Boots Belts Berets

by Tanushree Podder

  ‘Once when I was in London …’

  ‘Last summer, when I was in Darjeeling …’

  ‘I still carry fond memories of my visit to Spain …’

  ‘When I was in the US with my son …’

  The only time we paid attention was when he narrated his experiences. We would count the number of places in the textbook that he had told us about. If we wanted to hear about London, it was Lesson Fourteen, for Australia it was Lesson Five, and so on. We learnt more about geography than about English in his classes. I don’t know whether he recounted fictitious accounts to hold our attention, or he had really visited all the places he told us about. He didn’t look like a globe-trotter but he certainly seemed to know a lot about those places.

  In our third term, those who cleared the minimum Hindi language test had to opt for a foreign language. Most opted for Chinese and so did I. Our Chinese teacher was the only lady teacher around. She was a petite beauty, who, to our eyes, looked like a Chinese doll though she was a true-blue Indian. When she read from the book, the cadets stared at her without blinking. Each one of us was in love with her. We all fared badly in the Chinese language, since all of us had paid more attention to the teacher than to our lessons.

  fifteen

  p

  It was a Sunday morning. ‘I’m broke,’ declared Maachh. ‘I am not going to the city this Sunday.’

  It was almost the end of the term, and most of us had run out of the extra cash we had brought from home.

  ‘I think I’ll also skip liberty this time,’ I seconded Maachh, my debt-ridden conscience goading me.

  ‘In that case, I won’t go either,’ said Randy.

  Bertie was dressing up for the Sunday service at church.

  We decided to play cricket. ‘You can join us after you’ve finished with your prayers,’ Randy told Bertie.

  Hours passed but Bertie didn’t turn up. We were almost through with the match. ’The Mass is long over. What’s keeping the guy, I wonder. I’ll go and find him,’said Maachh.

  ‘We’ll come with you,’decided Randy. ’He could have got into some trouble.’

  As we pedalled from the Sudan Block towards the ‘Hut of Remembrance’, we found Bertie’s cycle lying on the ground. It was the most isolated area in the campus, with thick vegetation all around, the kind of place described in whodunit novels. On most days, no one passed by. One could easily get murdered in the secluded place, and the body could lie undetected for weeks.

  Worried, we began hunting for him.

  ‘Where could the guy be?’ said Maachh. ‘Do you think someone has kidnapped him?’

  ‘Maybe Bulldog decided to do away with him to protect his daughter’s chastity,’ joked Randy.

  We were cackling at the thought when we heard a rustle in the bushes behind a huge banyan tree. Randy quietly shinnied up the tree while we waited. Once he had perched himself on a comfortable branch, he gestured and we also climbed up.

  He pointed down at a clearing near the bushes. Silently, we peered down through the foliage from our perch.

  There, seated on the ground were Bertie and his girlfriend. Maachh gasped, and was about to speak when Randy clamped a hand over his mouth. The lovebirds were holding hands and speaking in a hushed tone, unmindful of the hidden company.

  Randy nodded, and we came down as quietly as we had gone up, picked up our bikes, and pedalled back to the squadron.

  ‘The scoundrel,’ Maachh spluttered. ‘No wonder he is not going on liberty. The guy has made such rapid progress and not shared a word about it with us.’

  ‘Wonder how she evaded the Bulldog.’

  ‘Do you think he will kiss her?’ Maachh sounded bothered.

  ‘We’ll know when he returns,’ I consoled him.

  ‘That is, if he tells us anything.’

  Bertie was grinning from ear to ear as he returned to the squadron.

  ‘So, what happened at the church? Did Jesus finally smile at you?’ asked Maachh, pouncing on Bertie the moment he spotted him.

  ‘He did,’ said Bertie. ‘And what a smile it was!’

  Randy came straight to the point. ‘We saw you.’

  ‘Where? How?’ It was Bertie’s turn to splutter. ‘I mean … when?’

  ‘We saw you sitting with the girl, in the bushes, behind the Hut of Remembrance.’

  The guy blushed beetroot red, and got all tongue-tied.

  ‘Well, we are waiting,’Maachh reminded him, using Randy’s line.

  ‘Actually, Lizzie and I were just talking about things.’

  ‘Things! What things?’

  ‘Just things!’ Bertie had decided not to spill the beans. There was no point in pestering him.

  ‘How did she get away from the Bulldog?’ asked Randy.

  ‘The family was supposed to go for lunch at a relative’s place in the city after attending the morning service in the church. Lizzie told her parents that she was feeling sick so she wouldn’t go for the mass. Once they had gone, she sneaked out to meet me.’

  ‘But, what were you doing behind the bush?’ Maachh’s question made us all break into laughter. Coming from him, it sounded most sinister.

  ‘I told you, just talking.’

  ‘Just talking,’ Maachh was sceptical. ‘For that you don’t have to hide behind a bush.’

  ‘Let him be,’commanded Randy, interposing himself between the two morons. They looked ready to take each other on, with their eyes ablaze and nostrils flared.

  Bertie was in love. There was just no doubt about it. He stared at the moon as though he had never seen it before, his statements about love were punctuated with deep sighs, and he sang romantic songs under the shower – indisputable symptoms of love sickness. Instead of drawing aircraft in his notebooks, he had begun doodling hearts pierced with broken arrows. Some even had blood dripping from them.

  Unfortunately, love and NDA training don’t go together. In the Academy, the rule was simple – perform or perish. And Bertie had become a non-performer. Twice he had been thrown off his horse while riding, much to the ustaad’s ire. His performance at academics was nose-diving, along with his diving performance at the swimming pool. He had been pretty good at cross-country, but now he ran as though he was carrying his cross on the shoulder. Not just that, he displayed lovely bruises on his face after the last boxing match. That he managed to save his nose was his only achievement.

  We were concerned.

  ‘We’ve got to help the chap,’ Randy declared after a particularly bad day.

  Bertie had managed to sink lower than the backbenchers, in academics. Even Jassi Kalra, who was a known dud, had overtaken him.

  ‘If he continues like this, he is sure to be relegated,’ said Randy.

  ‘But what can we do about his performance? He is in love, and a guy in love will turn into a non-performer,’ I philosophized.

  ‘We’ve got to reason with him.’

  Reason we did. At least, Randy tried.

  ‘Look buddy, there is no point in letting your performance slip.’

  ‘It is not intentional,’ Bertie got defensive immediately.

  ‘No one is saying it is intentional, but you’ve got to pay a little more attention to your training.’

  Bertie began sulking. Our sermon did not please him.

  Randy tried a different approach. ‘You like the girl, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course I do.’

  ‘How will you face her if you got relegated? Think about it,’ reasoned Randy.

  It worked. The mention of relegation and his girlfriend in the same breath made a dent in his thick skull.

  ‘I had not thought about it,’ he mumbled. ‘Lizzie wouldn’t look at me if I were relegated.’

  ‘There you are,’ I butted in. �
��You could lose her because of your bad performance. Wouldn’t it be better if you did well and impressed her?’

  ‘And in the same stroke you could prove the Bulldog wrong,’added Randy.

  The talk worked. Petrified of losing Lizzie, Bertie began making earnest efforts to perk up his grades in every sphere.

  sixteen

  p

  It was compulsory to opt for a hobby in our third term, and I opted for sailing. On Sunday mornings, we had to cycle down to the Peacock Bay where the boats were moored. The bay was a part of the huge Khadakvasala Lake. We were allotted small boats, which were called the Cadet Class boats. After a few initial classes, we were released in the lake. Though I could swim reasonably well, the huge expanse of water unnerved me. It was my fascination with sailing that finally nullified my fear. The thrill of sailing in the boats on our own seemed to have a touch of romance that never failed to work on me.

  On our third day, a cadet called Ranka and I were assigned a small boat and allowed to take it into the water. The experienced and senior cadets had taken bigger boats like the Enterprise and the CBK.

  We were two inexperienced cadets in a boat, and we felt out of depth. Like a true greenhorn, I carried my notes along in case of emergency. The classroom instructions had made sailing seem so simple. Attending them we had felt confident of handling everything, but now, seated in the small boat, every little problem assumed gigantic proportions. The ustaad gave a small shove, and the boat moved out smoothly into the water. It sailed like a dream, and we were ecstatic. Adrenaline surged through my veins as I stood up like Nelson at the helm of his battleship, with only the binoculars missing.

  Trouble began a little later when we tried to manoeuvre, and the boat refused to respond. We moved our buttocks rhythmically, as on a swing, to urge it to move, but to no avail. Ranka tried to put up the sail, but the breeze was too mild to effect any change in the boat’s position. There were six other boats in the bay, which merrily went around catching the wind in their sails.

  After a lot of sweating, we managed to move the boat out of the bay into the open, and the wind filled the sail. Slowly, we began gaining speed. Thrilled with our success, we goaded it to move further from the base. The little boat floated beautifully into the deep blue water. Panic struck when we realized that we had moved farther than we had anticipated. We pulled at the ropes to change direction, but it wasn’t as easy a task as it seemed. I found that the boat was taking us for a ride, instead of the other way round. Desperate, I thumbed through my notebook for a solution. The theoretical lessons had not prepared us for practicals.

  As we tugged at the ropes, the boat tilted dangerously.

  ‘Let us move to the other side,’ I instructed Ranka. ‘It will help in balancing the damn thing.’

  The two of us jumped to the other side to steady it. The moment we stood up, the boat capsized, and we fell into the water. It was a disgraceful exhibition of ignorance. I no longer felt like Nelson.

  The ustaads deployed as lifeguards continued to patrol the lake in a motorboat. They saw us flapping helplessly in the water, but did not respond. They were giving us a good chance to drown ourselves. The two of us were thoroughly drenched and exhausted, trying to get the boat upright. I felt like a rat trapped in a bucketful of water. When all our efforts failed, we decided to abandon the boat, and began swimming towards the base. At this juncture, the ustaads decided to be kind. One of them took the boat away, while the other took us up in the motorboat.

  It was small consolation that my pals hadn’t fared too well in their hobby classes either. Maachh had taken trekking as a hobby. It was the most popular hobby apart from riding, since it offered an escape from routine. With his predilection for messing things up, there was not much he could ruin, but he returned with lovely bruises after a couple of falls. Bertie, who had opted for Western music had a natural flair for it. Yet, he managed to snap a few strings of his guitar in the very first week.

  For Randy, riding was the thing. He was a natural as far as riding was concerned. The way he handled a horse would have shamed a pro.

  It was a cloudless night with a clean dark sky when we escaped into our favourite T-55 tank in front of the Sudan Block for a smoke and some loud thinking. The battle tank-without-the-hatch was a place that inspired our tired brains.

  There’s something about the hormones at our age that hooks girls on the mind as firmly as stickers to the refrigerator door. Girls were an obsession with most of us at the Academy. Having a girlfriend was considered an achievement. Most of us didn’t have one, but everyone boasted of knowing a few girls quite intimately.

  ‘Divulge the truth, dear Bong, do you have a girlfriend?’ Bertie asked Maachh.

  ‘Arrey, who will look at a guy like me? I am not Randy.’

  ‘How sad!’ Bertie was bent upon making fun of Maachh. ‘What about sex?’

  I shot him a warning look. He was treading on slippery ground. ‘I mean, have any of you ever had sex?’

  We threw him a dirty look.

  ‘Okay, guys, no offence meant. Just checking.’ He threw up his hands in mock surrender. ‘I was just wondering …,’ he hesitated. ‘Why don’t we go to Budhwar Peth one of these days?’

  ‘Budhwar Peth, where’s that?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh! Budhwar Peth is the red light area of Poona. Don’t tell me you have never heard of it,’ Randy mocked.

  Honestly, I had never heard of the place. I was horrified that Bertie was even thinking of visiting the red light area. Ever since I had sat through the educational film on Sexually Transmitted Diseases, I had been petrified of sex. Most cadets had avoided all talk of sex for many weeks after the film.

  ‘What are you saying?’ I gasped. ‘Haven’t you seen the film on STD?’

  ‘No, Pessi, I was snoring through it,’ teased Bertie. ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘Well, it was about unsafe sex. A prostitute is the most likely transmitter of diseases,’ I stuttered.

  ‘Honestly, Pessi, if one were to listen to you, one would never do anything in life.’

  Bertie slapped his forehead in exasperation.

  ‘Well guys, what are your thoughts on the subject?’ he asked the others.

  ‘Right now, I am not in a mood,’said Randy, feigning indifference.

  No one wanted to admit that they were under the spell of the documentary.

  ‘Nor am I,’ Maachh circumvented the issue.

  The truth was that none of us would have dared to visit such a place. It was one thing to talk about sex, and quite another to experiment with it.

  ‘Typical middle-class approach,’cursed Bertie, but we knew he was as nervous as any of us. His bravado did not fool us.

  The discussion ended as abruptly as it had begun. It had made us feel quite hot under the collar.

  Certain things can’t be evaded for long, and neither could we stem our curiosity about Budhwar Peth. It was a hot topic of discussion with most third-termers. Almost all senior cadets claimed to have visited the area although no one knew for sure. Usually, an ustaad in plain clothes was posted around the area during Sundays, to catch hold of the errant cadets.

  Though we bragged about going to the red light area, none of us dared. We were mortally afraid of catching some terrible disease from the females there. In any case, we were quite content studying our files containing Gandhi’s Teachings, for the moment.

  Everything other than academics cooled off a bit, as the exams approached. Academics were important if one wanted to come into the limelight, and to wear the badge of a torch holder and attend the commandant’s tea. As usual, Maachh prepared small chits to stuff into the hemline of his shorts, while I toiled.

  ‘The time you take to prepare those chits can be gainfully spent studying,’I scolded him.

  ‘Mind your business, Gandhi. Do your bit, and l
et me do mine.’ His logic was warped. ’One should not waste one’s grey cells cramming things that can be copied. Did you know that the number of grey cells in our brain are limited and irreplaceable?’

  ‘Tell me, honestly,’ I persisted. ‘How can you read those miniature letters with the invigilator making the rounds?’

  ‘What do you think I carry my magnifying glass for?’ he laughed.

  My father had repeatedly warned me not to return home with less than seventy-five per cent in any subject. ’ And that is a concession I am making because of your outdoor activities,’he had written in the letter. ’ I don’t want you to turn out to be a dumb brawny man with no intellectual abilities.’

  I couldn’t afford to let myself down. I had to prove myself as cerebral as the rest of the family.

  Randy and I were the most serious guys in our gang, Bertie was half-serious, and Maachh… well, he was just a madcap.

  ‘Forget the exams, guys, let us have some fun,’he offered every evening. ‘Don’t you guys need a break? Why don’t we go for a stroll to the Gole Market, just for an hour?’

  Watching our incredulous faces, he would latch on to Bertie. ‘Bertie boy, you could do with some bird watching. Why don’t you come with me?’

  Tempted, Bertie would sometimes oblige him. Together they would do the rounds, feast their eyes on some females, and return pleased with their feat.

  ‘Life is an exam, yaar,’Maachh spread the light of his philosophy. ‘If we slog for each exam, can you imagine what would happen? We would be slogging our entire life away. Life is too exciting for that.’

  Although I agreed with him, I couldn’t stop cramming the lessons into my brain. I was tuned to perform. My father’s pressure ensured that.

  We heaved a sigh of relief when the exams were finally over and the routine became a wee bit relaxed.

  ‘Hey, the movie Patton is showing in the city!’shouted Maachh, hurrying towards us one evening. ‘Let us go to the city this Sunday.’

  Most cadets going to town on liberty had seen the movie and had come back raving about it. The preceding Sunday, some of the cadets had bumped into Ferreira at the theatre. That he had been impressed by the movie was evident from his mannerisms and actions that became rather Patton-like thereafter.