here.” After all, the instructors had seen me and I was ‘skipping’ a class. Punishment was inevitable. Sooner they gave it, the better. Further, if I were to get the punishment, then why not let these ‘bozos’ not eat their hearts out in jealousy that I, the lowly GC, was hobnobbing with the Brass?

So, I got down in the blazing gaze of many an embarrassed, irritated and even furious stare of the ‘cornered’ instructors.

I wanted the instructors to burn with envy. Therefore, I decided to have a longer chat with Mrs P as also wangle a lunch invitation at the Commandant’s house. Catch me not delivering the coup de grâce on the instructors.

“Ma’am, the Commandant normally calls a few cadets every Sunday for lunch. I always wanted to see the Commandant’s house. May I come next Sunday?” I said in a most pathetic tone as that of a person walking to the gallows and hoping against hope that the Presidential pardon would intervene.

“Oh well, I really don’t know. The guest list must have been already prepared. But then, one more would not make a difference. Yes, you must come. I will tell the ADC (Aide de Camp)”. The daughter did not object or put a spoke. She had started enjoying the little game I was playing and was actually taking part in it, even if by silence alone.

After some more mundane conversation and repeated thanks to the lady and now also to the daughter, I let them go, which anyway they were keen to do since they hardly knew me.

So, wonders of wonder, I managed the lunch!

I was aware that the instructors were ready to pounce on me the minute the car turned its tail. So, I dragged the conversation as long as I could. I thanked her profusely and praising her kindness to the skies. It had been a full three minutes, but it must have been a lifetime for the ‘cadaver loving vultures’ [instructors] waiting in the wings to nab me.

As the car turned about and moved off some distance, I yelled, ‘Bye Bye Aunty”. It was in a voice that could be heard by the instructors but not by the lady and her daughter.

The lady had already left.

I sauntered, a little extra cockily. Something like Huckleberry Finn. It was bound to annoy.

“Come here, you blaadi phool [bloody fool] Rayci” I could hear the distinct bellow from Captain C, my Platoon Directing Staff. As I knew his voice signature, I knew it was he. Someone else would have surely mistaken it for a bellow of the buffalo munching merrily in the adjoining Physical Training {PT} field.

I turned and walked towards him. I came to a halt in front of him and saluted all and sundry of an officer dotting the lawn. Externally, they were looking as peaceful as the buffalo on the PT ground but one could make out that they were internally burning with rage like a bull in a Spanish bullfight ring. To be fair to them, I must add that they were not pawing the ground, as the bull would do. One or two snort like a bull in pain, I must confess I heard.

“V’hat [What] you do in Commandant’s car?” said the true blue son of the Punjab, Captain C, his whiskers dancing in the wake of his furious exhalation of rage from the nostrils. “And haw [how] know you Commandant?”

“Sir, I will leave it at that. I would prefer not to answer the question, if you would be kind enough to excuse me.”

“Don’t give fancy English, baai [boy], you better tael [tell] or else life will be haell [hell]”

Well, he was such a meany, he surely would have seen hell even though he was still living. As he looked like and behaved like the Devil himself, I relented.

Certain species of North Indians are extra polite, especially when cornered, and so, like them, I decided that if you can’t win, you better join them. Do as the Romans do in Rome the adage went and he was that certain specie of North Indians!

“Sirjee, {This was a highly polite form of address in North Indian English, since you said ‘sir’ twice; once in English and the second time in a North Indian}……….. my father told me to stand on my own two feet and not use influence, so please forgive me; I can’t tell.’

“What nansance [nonsense]. You jalli [jolly] teal [tell]”

The reader should not forget that General P was a Bengali and so a contrived relationship being a Bengali would not have been outlandish.

I gave Captain C a ‘fear crazed’ look before answering. Being the sadist that he was, it gave him immense satisfaction when cadets shook totally rattled in front of him. I wanted him to be self-satisfied.

“Sirjee, I am letting my father down, but since you are insisting and scaring me, I have no option but to break my promise to my father. Sir jee,……” I deliberately paused to build up a theatrical effect.

I could see C getting immensely impatient and furious. The other officers of the ‘tea party’ and lolling in the sun were also waiting with the keenness butchers display towards an Id (a Muslim religious festival where goat’s meat is the raison d’être) goat ready for slaughter.

“Sirjee, General P is my Uncle”. It’s all very fine to claim a bogus relationship, but if P came to know, I would not have lived to see another day. Therefore, to ensure total safety, I added, “But, sir, please don’t tell him. My father would never forgive me.”

The silence was loud.

The instructors gasped.

Their rage mollified to a beatific and serene attitudinal change. It was like the transformation of King Ashoka after the Battle of Kalinga. Even Buddha would have been pleased.

Where I should have got a few extra drills, I got, “Wael bai [Well, boy] carry on to kebin [cabin], have lunch and relax”. It came from none other than the direct descendant of the Demon King Ravana, namely, Captain C.

I was saved and I forgot all about the incident.

Next day I was summoned to Capt C, the Platoon Commander’s office!!

I froze. I dreaded the thought that they had got wise and the game was up. Cadets being cadets, I resigned myself to fate. Sheepishly, I was marched into C’s office.

Capt C was devoid of his permanent scowl that was a fixture whenever he saw me. I may be wrong, but through his bushy moustache and beard that was so thick that it could rival in density and inscrutability the undergrowth of Mizoram and Nagaland, I thought I saw a friendly smile. But, I could be wrong.

“Weal bai, here card Commandant house lunch tomorrow. Don’t forget be in tam [time]”. The North Indians, being enterprising like the Americans, believed in the theory that time was money. Therefore, more often than not, whenever they spoke in English, they used telegraphic language, especially the village bred, who had learned the language by the ear

I wasn’t the one not to dramatise the issue. So, I decided to go all the way.

“Sorry sir, I have to regret. My cycle is flat and if I walk, then I would be sweating and a sweating cadet would be offensive in the Commandant’s house”.

If you ask me this was stupid logic on my part. As if the Commandant sniffed the armpits of cadets on entry to his house. Imagine an armpit sniff being the clearance for entry into the Commandant’s drawing room! And anyway, all Cadets even when bathed, they stank.

“Don’t worry bai. I come. Scooter. Drop you. No late”. The man must have saved a fortune in telegrams!

Next day, true to his word, Capt C drove me to the Commandant’s house.

It was a sweet revenge, even if achieved by ‘innocent’ subterfuge

THE IMPORTANCE OF HAVING BREAKFAST

It was just before the 1971 War. I was the Adjutant of the unit. Lieutenant Colonel KS, a very British type of a gentleman, was commanding the unit.

The line communication was notoriously erratic. Rarely could we talk to the Brigade HQ. Therefore, most of the time it was on the radio or what is also known as the wireless.

Radio, those days did not have the secrecy devices and so we could not speak ‘in clear’. It was either done in a round about way or by using Indian languages which the Pakistanis were not familiar with or by coding the messages with Slidex and Unicode . The last form was very tedious and cumbersome. The Sitreps or Situation Reports were sent twice a day giving the resume of the daily activities including enemy actions and activities from the last Sitrep till then. It was mandatory that these were sent at the prescribed time since they were consolidated at each level and then sent to the next higher HQ and so on, till the Army HQ.

One day when the line communication was ‘down’, I was trying to pass the Sitrep over the radio. There was tremendous static that day and so it was taking time.

My frustration was being compounded since it was past breakfast time. My Commanding Officer (CO) was a stickler for form. It was incumbent on me, the only other officer in the Tactical HQ, to attend all meals and that too in time. After all, officers ate together and the Mess was not a hotel! Further, the important fulcrum to this logic for my CO was that it was the way the British did it. Any deviation, for my CO, from the British way was sacrilege!

The CO had come to the thatched gazebo like structure that passed off as our Officers’ Mess. I was at that time still trying to pass the Sitrep and was having a harrowing time. I wasn’t naturally in the best of spirits.

The CO found that I had not come. He was outraged.

He sent the waiter to search me out and bring me to heel.

The waiter arrived with the CO’s missive to come down immediately for breakfast. I told him inform the CO that I would soon be there, once I had passed the Sitrep, which all knew was an important operational requirement and had to be passed on time.

Lo and behold, the waiter was back. The instructions were the same and the reply was also the same.

The third time the waiter arrived, he was quaking. He pleaded that I join immediately for breakfast or else there would be fireworks for both him and me! Disgusted, I quit passing the Sitrep and followed him. There was no option given the rigid ways of my CO.

“What the Dickens do you think you are doing, you oaf?” bellowed my CO.

“I was passing the Sitrep, sir. It is still to be done”, I replied.

“Come, come. That’s a real silly excuse to not be in time for breakfast. Are Sitreps that important? It’s the same old junk of the enemy firing a round here and a round there. Everyone knows that. So long as there is no casualty, how does it become important?’

It was excellent logic. However, it was not how the Indian Army saw it, but who could educate him on the same? The Queen’s schedule to him would have been earth shaking, but not what the Pakistanis were doing with lethal weapons!

“Sit down and have your breakfast”. And so I sat down.

I ordered an omelette, without asking for the porridge, since I wanted to go back the earliest and pass the Sitrep.

“You, Indians, will never learn”, said the CO. I was not astonished hearing this phrase, even though, he, too, was an Indian. It was that in actually he thought that he was British. “Breakfast cannot be eaten without porridge. So, order it”.

Seething with impotent rage but with controlled placidity, I asked for cornflakes.

“Not done. You had it yesterday. You’ll forget the taste of the other types of porridge and cook will forget how to cook it. Today, you must have Quaker Oats”.

So Quaker Oats it was, even as I quaked with anger.

Having finished the Oats, I asked for an omelette.

“No, you can’t have an omelette” said the CO. I really didn’t understand if he was feeding himself or was my stomach mine. “You’d rather have a rumble tumble today. OK, Old boy?”

This was getting to be a bit dictatorial.

“Begging your pardon, sir, but I don’t like rumble tumble”.

“It does not matter what you like or dislike, old bean. You had an omelette yesterday and so you must have a rumble tumble today and maybe tomorrow a poach. Got that, old thing?”

This man, the CO, was incorrigible. I felt that a little bit of cheekiness would be in order and damn his anger thereafter. I was ready to even be removed as an Adjutant. In fact, it would actually be a good thing.

“Begging your pardon, sir, can I not eat the type of food that I like? Must I have to eat as if I was performing some military manoeuvre?”

I was expecting the CO to explode. Instead, he was as calm as the Pacific Ocean.

“No, old fellow, you can’t eat what you like. Further, it is not a military manoeuvre since military manoeuvres are complicated while eating is not”. That was rich. This man had made eating of a meal so complicated and yet he called it easy!

The CO continued, “You see, if you eat the same thing day in and day out, you’ll forget how the other things taste and more importantly, the cook will forget how to prepare it!”

This was funny logic to say the least. Instead of eating what I like, the logic of his demanded that I was actually eat to keep the cook as fit as a fiddle professionally!

One didn’t argue with this CO. Therefore, I gave way to his logic.

The breakfast over, I returned to passing the Sitrep.

I forgot all about this incident till one day in Chowkibal in J&K, 14 years later, when a visiting CO was having breakfast and I was the President, Mess Committee, meaning that I was responsible for the efficient running of the Mess.

The visiting CO had ordered a rumble tumble. He got scrambled eggs instead!

The wise saying of my ‘British’ CO rushed back along memory lane.

I rushed to the kitchen and made a rumble tumble and saved the day.

Ever since, I always have a different type of eggs for breakfast and much that I dislike I have different types of porridge too!

COLONEL K AND THE PARTRIDGE SHOOT

Those were the days when Maneka Gandhi, the energetic Indian animal activist, was unknown.

Hunting was encouraged in the Army as stalking of prey taught stealth, survival, use of ground and jungle craft. These were qualities that guaranteed survival and thus success in battle! A faux pas at a ‘shoot’ meant, at best, a ‘Last Post’, the three volleys and a two inch paid obituary in the Press. The sad part of shikar was that a Tiger did not
comprehend that a General was poor quality meat – old and decaying, and guaranteed to be boneless! A unique process called age that guaranteed bodily decay and vanishing bones including the spine!

Major General KS, our Division Commander, was a keen shikari especially since he was a minor North Indian squire. Shikar was a propensity deemed necessary for Squires to exhibit their God gifted macho-ness, even if one was frail and withered, which the General was. However, his devotion at shikar restricted itself to partridge and small game since small game like partridges could only increase the pulse rate but not stop it! In addition, a partridge tasted better than a Tiger.

It happened in May 1982. We were out for our annual three-month Collective Training camp at Oda Nala near Rewa. Brigadier MML, our Brigade Commander, was supervising the training for war. We were doing magnificently.

Then, the Word came officially over the wireless (radio) that the Division Commander would arrive in the next two days for a ‘surprise visit’ to check if the training was as per the directive! It was a bolt from the blue. It is a universal fact that all bosses are ‘pains’ in the ungodly part of
the anatomy. Major General KS was no exception. He was more so since he was an artilleryman - a sect of the army, which excel themselves in being awkward to the point of being obnoxious. Adding to the agony, it was mentioned that Major General KS was to stay with us for three days even though we all knew that one day was adequate for the inspection!

It was decided unanimously that the General had to be kept ‘on the hop’.
What could be better than pandering to his macho fad of partridge shooting?

Paratroopers are a resourceful lot. However, they are a type of folks who are expected to be untamed and yet to be forgiven for their idiosyncrasies. Fortunately, the Brigade had a Parachute battalion. The Commanding Officer [CO] was Lieutenant Colonel K.

K was tasked by the Brigade Commander to keep the General ‘busy’ for one complete day with a ‘shoot’! Others would have thrown up their hands in despair at this task, but not K. As his unit too would be under inspection he could not spare all officers. Therefore, he wanted assistance from other units. The Brigadier readily agreed to this and since I was also a ‘wild’ category, even though not a Paratrooper, I was more than willingly ‘donated’ by my own Commanding Officer. This act of my CO puts paid to the theory that there is brotherhood in the Army! My own CO threw me to the wolves, so to say! Being thrown to the Paratroopers is worse!

Without a rehearsal, nothing is done in the Army. Therefore, the rehearsal for the ‘shoot’ was organised. The scenario was that the General would be ‘guided’ to a ‘spot’ ‘abundant with game’ by the ‘expert’ shikari, Colonel K and thereafter action would start.

The action went something like this.

With military precision, a whistle would be blown by the Regimental Police Havildar to indicate the commencement of the ‘shoot’. It would also indicate that the General was at the correct ‘spot’. My task, along with two paratroopers, from deep inside the woods full of brambles, would be to release four partridge and three rabbits from a basket at that precise sound! These animals were to be scurried off in the direction of the ‘spot’ where the General would be obliged to halt by Colonel K, the ‘expert’ shikari, who it was claimed, could ‘smell’ game. The partridges and the rabbits would then ‘spring’ towards the General and his team. The General and his team would then fire their 12 bores and get the birds ‘on
the wing’ and thereafter swivel and get the rabbits as they scampered past!

A great picture postcard shoot it would be.

That was not all! What if the General missed?

That, too, was catered for.

I was also to carry three partridges and two rabbits, which were previously shot with the same 12 bore the General would use. These would be then ‘discovered’ by the bush beating party as they beat through the bush! Efficiency was the second name for the Army after all!
Major G, the second in command of the Parachute Battalion, emphasised repeatedly ad nauseum to us that action was to take place only after we heard the whistle. Anything otherwise, would have been premature or too late. He warned that any error on our part would adversely affect our career and our health! It was an ominous warning since all those who were detailed including me were ambitious and also keen to be in the ‘pinkest of health’.

Then, came the day of the shoot.

We were positioned six hours before the General was to arrive at the ‘spot’. The spot was miserable. It was swampy. The mosquitoes and insects were making life miserable. The partridges and the rabbit too were uncomfortable and waking up the dead. Foolish things. They did not know stealth was the watchword for shikar; be it for the hunted or the hunter.

Time ticked. Mosquitoes buzzed and bit. The stink of the swamp burned the nostrils. Yet the General had not arrived ‘at the spot’. There was no whistle from the Regimental Police Havildar. The time for the arrival was well past! It was agonising. What was up?

There was no sign of the General or his shikar party. This was getting ridiculous. I was in a state of panic and so were my helpers. The mosquitoes were no longer on my mind even though they were having a field day!

Suddenly, in the distance, we saw Major G shooting in as if he had seen a ghost! Pushing the bramble, bruised like badly loaded tomatoes, he came panting, in a state of total chaos, collapse and consternation.

‘Release the birds you idiot’, he choked and raved, repeating the same like a deranged and hallucinating lost toad.

‘Release, sir? But, we haven’t heard the whistle’.

‘Don’t be an idiot. I order you to release the %*** birds and other muck….. Immediately…… This instant……… You stupid posterior of a donkey’.

Catch me being a posterior of a donkey! I didn’t like this one bit; but you don’t argue with a deranged Sikh in a forest, talking of posteriors. The consequence could be very dangerous. And so, I released the ‘muck’.

The partridges took off like George Bush’s mouth. There was no sense of direction. The rabbit released from the stings of the mosquitoes jumped up like Blair and took off into the blue. One rabbit bit the nose of a jawan. He yelped.

Major G froze…….

The yell of the jawan would give away the game! The man had totally violated Army Act Section 63 of maintaining ‘good order and military discipline’ in that he was not to make noise!

However, the yelp was drowned for, at that very instant guns boomed, in all direction.

The effect was better than Kargil.

Scowling at the jawan, Major G, with total presence of mind, snatched the dead partridges and the rabbit from the cage and followed like the rabbits into the blue!

We waited as per the orders till the second whistle blew after three quarters of an hour to declare ‘all clear’.

We thereafter returned to our respective units.

None knew how the shoot went. Junior officers are not supposed to know these higher directions of war. I didn’t venture to ask also because of the fiasco. It would invite trouble. Discretion is the better part of valour and all that.

It was only after a week that I came to know how the shoot went.

I had, per chance, met the Regimental Police Havildar. I queried him as to why he had failed to blow the whistle to indicate that the General had arrived.

The story is sad and typical of all army actions the world over. At that critical moment, the poor man had gone to answer nature call since he felt that was more important than a General!

He will never do it again. He his learnt his lesson – he had lost his stripes because of this faux pas.

A General’s arrival is more important even if it means wetting your pants – which anyway you do!

FICTION WRITERS




The champagne and caviar chatterati may find it an oxymoron, but the Army officers do excel in fiction writing.

It is totally a different matter that the Nobel and Bookers Prize give them the go by The truth is that the Army officers cold shoulder all prizes, since nothing is beyond politics in the contemporary world. And Army officers are apolitical, and so would not touch it with a 10 foot barge pole!

Absurd a claim that Army officers are great fiction writers, is it? Not if you see reality and facts can be stranger than fiction!

I am not asking you to take my word. Why don’t you ask Musharraf?

That cove wrote a masterpiece. Oozing with blood and gory, Fame and Honour, he sketched his Kargil Operation Plan. Dripping with stealth, surprise and stoic, he etched the backdrop in a scenario on a blanket of deep snow, along trackless heights that kissed the sky, with men of steel ready to steal real estate for the sake of patriotism, religion and God, almost in the genre of God for Harry, England and St George! If only he could have thrown in sex, it would have been ideal for a runaway success in fiction! But then, he was a religious man or so he wanted all to believe!

Having launched this fiction, Musharraf was struck with amnesia. He thought it was the Mujhahideens who were the prime actors, but then the Northern Light Infantry had stolen the thunder! He lost interest trying to find the thread of his story, when his neighbours, the Indian Army took over his tome. They added death and gory to make it exciting and anti climaxed it with a resounding defeat to the hordes! A more brilliant, gripping story none had sketched before and Tom Clancy turned green with envy!

But then, this is confusing. Musharraf was the author and so why did the climax be left to the Indians? Napoleon rolled over in his grave. He had the answer. The Army marched on it stomach i.e. no replenishment in arms, ammunition, rations and medical evacuation, you conjure a scenario of defeat and little glory, religion notwithstanding!

Musharraf imagined he was a Rommel, Guderian and Patton rolled in one, of course without the tanks. And that is what all military men think when they are on the Sand Models, TEWT , wargames and exercises. So, he is not an exception. And on these formats is the professional acumen gauged based on the vociferous, verbal callisthenics that one exhibits to excel over the others, till the real McCoy war differentiate the wheat from the chaff!

Now, how come such people are not found out earlier?

That is because of the annual appraisals. Those who are empowered to write them think they are Nobel and Bookers Prize material. They write pure fictions with total ambivalence and employ the well tested English adage – Discretion is the better part of valour! Why rock the boat and why get involved and waste time justifying the truth, since complaints against the remarks were bound to erupt with the vengeance of Mount Etna and Krakatoa, all rolled in one! After all, all think they are cats’ whiskers!

I, too, was one of the fiction writers in my time.

It was one winter when I was busy at my desk at home. Home is the best place for peace where one can think.. No chaos, no time bound hassles, no seniors to be pleased! And the wife is too busy with her chores. The tea and snacks arrive on time as the mind boils over!
I was busy with some office work and who do you think should walk in? A Divisional Commander! He always visited us when he was in town, to satiate his palette with Bengali cuisine for which my wife was famous for. Lest you think I am a sycophant, let me assure you that he was not my Divisional Commander.

My orderly announced him.

I was his junior being only a Brigadier and so I had to dress up appropriate to receive the General!

I was not least bit pleased that I had been disturbed with some serious work at hand that required thought and dexterity in the English language. His appearing at my home, without prior intimation, did upset me. But, you don’t say so to a General! In fact, as a gentleman, you can’t say to anyone for that matter! All one can do is grin, chin up and bear the inevitable!

I went downstairs to the living room where he was waiting. It took time since I lived in a mansion that befitting my appointment as the Station Commander, all with a guard and all the other cosmetic paraphernalia of military pomp and grandeur!

The General, was not one of the stuffed shirts that General as normally wont to be.

“Hi Roy, busy?”

Catch me tell him that he had ruined my afternoon!

“No, sir, it’s great to see you. Are you here for some official stuff with the Command HQ?”

“Yes, but the Army Commander seems to be busy and so I thought what could be better than having lunch with you. Don’t bother; I will have whatever in the house.”

I had the staff to whip up a lunch for him, but I knew that Lunch meant Bengali food. Catch my non Bengali staff whipping up some Bengali food! And my wife was away with some Other Ranks Family Meet!

He wanted ‘whatever in the house’.

Great, but I did not know “what was in the house’. All I knew is that we had biscuits and I knew that is not what was on his mind under the heading, “Lunch”.

Fortunately, my wife arrived and after the usual polite small talk, she went hotfoot to the kitchen and saved me from losing weight through sweating as the boxers do to reduce weight and be in the category to win. At this moment, I required weight to win and not lose!

While he kept nursing his soft drink, I kept him busy with small talk and kept imbibing beer!

“Hey Roy, did I disturb you from something important? You don’t look comfortable.”

“Not really, sir, I was merely writing some Annual Confidential Reports.

“Ah yes”, said the Divisional Commander, “One of our burdens of office.”

He paused and I waited with bated breath since he was known to be a sarcastic man.

“The annual fiction writing!” he finally said, with a deep sigh!

So, now you know how people claw up the ladder – because their seniors don’t want to rock the boat!

Great fiction they write annually!

So, why blame Musharaff ‘s seniors?

Musharraf is cat’s whiskers as you and I!

Only thing is he is smarter.

Unlike you and me, he is a President, having toppled his Boss and sent him packing!

THE COLONEL, THE BATTALION HAVILDAR MAJOR AND THE COLONEL OF THE REGIMENT



We were in the Balnoi Base in the Bhimbergali Sector of J&K.

Lt Col KSM was commanding our battalion. He was “British’ as British could be. He knew what was best for desi Indian kalus , namely us and other hapless Indians, who may cross his path. Major S, one of our officers, always wondered if the British in 1947 had forgotten him somewhere between the Gateway of India and the Taj Hotel when they were boarding the troopship taking them home!

Captain ‘Mahdo’, however, opined that the CO had himself volunteered to remain behind in India and carry on with the White man’s burden on behalf of his cousin, the Queen of England!

The only person who lamented Colonel KSM’s decision to remain behind in India was, Major L, the battalion second in command (one of our 2ICs – but that’s another story as to how we had two 2ICs). Major L’s distress was only at dinnertime. While KSM only ate ‘English’ dinner, Major L was the desi ghee type. The latter was always upto some subterfuge to satiate his urge every dinner time.

That, in very brief, was what the environment in which we found ourselves to be in – a happy coexistence between the sanity and the ludicrous! In that environment, the Colonel of the Regiment decided to visit the unit.

Our BHM (Battalion Havildar Major), Uttam, typified the folks who composed our unit of those days. He was a fine and efficient chap, but even with him, one had to go with the Regiment Work Code ethics (not found in the Standing Orders of War or Peace) of ‘Order, Check, Recheck and Finally Do It Yourself’.

As far as the Colonel of the Regiment, a combination of Hop Along Cassidy and Lord of Tartary is a more than adequate description.

That being the background knowledge of the principle actors, we move on with the events.

The Colonel of the Regiment was “heli-dashing” somewhere or the other. It mattered not to us as to where. In those days, we all were well contended to charter our career to the next day only, unlike today’s youngsters who are more alive and smart and rather career savvy.

Notwithstanding, the Colonel of the Regiment was ‘air dashing’. His role and profile demanded this ‘sacrifice’. He was, after all, the Regiment personified and it was “Après moi, le déluge”

Being astute and savvy, the Colonel of the Regiment decided to make a detour to our unit, just to be ‘with the boys’. Obviously, for us mortals, it was to be a Red Letter Day and hence everything had to be ‘taped up’.

A long distance telephone call to the ADC over the notoriously troublesome military lines brought only desolate news. The Colonel of the Regiment, the ADC informed us had barely time to even munch a Digestive biscuit, let alone partake in any elaborate Japanese Tea Ceremony! And to imagine, my "British" CO wanted Huntley and Palmer Cream Crackers to be given and that too in back of nowhere, Balnoi!

I informed the CO what the ADC had said, adding that our Colonel of the Regiment was a ‘man of action’ and had little time for such mundane routine as having tea and biscuits. However, KSM being KSM, with disdain overruled the Colonel of the Regiment, even so, I believed every word what the ADC had said since the Colonel of the Regiment was reputed to be more in the air than on the ground and being in the stratified air makes one less hungry.

To us youngsters, the Colonel of the Regiment’s visit was a red-letter day. There was a lot of hul chul as we dubbed hyperactive ceremonial chores. But that was not so for our dear Colonel KSM. He was cool as a cucumber, even though cucumber never grew in Balnoi. Our CO was a man who went by his own ideas and damn the others, whatever the rank. He cared two hoots for who vini, vidi-ed and vici-ed (saw, came and conquered or onked out{!}). The rule as far as KSM was concerned was that so long KSM was happy, ‘Mogambo was khus’ .

The Colonel of the Regiment’s visit was important to us. Amongst the youngsters, I was selected to ‘organise’ the ‘visit’. While the dismal, dank and dark living and administrative bunkers were being whitewashed from the inside under the supervision of Major GSS and the flowerbeds were planted by Major S with fresh overgrown plants that had bloomed, I was sent hotfoot to the helipad.

The whitewashing the inside of bunkers, we thought, were a waste of time for a man who hardly had the time to sniff a peanut, let alone eat or sniff it. Peanuts alone were the munching delight of the hip-hop dignitaries in those days unlike today where cashew, almonds, chilguzas apparently are the metabolic delights!

Anyway, I was despatched to the helipad. The Battalion Havildar Major (BHM) trotted obediently behind me. It was a different matter that, like all senior NCOs detailed to work under youngsters, he, too, wore a scornful and disdain look, a little short of total contempt of officers still green behind the ears.

The BHM and I walked to the helipad. The area was so huge. We got busy removing the loose stones and pebbles and gave the boundary stones and the ‘H’ another coat of fresh lime wash. A Company worth, in the meanwhile, got busy and sashayed with their talwars manicuring the wild grass to give the impression of an operational area lawn! Efficiency had visited our unit!

I ‘selected’ the spot where the shamiyana was to be pitched as also the mandatory toilets – separate for the General and separate for the lowly mortals, like the aircrew and us.

I could never figure out the rationale for separate toilets. As a youngster, I always thought that the procedure to relieve oneself was the same for all. However, Major GSS informed me that it was different for the Flag Rank and different for others. There were orders to that effect I was told.

The siting of the shamiyana was no problem. The site was the same ever since the 1947 War. Yet, the military mind insisted on a song and a dance every time without fail to move the shamiyana six centimetres this way or that way. Maybe it was done to prove that the military mind was fertile and innovative. I did not let the Army down in this pagan mumbo jumbo of the ‘six centimetres dancing ritual’. In addition, I added a few flags along the way as a bonus, apart from the mandatory flag that indicates Toilets. In the Army, we have flags denoting various activities!

The CO had to be given his due. He was dead serious about being actually innovative about siting the urinal and the commode [‘combode’ as per our safaiman as if it were some sort of an abode!]. KSM’s idea of siting the commode was unique and way futuristic, almost like Muslim emperor who moved his capital down South. KSM was a military genius. He gave us precise instructions on the subject since it had been honed into a fine art in the unit he was previously. The BHM and I followed this art to the letter and I must say I am now a great toilet site-r even to this day and rank!

As per the innovative toilet erection technique, the BHM and I spent the next six hours in the General’s toilet tent. We checked and rechecked the wind direction every 15 minutes and recording the same on a clipboard. We were not disturbed in this serious activity even as the painter furiously hand-painted the commode’s wooden structure. What really got my goat was that the painter painted the brand new enamel chamber pot also! I queried him on this unique procedure. He was amazed that I did not know that before a VIP visit everything had to be whitewashed and painted – the vintage and state of disrepair immaterial.

I informed the 2IC of the unit, of the painter’s unique ‘innovation’ and guess what? He said that the painter was right! Wonders never ceased in this topsy-turvy military world.
The wind record taken, we marched off to the CO to present our earth shaking scientific discovery. The wind direction was true to the adage – fickle as the wind or was a woman supposed to be fickle? The recorded degrees touched all the points, sub points and sub sub points of the compass!

KSM perused it like the sage Agastya Muni . He put his head between his palms, took deep breaths and his chest heaved up and down like Mumtaz cleavage (they do this during the dance sequence in Hindi films). Suddenly, KSM’s eyes sparkled like the Pole Star at night.

“North by Northwest”, KSM barked into space, as if mesmerised like Archimedes, when he jumped out of the bath naked and yelled through the roads ‘Eureka, eureka’.

‘North by Northwest’ was a unique suspense film by Hitchcock but I could not fathom the connection with the wind records. However, one did not argue with KSM

“Marvellous film, sir”, I said in the form the Punjabis say yeh bhi wah wah, ta bhi wah wah i.e. non-committal lest I faced the wrong end of the stick.

“Film? What film, old tyke? Don’t be a freak, young man. You will site the commode in the North Northwest direction, so that the General doesn’t soil his clothes in a hurry nor have his nostril offended by the odour.”

Great musings, I must say and what an eye for detail! I was in raptures to learn that a General’s relief was offensive to the nostrils, like most. They were also human!!!!

‘Trot off now. And by the way, don’t forget to put magazines in the shamiyana lest he wishes to read.’

I ordered the BHM to have a whole lot of magazines organised in the shamiyana for the General’s reading pleasure and comfort, even if he did not have time to sniff a peanut!

The BHM and I jogged off to the helipad to recheck the arrangements. All appeared to be well. It was still four hours for the arrival of the Colonel of the Regiment. We returned to the Base to relax.

Doubts still nagged me. The military mind can never lie still. It was still 30 minutes to time, when the Colonel of the Regiment would arrive.

I couldn’t take the tension any more. I meandered to the helipad in a controlled ‘casual way’ as if I was taking a walk to breathe in the bracing air!. After all, I could not show that I was flapping. In fact, it would be silly to flap in front of the troops, especially when I had no wings to flap!

Horrors of Horror!!!!!

Neatly, in the shamiyana, on the table, there were magazines of all type – not the pornographic ones that would have ruffled my feathers, but there were, in all its glory and well shone ------------ pistol magazines, sten magazines, rifle magazines, LMG magazines and a belt of MMG ammunition thrown in for ‘bull’!!!!!!!

How the right magazines arrived before the Colonel of the Regiment arrived is another story, but then it proved the then popular adage of my Regiment – Order, Check, Recheck and finally DO it YOURSELF.

THE CO-CK IS TOUGH

The unit was deployed on the posts in the Mendher Sector on the Line of Control in Kashmir.

It was usual for the Commanding Officer to visit the posts every now and then.

Capt SKC was commanding a post in absence of his Company Commander.

He was a very conscientious and a hard working officer, but as is common with most of us, not very versatile with the English Language.

On the other hand, our CO was not versatile with the vernacular or so he gave the impression.

As per the CO’s visit programme, Capt SKC’s post was to be visited and Lunch would be partaken there.

For a youngster, the CO’s visit was a momentous occasion. He had to do everything that would make the visit comfortable as also a resounding success.

He practised his briefing for the ‘nth’ time. He checked that his men knew their arcs of fire and all the other aspects and rehearsed them till the cows came home!

He was pleased as Punch!

Then it struck him that the CO was to have lunch and the CO was very particular on this aspect! He also knew that the CO only preferred “light English food”. Neither Capt SKC nor the langar cook knew a sausage about English food! It is a different matter that they also don’t know about Indian food either!

Capt SKC, however, knew that the CO, a fitness freak, preferred chicken to mutton!

He sent hotfoot his flunkeys to the nearest village to purchase the most tender of chicken available.

That done, he breathed a sigh of relief and with great glee wiped his brow!

The red letter day came!

The CO and the entourage, after a hard slog over the mountains, arrived quite exhausted.

After a brief interlude and having had bracing hot tea, Capt SKC took them to the Vantage point and gave a fantastic, well rehearsed briefing and answered issues that were posed to him, admirably. Capt SKC was mightily pleased with himself. It was not easy to keep the CO happy!

After some small talk and chilled beer (even though the weather was chilly, it is fashionable in India to have “chilled beer”), lunch was served.

It was an Indian lunch.

The salad, dal (lentil) and vegetables having been eaten, the chicken was served!

The CO was delighted since all the ghas poos was not his forte. He was a “strict non vegetarian”!

He dug his fork into the chicken with all the fervour of a famished one!

The chicken piece shot out like a bullet, hit the 2IC sitting opposite on the field table and bounced off in the direction of the elated dog that is there in all posts!

There was thundering silence and total embarrassment!

Not so with Capt SKC, pleased at Punch that he had passed the briefing with colours!

“Sir, so sorry. Was your c-ock that tough?”

That brought the house down, but none dared laugh!

Capt SKC, thereafter, learnt that tough cocks don’t go too well with the niceties of the English language and we learnt the charms of “soft cocks”!