Boots Belts Berets

by Tanushree Podder

  ‘I won’t allow the specky to do so this year.’

  ‘And how will you do that?’ asked Maachh who was always looking for some action.

  The next morning was the mathematics exam and Bala was a whiz kid in the subject.

  ‘I have a plan,’winked Bertie. ‘All you guys have to do is to support me.’

  The rules of camaraderie dictated that we support a pal, whatever the consequences.

  That evening Bertie walked into Bala’s room. As expected, the chap was bent over his books, solving complex mathematical problems.

  ‘I say, Specky, don’t you ever relax? Your eyes are popping out of their sockets and god, they are as red as tomatoes. There must be something wrong with them.’

  On that cue, the three of us, Randy, Maachh, and I, walked in and began commenting on the state of Bala’s eyes. ‘What happened to your eyes?’ shouted Maachh, concern written on his face.

  ‘Have you seen the doc? My dear Specky, I’ve heard that conjunctivitis is in the air,’Randy added.

  ‘Getting the red-eye at this juncture would be awful. How will you appear for the rest of your papers?’ This was the best I could do.

  In about ten minutes we had psyched the guy to such an extent that he began to believe that something was terribly wrong with his eyes.

  ‘Do you chaps think that I should go to the MI room?’ he asked, worried.

  ‘Look Specky, I happen to have some eye-drops in my room. My mom had given them to me. If you want I can lend the bottle to you,’said Bertie.

  I threw him a questioning look.

  ‘Thanks a lot, Bertie. Will you get it for me?’

  The scoundrel took off on the double and returned with a bottle. ‘Shall I put a few drops in your eyes?’

  Without waiting for a reply, Bertie proceeded to put a few drops in Bala’s eyes. ‘Now just lie down and relax. Keep your eyes closed for ten minutes. You will be all right, don’t worry.’

  My conscience began to bother me as we walked out of Bala’s room.

  ‘Bertie, what was there in that bottle?’ I asked. ’The poor chap will not go blind, I hope.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Pessi. It is some stuff called atropine, which eye specialists use for dilating the pupils when they want to check the eyes. I stole the bottle from the MI room. The chap won’t be able to read. He will see everything magnified many times over, that’s all.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have done it.’ I ended lamely while the rest of the gang burst out laughing at the thought of Bala struggling to focus his pupils.

  The next morning, Bala was there, his eyes really red with rage.

  ‘What did you put in my eyes?’ he demanded, standing solidly in Bertie’s path.

  ‘Did I put something in your eyes? Are you dreaming, dear chap? Why should I put anything in your eyes?’ laughed our buddy.

  ‘It is not a joke, you filthy ***! I couldn’t read a thing after you put those drops. I still can’t see properly.’

  ‘Hope you can read the examination paper,’drawled Bertie.

  ‘Don’t worry about that,’retorted Specky.

  I felt sorry for the guy.

  When the results were declared, things turned out just as they had always done. Bala stood heads taller than all of us. He had scored the maximum in all subjects, maths included. Specky had the last laugh. He walked away with all the academic prizes again that year.

  It was time to rejoice. We were going home for the term-end break and we would be the senior-most when we returned.

  twenty

  p

  The break seemed too long as I filled my days at home with friends and family. The fact was that the long absence from home had created a distance between me and my childhood friends. I didn’t identify with them any more. Friends now meant the ones I had at the Academy.

  I was now six feet tall, athletic in build, intelligent, disciplined, a team player and an all-rounder. There was not a guy in the past generations of our family who had been equally good at swimming, polo, riding, boxing, cross-country, shooting, sailing and what not. I knew a smattering of French and Chinese besides the four languages I had known earlier, which made me a kind of linguist in the family. Relatives paused to admire my muscular physique and upright bearing.

  ‘Your son has single-handedly achieved more than my four sons,’ a distant uncle complimented my father.

  ‘You are a fortunate man, Subir,’ praised another. ‘I wish I had a son like yours.’

  ‘I have decided,’ an aunt broke in at this juncture. ‘I am putting Indranil in the NDA.’

  Indranil was her son and a distant cousin of mine.

  These were the same people who had once scorned my choice, saying that the army was for those who couldn’t do anything else. I was happy that I had heralded a new profession in the family where only doctors and engineers commanded respect.

  Although he didn’t admit it, my father grudgingly allowed his chest to swell up by a few inches.

  ‘After all he is my son,’ he proudly announced one evening at a party where his friends were discussing the feats of their sons.

  It was then that I realized how much I had learnt in the two and a half years I had spent at the Academy, much more than most people did in their entire lifetime.

  I allowed the praise to get to my head. It felt good to hear the nice things after I had faced the stiff resistance to the career of my choice. But even praise can get tiresome after a while, I realized as the days passed.

  I was beginning to get restless. I wanted to be back at the Academy.

  My parents also sensed the change in me. ‘You are no longer the same,’ my mom accused me. ‘You don’t enjoy being at home.’

  ‘That is not true,’ I defended myself. ‘It is just that I miss my friends at the Academy.’

  I had never missed the Academy so much. It had been my home for two and a half long years, and now, just six more months remained before I moved out of it forever. We were now in our sixth term.

  Happiness surged through my veins as the familiar portal of the Academy loomed up in the distance. It was like homecoming. Randy was sitting on an easy chair in the sun outside the squadron when I reached there. We greeted each other like long lost friends, and I sat down across him. A dreamy look suffused his face as he looked at the squadron.

  ‘Life at any place other than here seems so uncomfortable. This is more our home than the real one,’ he mused. He had spoken the very words that were lingering on my lips.

  ‘It kind of makes me sad that we’ll have to leave after six months,’ I agreed.

  The two of us sat in silence watching the Sudan Block in the distance.

  ‘The devil arrives,’ I said, spotting Bertie entering the squadron. After we had hugged each other, he dumped the luggage in his cabin, and we proceeded for lunch. The Academy looked like a ghost town. The first-termers were to arrive the next day.

  By the time we ended our lunch, Maachh and Natty had also arrived. It was a joyous reunion for the gang. We greeted each other with unprecedented bonhomie.

  Maachh was full of his escapades at the local club, and the thundering ovation he had managed at the boxing competition there. He flexed his puny biceps and boasted about the conquest, while Bertie shared his experiences about the beaches of Goa.

  ‘The white females are so uninhibited,’ he gushed. ‘They loll around half naked on the sands, making the boys gape. During this break, I did a lot of gaping, too.’

  ‘I will accompany you during the next break,’ declared Maachh.

  ‘That is if I take you with me,’ retorted Bertie. The two were always at loggerheads, and that had not changed with time.

  Some things never change – for instance, the deputy’s obsession with bettering the quality of the cadets’
lives. He wanted to bring in radical reforms. A smoker himself, he permitted all sixth-termers to smoke openly in the squadrons.

  His announcement shocked everyone. There were those who opined that allowing the cadets to smoke openly would send the NDA up in smoke. Some felt that the sixth-termers who did not smoke would also start smoking. Most instructors thought it would be setting a bad precedent.

  The permission to smoke, however, worked otherwise. Suddenly, the magic of smoking faded away. Many sixth-termers gave up smoking and the number of smokers went down drastically. It was one thing to steal a smoke on the sly, and another to smoke openly. The thrill of doing the forbidden was what made most cadets smoke.

  Our nightly meetings inside the tank for a smoke had also lost the thrill. I gave up smoking, and so did Randy.

  ‘Smoking has become boring. The deputy has ruined the charm,’ I said one night inside the tank.

  ‘I’ll take to cigars’, announced Randy. ‘Smoking a cigar is classy. It has style.’

  ‘Yeah, like Fidel Castro,’ Bertie agreed.

  ‘In that case, I will take to smoking a pipe,’ I laughed. ‘Like Sherlock Holmes.’

  ‘Where will you get your tobacco supply from?’ asked Bertie, ‘Gole Market doesn’t stock any.’

  ‘While you guys decide on the subject, I have found some alternatives. Take your pick,’ said Maachh fishing out snuff and some paan masala from his pocket. ’Multiple choice!’

  He passed it around, but there were no takers.

  ‘This is no officer material; it is degrading stuff, Maachh. I am not into this; count me out,’ Randy stated disdainfully.

  ‘Bidi?’

  ‘No,’ we shouted in unison. ’We’d better not lower our standards to that of Raju.’ Raju was the room orderly who was addicted to bidis, but occasionally enjoyed a little bit of ’ganja’and hash, as well.

  ‘How about tharra?’ quipped Bertie. ‘We could try it again. The aim is to get a kick, isn’t it? In fact, I don’t mind hash, ganja or tharra. What says Pessi?’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind taking a shot,’ I agreed.

  We all agreed that life inside the battle tank was dull without some kicking agent. The idea of ganja excited us.

  ‘That is real grown-up stuff. A fag is for kids,’ said Bertie.

  ‘I know where to get all the stuff you want,’bragged Maachh. ‘Anything you guys want to try out – ganja, hash, whatever, just let me know.’

  Maachh was serious. When I said I was willing to try anything, I was just posturing.

  Ganja and hash were prohibited, and getting caught with it could get us thrown out of the Academy. Smoking was a minor issue that invited a few punishments, but this was hard stuff not worth the risk. I waited for someone else to sound the warning alarm this time. I didn’t like the Gandhi label.

  Unfortunately, no one spoke against the idea.

  ‘We can try them out,‘ Said Randy. ‘Just once, and no more.’

  Maachh took the onus of acquiring the stuff. ’I‘ll bring the stuff to the tank tomorrow, after dinner,’he told us.

  No one asked him how and from where he would acquire it.

  The next night, there was excitement as we gathered inside the battle tank after dinner, and waited for Maachh to arrive. The tank had been our companion through thick and thin. It would have a wonderful story to narrate if only it could speak.

  This was the place where we had bared our souls, shared our dreams of the future, frustrations, and elation. The mammoth structure of metal had been privy to our heartbreaks and adventures, as well as achievements and joys. The other cadets had similar haunts where a few close friends would gather. We knew of groups sitting on the garage roofs, on treetops far from the squadrons. Some went off as far as the ’Hut of Remembrance’and the playfields – isolated spots along the peripheral road.

  ‘What’s keeping Maachh?’ said Randy.

  ‘The guy must have got cold feet,’ retorted Bertie.

  It was almost an hour since dinner, but he hadn’t turned up. Finally, we decided to call it a day, and returned to the squadron. Just as we were entering the squadron, there was the sound of screeching brakes, and Captain Sabharwal sprang out of his jeep.

  ‘Cadet Randhir Singh,’ he barked. ‘Come here.’

  My heart grew cold with foreboding as Randy walked towards the officer. Sabby wanted the entire squadron out in the parade ground. No reason was given for the sudden infliction of such an order.

  All sixth-term appointments, including Bertie and I, went round taking stock of the cadets after the entire squadron had assembled. There were some seven cadets missing, and this number included Maachh.

  We waited patiently for the seven cadets to turn up. The cadets had to be in by 10.00 p.m., and it was around 9.50 p.m.

  By 10.00 p.m., the missing cadets, including Maachh, had arrived. All the cadets were made to line up in two rows, all along the parade ground.

  It was a dark night. With only a solitary street lamp lighting it up, visibility on the parade ground was poor.

  As I crossed the sixth-termers, Maachh tugged at my sleeves. He pulled me closer and whispered nervously, ‘Pessi, I am in trouble.’ He was literally shaking with anxiety, ready to collapse.

  ‘What is it? Tell me, fast,‘I said, looking around fearfully. I need not have worried. Captain Sabharwal was right at the other end, walking around the first-term cadets.

  ‘A drug peddler is sitting inside Sabby’s jeep. He is the guy I met for collecting the hash. The guy is supposed to identify the purchaser.’ Maachh said in a trembling voice.

  I knew immediately that it was an identification parade. Maachh had to be saved. Somehow, I had to pull him out of the identification parade.

  After Randy counted and reported to Sabby that all the cadets were present, Sabby pulled out the drug peddler from the jeep, and made him stand in front of the squadron.

  ‘You guys are in trouble,’announced Sabby angrily. ‘This guy has handed over some ganja to one of the cadets. Who is it? Own up!’he commanded.

  No one did.

  ‘One last chance. After this minute, if that guy is caught, I’ll ensure that he goes home.’ Sabby sounded the warning bell. It reverberated dangerously inside Maachh’s brain. He began trembling all over again.

  Office holders were free to roam around. Taking advantage of my freedom, I stood next to Maachh and held his hand tight. He was shaking violently. The axe, hammer, and sword, all were hanging clearly on Maachh’s head. It was Judgement Day for the poor fellow. The last trumpet had sounded, and all that remained was the verdict.

  There was pin-drop silence. Then Sabby pushed the guy towards the first-termers, and the identification parade began. The chap looked totally confused. It was almost impossible to differentiate between the cadets. With their crop-cut hair, and uniforms, everybody looked alike. Besides, he had had just a brief glimpse of his customer.

  From the first-termers to the second and then the third, the baffled peddler traipsed uncertainly. Just as Sabby stepped towards the sixth-termers, I pulled out Maachh from the group, and taking advantage of the darkness pushed him behind the garage, which was just about five metres away. He lay motionless there till the peddler had gone past the sixth- termers.

  Unable to identify anyone, the drug peddler gave our squadron a clear chit, and pushed off to Hunter squadron where a similar drill was to follow. It was conducted all over the Academy, but the guy failed to identify the erring cadet.

  It took a long time for Maachh to recover from the shock.

  ‘Never again,’ he vowed solemnly. ‘I will never attempt another contact with the guy.’

  We got to know the entire story the next day. Maachh had contacted the peddler through Raju, who regularly bought the stuff from him. Although Maachh had requested Raju fo
r the hash, the orderly had clearly refused to get involved in the deal.

  ‘I will just set up a meeting between the two of you, nothing more,’ he had said sternly. ‘If the deputy finds out that I have anything to do with this business, I will lose my job.’

  So, Raju had set up a meeting between the two behind the dhobi ghat. Unknown to both Raju and Maachh, an officer and a couple of ustaads had been lying in wait for the peddler – they had prior information about the chap’s activities. As soon as Maachh had reached the place, and the peddler had made his appearance, the security chaps stepped in. Maachh, who was a nimble chap, had sprinted away in the darkness, but the peddler had been caught. For once, Maachh was thankful for the cross-country practice sessions.

  Naturally, there was no more talk of ganja, charas or hash, after that. We were content with an occasional puff of the fag or a sip from the bottle of Goan feni that Bertie occasionally produced from nowhere.

  A little while later, it was time for another camp. ‘Camp Torna’, held in the sixth term, was something we all looked forward to. The two previous camps – Greenhorn and Rover – had been tough but enjoyable, and we were more than ready for the third one.

  Torna, of course, was more of a challenge than anything we had gone through. It took the steam off the most adventurous cadets. You are in the last term, the instructors never failed to remind us sadistically.

  The routine was gruelling. The daily long marches, which Randy referred to as Dandi marches, were rather tough on our feet and bodies.

  ‘You should be enjoying the Dandi marches, our dear Gandhi,’they teased. The joke was on me.

  The day before the campfire, we went on another long march. When we retired for the day, we were about fourteen kilometres away from a place called Maruni. When Natty heard of this village, he was extremely excited. His elder brother Harish, after his probation with Indian Overseas Bank at Bombay, was posted there. One of the chief regrets in Natty’s life was that he had not been able to attend his brother’s marriage, which had taken place just the previous month. Worse, he had not met his sister-in-law nor enjoyed the affection and jokes that the relationship offered. All he had seen were pictures of the wedding that his brother had sent.