‘Bharat Mata kiiii…’ chorus the kids.
‘Jai!’ says Ishaan, just a little resignedly.
• • •
‘First, you stuff your nose down, Baaz-ke-maaphik! Then you swoop down, Baaz-ke-maaphik! Then you pull back and open the throttle wide, all the way till you’re on your back, if you have the guts, Baaz-ke-maaphik!’ Instructor Hosannah Carvalho pauses, panting, his black eyes glittering like manic torches in his dark face. ‘Unnurstand?’
The newly recruited class of the Air Force Flying College Jodhpur nods back at him, hypnotized.
With a satisfied grunt, the basic flying manoeuvres instructor wheels around to the board and continues his graphic, fast-paced and extremely bloodthirsty lecture.
‘Aggression and awareness are the keywords to being a good Fighter. Never let your guard down! Baaz-ke-maaphik, you shoot up, up, up! Baaz-ke-maaphik, you keenly take stock of your surroundings. Baaz-ke-maaphik, you plan your route home…’
‘Raka, my man,’ Madan Subbiah drawls cautiously out of the corner of his mouth. ‘What is Baazky-Maafee?’
‘Like-a-Baaz,’ Rakesh Aggarwal provides in a muted mutter.
‘And a Baaz is…?’ Madan wants to know.
‘A hawk, Maddy. Or maybe a falcon. A murderous bird, basically.’
‘A bird?’ Maddy looks confused. ‘Why the hell do we call it a dogfight, then?’
Pacing like an undernourished hound in the front of the room, Carvalho holds forth for a good forty-five minutes, then pulls to an abrupt halt at ten a.m. sharp.
‘Dismissed,’ he roars. ‘Practicals by the poolside in twenty minutes.’
Saying which, he heads out of the room like a bullet, clearly thirsting for his ten o’clock mug of over-boiled, extra-sweet tea.
The boys pack up their books and make their way to the sprawling, sunlit grounds outside. These are early days for the class of ’68; friendships, factions and pecking orders are still being worked out, but certainly, the cadets who’ve made it here after spending three years at the National Defence Academy, Khadakwasla, have an edge over the lads who have qualified through the direct entrance exam after graduating from ‘civilian’ colleges.
Maddy and Raka are part of the elite NDA corps. Both over six feet tall, athletic and good-natured, they seem poised to be crowned the coolest cadets in the batch.
The title would not be altogether undeserved. A lanky brown twenty-one-year-old with a charming smile and dark dreamy eyes, Madan Subbiah is a third-generation Forces kid with three retired generals in his family, who has had tales of valour read to him like fairy tales every night. Most of the instructors here know his father or grandfather. He comes from old money, is very anglicized and is a gifted musician. He loves to party and is happy to pay for everybody. Unlike Rakesh Aggarwal. Fair, curly moustachioed and apple-cheeked, Raka is fast with figures and physics but tight-fisted with money. His devout, vegetarian Baniya family owns a chain of mithai shops spread all over Delhi. Though Maddy would have preferred to wear his hair in a tousled mop to enhance his resemblance to Pat Boone and Raka to strut around in a slick Elvis puff, they both sport the regulation crew-cut, like everyone else.
Sauntering along at the rear of the scrum, as befitting their hip personas, the two friends head for the swimming baths behind the tree-lined parade ground. Today their mood is decidedly ambivalent. While swimming is a sport they both enjoy, their seniors spent all of last evening psyching them about what is to happen in class today.
‘It’s the leap of death, kiddos. Kiss your girlfriends goodbye and tell ammi you love her.’
‘Scarier than skydiving, because there’s no parachute.’
‘That pool is tiny. There was this guy back in ’59 who actually landed on the tiles and splattered like an omelette. The IAF hushed it up.’
The sound of water slapping against tiled walls comes to them now, along with the sharp reek of chlorine. They turn the corner, and there it is, an Olympic-sized pool and, squatting above it like a fantastic iron spider, a maze of metal stairs zig-zagging up to four diving boards – three feet high, ten feet high, twenty feet high and, finally, forty feet high.
‘Mummy,’ whispers Maddy.
‘Jai Mata di,’ mutters Raka.
‘The steps are designed for climbing up, not coming down,’ their seniors have told them. ‘You’ll trip if you try to walk back down. Once you’re there, you’ve just gotta jump.’
As they line up along the pool, Carvalho makes his reappearance, clearly invigorated by his tea break.
‘Volunteers!’ he roars.
Raka and Maddy, their expressions wooden, carefully avert their gaze from Carvalho’s bulging orbs to stare fixedly at a spot behind his head. So does the rest of the batch.
Carvalho smirks and starts to pace up and down the line, sniffing (Maddy thinks fancifully) for fear.
He stops a few times and stares at particular cadets, only to move on again. Finally, he places his hand on one uniformed shoulder, caressing it tenderly.
‘You,’ he purrs. ‘You’re the volunteer.’
A palpable sigh of relief ripples through the line of cadets even as all eyeballs swivel surreptitiously to check out the chosen bakra.
A smaller lad, this, than most of the others, but lean and well proportioned. As he raises his chin, his expression calm, he is seen to have clean-cut fair features, a square jaw, spiky, shiny black hair and unusual grey eyes. He seems serene, cocky even, practically grinning back at Carvalho.
‘What’s your name, cadet?’ Carvalho barks.
The ‘volunteer’ snaps to attention.
‘Ishaan Faujdaar, sir!’
‘Where’re you from?’
‘Chakkahera, sir!’
Carvalho smirks.
‘Where?’
The cadet bellows even louder.
‘Chakkahera, sir!’
‘Has anybody here heard of this … Chakka-hera?’ He stretches the name out mockingly.
‘No, sir!’ the class shouts back.
The volunteer’s face flushes.
‘It’s in Haryana, sir! The new state just created out of Punjab, sir!’
Carvalho’s voice drops to a whisper.
‘I am well aware of Haryana. Only a fool would take me for a fool. Are you a fool, cadet?’
‘No, sir! I’m a Jat, sir!’
Laughter, hastily smothered, from the rest of the class. Carvalho’s gaze grows baleful.
‘Do they have beaches in Chakkahera, cadet?’
‘No, sir!’
‘Or rivers?’
‘No, sir!’
‘Learnt to swim in a buffalo pond, did you?’
Stifled giggles from the crowd. The Jat boy’s fair features flush slightly, but his expression remains unchanged.
‘Sir!’
Carvalho’s hound-like eyes gleam. He cracks a dark grin. ‘The purpose of today’s class,’ he roars, ‘is for you to face your fear of heights.’
‘Every time he’s about to shout, he breathes in so hard his pants get sucked into his ass,’ whispers Maddy. ‘Look. He’ll give himself a bloody heart attack if he isn’t careful.’
‘You may think you have no fear of heights,’ Carvalho continues, ‘but when you’re diving downwards, the sight of the ground rushing up at you can be paralyzing. Even scarier if you have to bail out at, say, 40,000 feet!’
He lays a hand on the volunteer’s shoulder. ‘Strip down to your trunks, cadet,’ he purrs. ‘Or no, on second thoughts, keep your clothes on. Then climb up to the highest board, take a running start and jump.’
‘Into the water,’ Raka clarifies with a snicker, in a louder aside than he’d intended. ‘You’ve got to explain things out clearly to Jats.’
Carvalho’s gaze grows malevolent.
‘Yes, into the water – and as you’re being so helpful, Aggarwal, you can go before him and show him how it’s done. You too, Subbiah. You’ve both been talking so much today, a long jump will cool you off. Aggarwal first,
then Subbiah, and you – Jat from Chakkahera – you go last.’
‘Great,’ Maddy mutters.
‘Reach the top in three minutes!’ Carvalho bellows. ‘Or patti parades all around! And jump on my whistle. Move, move, move!’
And so the three young men make their way up the long zig-zagging metal ladder to the top of the diving board. As their batchmates grow smaller and smaller below them and the pool shrinks to the size of a twelve-by-twenty-four-inch bathroom tile, Raka says aggrievedly to the Chakkahera boy at the end of their little line, ‘Stop pushing, shorty, what’s your rush? Can’t wait to hurl yourself from the top and end it all?’
‘The name’s Shaanu,’ says the Jat good-naturedly. His English is halting, and his voice, now that he’s not shouting back responses to the manic Carvalho, is pleasant and curiously vibrant. ‘Shaanu Faujdaar.’
‘So now we know what to write in your obituary,’ comes Raka’s disgruntled reply. ‘My name’s Aggarwal.’
‘Yeah, I heard.’ Faujdaar pats him on the back sympathetically. ‘Don’t be ashamed of being afraid. Baniyas aren’t bred to be brave.’
‘What the hell!’ Raka splutters.
‘And what are you?’ Shaanu addresses Maddy.
‘I’m Maddy.’
Shaanu nods amiably. ‘Caste, I mean.’
‘Why’re you so obsessed with caste, buster?’ Maddy asks mildly. ‘The caste system’s been abolished by the government of free India. Or hasn’t that news reached your unelectrified village yet?’
‘Relax, brother.’ The Jat chuckles. ‘Don’t take it so hard. I just haven’t heard that surname before.’
‘He’s Coorgi,’ Raka explains. ‘They’re a race of martial fighters from Karnataka. General Thimayya is Coorgi – General Cariappa too.’
‘We, uh, prefer being called Coorg, not Coorgi,’ Maddy puts in.
From the Jat’s blank expression, it is clear that these illustrious names have rung no bells. But he puts out his hand readily enough.
‘Pleased-to-meet-you!’
He rattles it off like he has learnt it as a phrase and doesn’t know where one word stops and the next begins. But he has a pleasant voice, Maddy has to admit. A smiling voice.
‘What say we splash Carvalho really thoroughly when we hit the water?’ the Jat suggests, grey eyes sparkling.
But this is far too cocky a suggestion for the NDA boys’ tastes.
‘You won’t make much of a splash, shorty,’ Raka says reprovingly. ‘And don’t be cheeky about our instructor. An officer and a gentleman respects his teachers.’
Faujdaar bursts out laughing. ‘Oh, you can make fun of him, but I can’t? What two-faced fellows! Or snobs – which is worse.’
They continue their climb in silence. Then Maddy says stiffly, ‘Ever since he was a cadet, folks have been calling him Kuch Bhi Carvalho. The man’s game for anything. Anything. Which is why you’ve gotta respect him.’
‘Wah.’ The Jat ducks his head appreciatively. ‘Of course. That I can respect.’
They cross the final zag in a more companionable silence, then suck in their breath in unison.
They’ve reached the top – a little platform, eyrie-like and serene. There’s a smell of woodsmoke and a grand view of the rose-hued hills and scrubby dunes beyond the campus.
‘Have you ever done anything like this before?’ Maddy asks the direct recruit curiously.
The Jat looks around.
‘No,’ he says simply, drinking in the view. ‘I’ve never been this high up in my life, I think. Except when I climbed to the top of the Qutub Minar with my grandfather, perhaps. But I was little then.’
‘And look at you now,’ Raka mutters. But the snideness is half-hearted. His eyes are on the diving board.
It juts out from the end of their little platform like the protruding tongue of the iron monster. It has no railing and seems to be sloping slightly downward. And it’s narrow, no more than twenty inches wide. The wind is strong here, whistling around their ears, making them cling to the railing. Far below them, their batchmates look like a colony of blue and grey ants.
The two friends peer over the edge to the sickening drop below. As Carvalho’s whistle sounds, Maddy can feel his stomach lurch.
‘Ugh,’ he says. ‘Well, Geronimo then, Raka. Go for it!’
Raka has turned rather green. ‘You go first.’
Maddy pales. ‘But Carvalho said you first. He’ll get mad if I go before you.’
‘He can’t tell us apart,’ Raka replies.
Pause.
‘You’re chubbier,’ Maddy says.
Pause.
‘But fairer,’ Raka replies.
‘Oh, I’m clearly the fairest here,’ says the Jat breezily from behind them. ‘Should I go first?’
They ignore him.
‘I’d rather you went first, yaar Raka,’ Maddy says finally. ‘This isn’t really my cup of Brooke Bond.’
They stare at each other, while the whistle sounds again below them. Sharper, more peremptory.
‘You people have a problem with heights, clearly.’ Shaanu Faujdaar leans comfortably against the railing. ‘First you had a problem with my height, now you have a problem with the height of the diving board.’
‘Shut up, shorty!’
Maddy’s voice is raw, the fear palpable. He edges forward, takes a few uncertain steps, teetering a little on the narrow, springy board, then abruptly makes as if to turn back.
‘I can’t,’ he says hoarsely. ‘My head – I think I’m gonna…’
Raka, at the safe end of the board, finds that his feet are frozen. He can’t do anything to help Maddy.
‘Think of all those Coorgi generals,’ Shaanu says helpfully. ‘Thin-amma and Curry-appa.’
‘Everything’s spinning,’ Maddy continues. ‘Spinning and spinning and spinning…’
He looks around at the bright blue earth above and the cemented sky below, heaving up at him, sucking him down…
‘Careful!’ The village boy’s voice is sharp. ‘Don’t jump off there, you’ll hit the cement! Walk back to us!’
But Maddy can’t. His face pales, his hands stretch out wildly, his body starts to tilt…
Then a steady, firm forearm locks around his stomach.
‘Gotcha,’ says the Jat.
‘I made it back.’ Maddy opens his eyes in disbelief.
‘No, actually, I walked out to you,’ comes the cool reply. ‘Now we’ll walk back.’
Calmly he walks Maddy back along the narrow board till they’re holding onto the railing again.
‘You go first,’ he pants out to Raka. ‘That was the order.’
‘Jai Mata di,’ Raka mutters, his chubby face grim, and walks forward slowly to the end of the board.
‘Good!’ shouts Shaanu. ‘Now jump!’
But Raka shakes his head. ‘Like I told you, shorty!’ he yells, voice ragged with fear and frustration. ‘I can’t.’
A fraught little pause follows. Nobody knows quite what to do. The wind whistles around their ears.
The Jat grins. ‘Seriously? NDA waalon ki phat gayee?’
The other two ignore this, their faces sick and resentful.
Far below, Carvalho’s whistle sounds again, shrill and commanding.
Shaanu straightens himself, his young face intent. Bouncing a little on the balls of his feet, he asks, ‘Wanna see something my grandfather taught me?’
The responses come at him fast and fervent.
‘Never mind your stupid Jat grandfather!’
‘Whyn’t you scared, you short fucker?’
Faujdaar grins, his light eyes sparklingly alive, then holds up his left hand, forefinger pointing skyward, thumb jutting out at a right angle to it. ‘Big guy, small cock,’ he shouts, waggling the thumb. He flips his hand so that his thumb is now pointing skyward while the forefinger is jutting out at right angles to it. He waggles the forefinger. ‘Small guy, big cock.’
And as Raka and Maddy stare at him, torn between
outrage, vertigo and laughter, Shaanu Faujdaar places a hand in the small of Maddy’s back and runs full-tilt ahead, propelling him forward, till they collide with Raka, frozen at the end of the diving board. And then they’re in the air together, whooping and kicking and flailing wildly as they drop safely, straight as stones, into the tiny patch of azure far below.
• • •
‘Baaaaaaz … tard!’ Raka declares with proprietary pride. ‘How pretty you look! Prettier than Sharmila Tagore!’
The new batch from the Flying College is very drunk. They’ve taken over the only pub in Jodhpur and are swinging on the dance floor, eyeing the cantonment girls and knocking back large quantities of rum. The adrenalin from the jump is still very much with them, coupled with the excitement of being let loose after a week of rigorous training. There are corduroy pants on display, flared denims and mightily collared shirts and bright, Chinese-collared kurtas. But the peacock of the parade is definitely Shaanu Faujdaar, sitting between his two new best friends at the bar, dressed in charcoal-grey drainpipe pants, an extremely sharp turquoise blue shirt and a thin maroon tie.
‘Prettier than Audrey Hepburn!’ agrees Maddy, thumping his new pal on the back.
Faujdaar has been giving the modest, taciturn ones, but at this his grey eyes narrow.
‘Who’s ordinary hip burn?’
Maddy sighs and ignores this.
‘You don’t talk much. Why?’
‘I’d like to,’ Faujdaar admits. ‘But my English is little bit basic.’
Much drunken laughter all round.
Raka leans in closer.
‘But you should’ve told us, Shaanu, meri jaan – in Hindi, in sign language or in something – that you don’t know how to swim!’
Because once they’d hit the water (splashing Carvalho most satisfyingly with their collective impact), Faujdaar had started to flail and sink. It had taken the others a while to realize what was happening, by which time he was already in trouble. They had to swim back, hoist him up by an underarm each, tow him to the side and pump out his stomach. It took him three minutes to cough and sit up, red-faced and spluttering. Three very long minutes, Maddy thinks now.
‘Nobody asked,’ Shaanu replies. ‘They said jump, I jumped. I figured the Air Force would get me out before I drowned.’
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