Boots Belts Berets

by Tanushree Podder

  All through the term, the first-termers waited for the opportunity to settle scores with their tormentors. The end of term social was the only night when they found an opportunity to do so. The sixth-termers were given a sound thrashing and the CSM was a hunted man that night. After all the torture he had meted out to the juniors throughout the term, he was a prize catch on the farewell night.

  Nowhere have I witnessed the use of such unique weapons for inflicting pain as during the send-off night. Towels became the tool to mete out punishment to the sixth-termers. This seemingly innocuous piece of fabric became a deadly instrument of torture in the hands of the juniors, who knotted one end of a towel, and used it as a whip on the buttocks. The more vicious cadets made it more lethal by hiding a lock inside the knotted end. The cracking power rose by notches with this simple improvisation.

  The night of torture revealed the brutal side of the boys. Some sadistic cadets stubbed lighted fags on the faces of the sixthies, or subjected them to hot and cold baths till their bodies blistered. The toughies amongst the seniors were rounded up by the fifth-termers, given a thrashing, and passed downwards to the first-termers, with cadets from each term extracting their due.

  It was a terrible time for the seniors, who got a dose of their own medicine from the juniors. The nicer ones among them got away with mild punishments, whereas the sadistic seniors were paid back in full, with compound interest.

  The entire exercise was too violent for my liking; maybe Iwas soft.

  ‘I think it is carrying things too far,’ I remarked, walking down the corridor to escape the scene.

  ‘They are getting as good as they gave. It is the law of natural justice,’ replied Bertie, tying a knot in his towel.

  ‘Don’t worry, buddy, you’ll also get it when you are in the sixth term,’ warned Randy.

  ‘Not if I am a benign senior,’ I retorted.

  The first-termers had gone berserk. They were pulling hair, tearing clothes, slapping, and boxing, and if a sixth-termer resisted, it got even worse for him. The torture continued for a reasonably long time. A few sixth-termers who knew of the impending danger had vanished after the officers made their exit. Maachh assured me that no one got away. Those who had run away would eventually be rounded up and teased for cowardice.

  Most seniors faced the agony in a dignified manner. For those who managed to avoid the social and its aftermath, a disaster waited inside their cabin. Buckets of water were poured into their rooms through the ventilators to ruin their beds and possessions, rounding off the day for revenge.

  nine

  p

  Excitement began building up amongst the first-termers as the much-awaited Passing Out Parade preparations began. We had seen enough of it as visitors, and in documentaries and films, but it was the first time we would be participating in one.

  For me, it held a special appeal. It was while attending a POP at the age of ten, awed by the magnificence of the entire event, that I had decided to join the Academy.

  The euphoria dissipated as we went through innumerable rehearsals.The drudgery of endless marches to the commands and to the playing of the band, as we stomped our feet continuously, soon became a big pain.

  ‘I have decided, enough is enough. No more rehearsals for me,’ declared Bertie one evening.

  ‘But the parades have to be attended,’ I interjected.

  ‘Not if one is sick,’ he reminded me. ‘I am reporting sick tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Have you forgotten Manisha’s torture?’

  ‘I haven’t,’ he smiled. ‘But Cruella’s torture can’t be worse than the parade rehearsals.’

  ‘You are right, yaar.’ Maachh, who had been intently studying the horizon for a silver lining, spoke up. ‘I think I will go with you. Let us leave Randy and Pessi to represent us.’

  So, the next morning, the two of them walked to the MI room, leaving us to stomp our feet. God knows what ailment they produced, but Bertie managed to charm the ice-block doc, and they were allowed to skip the rehearsals for a day.

  ‘This isn’t fair,’ ranted Randy. ’Let us do it by turns. The two of you go for the rehearsals tomorrow, and I will report sick.’

  ‘Suit yourself,’ Bertie sniggered.

  Randy reported sick with imaginary diarrhoea, while I pretended to be seized with terrible stomach spasms. Lady Cruella threw us a disdainful look that could have frozen all living creatures into immobility, and proceeded to dispense her vindictive medicine. I can only presume that Manisha didn’t like the looks of us because she prescribed some laxative for me saying, ‘If the pain persists, it could be your appendix, in which case, we’ll resort to surgery.’

  For Randy, it was a medicine that he swore tasted like diesel, which she insisted he take in front of her.

  ‘I guess you must have eaten something that didn’t agree with you,’ she told him. ‘If this doesn’t work, I’ll put you on the drip.’

  The world looked a bleak and cruel place after we had finished with the MI room.

  ‘Let us continue to stomp our feet on the parade ground,’ Randy decided. ‘It is a far safer place than Cruella’s dispensary.’

  The POP was as grand as I had remembered it to be. For the sixth-termers, it was a poignant affair. Many of the outgoing cadets, including those who were considered toughies, got emotional and broke down. Each of them had hordes of memories cached in their hearts and minds. They had transformed from gangly teenagers to strapping adults during the six terms at the Academy, in which time, the course mates had grown to be more important than the family. The tough life of the Academy had knitted a bond as vital as blood relations. Many of them would not meet again as they went to different academies for further training: the army cadets to the Indian Military Academy (IMA); the air force ones to the Air Force one; and the naval ones to yet another Academy.

  All around us was a tragic atmosphere as the sniffling cadets went around hugging each other after the parade. Ahuja, a sixth-termer sat crying while his father and brother waited in the car. His mother sat by his side, moist-eyed, trying to console him.

  ‘It is a highly melodramatic scene, man,’ commented Maachh. ‘I would give my left arm to escape from this hellhole. Here, these guys are getting an opportunity to flee, and yet they are weeping. I don’t understand it at all.’

  ‘It is one of nature’s ironies,’ I tried to explain. ‘When you can’t get away, you want to; and when they let you go, you just don’t want to any more.’

  ‘Another one of life’s mysteries, I guess,’ added Bertie.

  Four buses and two army trucks were lined up at the mess to take the cadets and their baggage to the railway station. My heart filled with joy as I boarded the Academy bus.

  ‘Four full weeks, imagine!’ exclaimed Bertie. ‘What a long parole!’

  ‘And the best news is that we will be second-termers when we return to the Academy after the four-week break.’ Maachh was ecstatic.

  Most of us were taking the NDA special, which was a train meant exclusively for cadets going back home after the Passing Out Parade. Randy and I were taking the one that went to Delhi, while Maachh travelled by the one that headed eastward. Bertie decided to take the overnight bus to Goa.

  A train full of boisterous boys with combat training could spell serious trouble for the stations they passed through. It was to ward off such calamities that the Academy sent the deadliest of the ustaads on the train with an express order to keep the cadets in control. A few semesters back, some cadets had bashed up a vendor for charging extra money. Although the errant cadets were subsequently caught and punished, the damage was done. The NDA special had earned its share of notoriety.

  The moment our train arrived at the platform, the stalls lining the platforms downed their shutters, and all vendors vanished into thin air. The cadets were like animals let loo
se from the zoo. They needed no introduction. The ‘katori’ cut hairstyle left no one in doubt about our identity.

  Every basket of eggs contains a couple of bad ones and so did the NDA special. These bad eggs behaved like goons from third-rate Hindi movies. They pounced on the stray vendors who dared to remain on the platform, bullying and terrorizing them.

  The ustaads did not punish anyone in public. All they did was note the names of the offending cadets, and details of the offence committed by them. The offence, time and the place were noted in a meticulous manner, language notwithstanding. Scores would be settled once the cadets returned to the Academy for the next term. Each time the train stopped at a station, the ustaads dismounted from their compartments, and kept a watchful eye on the cadets. They were the only ones we were scared of.

  Our seniors, who were old hands at travelling on the NDA special, knew all the tricks of the trade. As soon as the train chugged to a station, they would wear a cap to hide the ‘gobri’ haircut, sport their dark glasses, and venture out on the platform. Randy decided to follow suit.

  Donning a pair of dark glasses and a cap, he sauntered along the platform. He demanded a cup of tea from the solitary tea vendor, and sipped it with great relish, his eyes focused on the signal. As soon as the train whistled, he finished his tea, and began walking away. When the vendor asked for money, he lifted his cap, and ran his hand over his scalp meaningfully. Revealing his ‘gobri’ cut was meant to indicate that he was from the special train, but the vendor was an old hand. He pointed at Ustaad Waryam Singh, who, anticipating trouble, had already begun walking towards them.

  Randy quickly paid up and vanished into the nearest compartment before Waryam Singh could catch up with him.

  The journey on the NDA special is an exciting experience. We played cards, cracked jokes, pulled pranks on each other, and time melted away silently as did the distance. Those who wanted to grab some sleep were packed off to the upper berths. Randy played the mouth organ all the time, drawing curses from some unmusical chaps. Nights were tussle time as the bookworms kept the lights on while the others, intent on grabbing some sleep, kept putting them off.

  As time passed, the cadets grew restless. The novelty of the journey had worn off and everyone wanted to reach home.

  Dawn was breaking when the train reached my destination. I was flooded with a sense of homecoming as soon as I alighted at the familiar station. The well-known sounds and smells made me feel emotional.

  I had not informed my parents about the visit because I wanted to give them a surprise. And what a surprise they got when they saw me for the first time with my ‘katori’ cut! The rigorous exercises had melted all the fat I had carried on my body to the Academy. A couple of inches added to my height in the past few months, gave an extra edge to my personality. Most importantly, it was the impressive timbre of my voice that caught attention. From the teenage squeak, it had transformed into a deep masculine tone.

  As mothers are wont to do, mine too lamented about my skinniness.

  ‘Don’t they feed you properly at the Academy?’ was her first question after which she embarked on Operation Fattening.

  ‘You won’t believe how much I can eat,’ I reassured her, and proceeded to demolish single-handedly a dozen slices of bread, and a couple of omelettes at the table, to prove my point.

  All talk veered around the Academy for the next few days. I skipped the details about ragging, and tried to make life sound quite pleasant. For the first few days, I did nothing but eat and sleep. Everyone treated me like royalty. Even my father dropped all hostility to share man-to-man chats with me. I even managed to surprise my mom by making my own bed and putting my room in order.

  People flooded me with curious questions wherever I went. Everyone wanted to know about the Academy, our training and the life there. My friends remarked about my personality, athletic build, and height that had shot up by four inches. I basked under the glow of the attention that came my way.

  Public attention turns even the most restrained people into braggarts, and I was but a mere mortal. The picture I painted of the Academy was rosier by many degrees than the original. One secret I shared with no one, not even my mother, was the fact that I had contemplated running away from the NDA at one point of time.

  As all good things come to an end, so did the break, and I was ready to leave for the Academy once more. Surprisingly, I was raring to get back. Amidst a string of sermons and cautions delivered by my parents, and weighed down by the big bag full of eatables, I embarked on the journey back to the Academy.

  ten

  p

  The daylong return journey to Poona provided me enough time to introspect. Lying on the upper berth of a thankfully less crowded compartment gave me an opportunity to think about the six months I had spent at the Academy. The 180 days had passed in a trice, but we had done much growing up. A smile creased my face at the recollection of the pranks we had played, and the eccentricity of each of my pals. Undeniably, we had suffered harsh punishments, but the days had been interspersed with moments of immense joy, too. I was still musing over the past six months when the train chugged into the Poona station.

  The reception committee at the railway station packed us off in the bus and the truck, which took us straight to the mess. The sixth-term office holders, and the first-termers, had already arrived two days before us, a mandatory process. Breakfast was being served when we arrived at the mess. I was dying to meet my gang.

  A little bit of hunting revealed the gang at the breakfast table, doing justice to the fare laid before them. Maachh and Randy greeted me like a brother lost in the Kumbh Mela. Both of them were sporting freshly grown moustaches.

  Nothing had changed at the squadron, yet there were many small differences. We were at an age when transformations take place pretty rapidly. The embarrassing crack in the voice had disappeared for most first-termers, giving way to a more masculine tone. The most pleasing part was that most of us had grown way taller than we were when we had left. Some seemed to have shot up like Jack’s beanstalk. Many of my course mates returned sporting a moustache, and had grown their hair as much as four weeks of pampering could allow.

  The tapeworm was at work tucking in the repast with gusto. ‘Life is good, man,’ Maachh said, polishing off the double-egg omelette with half a dozen toasts. ‘I was kind of getting Academy-sick. It’s nice to be back.’

  ‘The best part is that we are second-termers now, and we have the license to rag,’ said Randy, rubbing his hands in anticipation.

  All our course mates had the same thought running through their minds as we stepped out of the mess, fortified with the sumptuous meal.

  There was just one problem. To rag a first-termer, we had to locate one. We couldn’t spot a single fresher. They had probably finished their breakfast and returned to the squadrons under the watchful eyes of the sixth-termers.

  ‘We have to be careful before we resort to any ragging,’ I cautioned. ‘What if we mistake a sixth-termer for a fresher?’

  There was substance in my prudence. The Academy is too big a place to know all the cadets in one single term, and there is hardly any physical difference between the first- and the sixth- termers.There had been instances when we were mistaken for first-termers and hauled up by seniors who were also hunting for first-termers to rag.

  ‘It’s sort of frustrating not being able to lay our hands on a freshie,’ Maachh’s voice sounded regretful.

  ‘Don’t worry, there is plenty of time for getting at them,’ consoled Randy. ‘Let’s get back to our squadron and catch hold of some first-termers on home ground.’

  The moment we arrived at the squadron, we spotted nineteen first-termers hanging from the seventh heaven. Makhija, a fifth-term sergeant, was now the CSM. Though a terror for the juniors, he was considered a fair guy with an intellectual bent of mind. The moment he saw
us entering the squadron, he let off some first-termers so that we could use them to get our rooms cleaned, and have our share of fun ragging them for the first time.

  What is my name? What is my term? We swooped down like vultures on the sacrificial lambs, and blasted them with our artillery. Evidently, they didn’t know our names, and said we were sixth-termers. Smart chaps! They knew that it made a junior feel happy if he was told that he was a sixth-termer. Once they had curried favour, the punishment was sure to be diluted.

  ‘Hey, let’s first check our cabin allocation,’ said Randy. ‘Then we can use the service of these piddly fellows to do them up.’ We had already passed on our ‘piddly’ title to the freshers.

  Each term, we were allotted a new set of cabins, and the list was displayed on the notice board in the centre lobby of the ground floor. A number of crosses and amendments had already been made on the list.

  ‘Look, your cabin is at one end of the corridor, mine at another, and Maachh is nowhere around!’ exclaimed Randy. ‘I don’t spot Bertie and Natty’s name on our side of the floor, either.’

  ‘What gross injustice! This won’t do,’ surmised Maachh, craning his long neck to get a good look at the list. ‘We’ve got to hang around together.’

  ‘Right you are,’ I joined them. ‘The four of us can’t be strewn all over the second floor. Birds of a feather have to flock together. We can’t go against nature.’

  At times such as these, Randy proved to be most resourceful. He sauntered up to the CSM, and offered him a fag from his brand new pack of 555, which he had brought with him. After they had exchanged pleasantries, opined about the new crop of cadets, dissected the atmosphere at the Academy, and indulged in some loose talk with Randy cracking a few vulgar jokes, they got down to business.