Boots Belts Berets

by Tanushree Podder

  The squadron was a three-storeyed stone structure. On each floor was a central corridor flanked by rooms on either side. Three staircases – one in the centre, and two at either end – led to each floor. A parade ground stood at the entrance of the squadron. We entered the squadron through the back door and lined up in the central corridor at the entrance. I looked reverently at the squadron that was to be my home for the next three years.

  By this time, the vehicle with our luggage had also arrived at the parade ground in front of the squadron.

  ‘Unload your belongings,’ roared one of the seniors, and we scrambled to get our baggage out of the truck.

  Barking seemed to be the prime qualification of the seniors. They barked at us for no reason: for not standing straight, for not addressing them as ‘sir’, for not looking straight, and also for not knowing their names or who they were. How the hell were we supposed to know their names, I wondered. Besides, everyone looked the same, with their hallmark cropped hair and vicious expression. The entire exercise of finding fault was an introduction to the fact that they were the masters, and we,the slaves.

  All through the morning, none of us had exchanged a word, save trying a few tentative encouraging smiles. There was an element of fear, uncertainty, and nervousness that dominated the hearts of all the newcomers. Expect the unexpected, a wise guy had told me when I began my journey to Poona. The words seemed prophetic in the present context.

  The goons set about trying to find enough reasons to punish us.

  ‘You piddly chaps … don’t know how to stand, and you want to join the NDA?’

  ‘You there,’ one of them ticked me off. ‘Don’t steal furtive glances like a convict, look straight ahead.’

  According to them, anything and everything was wrong with the newcomers. Having found enough fault with us, they meted out punishments. Not a single guy was spared.

  The entrance corridor was covered with a six-feet wide coir mat running a length of about thirty metres. We were told to get under the mat from one end, and emerge from the other. On the face of it, the punishment seemed simple enough. It was only after we had got under the mat that realization struck. There was enough dust accumulated under the mats to merit a storm. It choked our lungs, and stung the eyes; and the heat was unbearable. We sweated, spluttered, and crept ahead. I attempted snatching some fresh air by lifting a corner of the mat. The action brought an instant reaction in the form of a boot from a senior, which landed painfully on my arm. A sharp intake of breath drew in some more dust into my trachea, making me splutter. Bonfires erupted inside the cranium, and my stomach became a lava pit. All it needed was the water flowing out in rivulets from the eyes.

  I closed my eyes and fought my way through the black hole, emerging gasping at the other end, clothes and face blackened beyond recognition. I could have easily impersonated a warrior from the deep jungles of Africa.

  Satisfied by our performance, the seniors decided that it was time for allocation of rooms. Each squadron has about 125 rooms, with common bathrooms at either end of the corridor, on each floor. The first-termers were allotted rooms on the ground floor. A collective sigh of relief went down the line.

  Now I can bathe and relax for a while, I thought. After all the muck I had loaded myself with, the idea of a bath seemed enticing.

  Tentatively, I peeped into the cabin allotted to me, (rooms are called cabins in the Academy). It was about ten by ten feet, and had a single window with a shutter. Above the door was a strong wire mesh about three square inches, overlooking the corridor, for ventilation. For furniture we had a bed with a mattress, a study chair and a table, an easy chair, and a chest of drawers with a mirror on top. It seemed adequate enough.

  I lugged my baggage to the room, glad that I had some privacy. At least we didn’t have to share a room. Quickly, I shoved the trunk under the bed, unrolled the bedding on the bed, bolted the door, and flung myself on the bed. I was so exhausted that I didn’t even pause to remove my shoes. In an instant I fell into a state of heavy, dreamless sleep.

  ‘Pay attention, Golf squadron. All first-termers, report to the ground floor centre lobby immediately!’ The announcement floated through my comatose brain, rudely trespassing onmy slumber.

  It took me a while to find my bearings. I decided to ignore the announcement. Come on, it’s just fair that a guy should have at least an hour’s nap after all that he’s gone through, I muttered. I was answered by a thunderous kick that shook my door threateningly. I sprang out of the bed, and rushed outside, finger-combing my hair to settle it into a semblance of neatness.

  I was late by a few seconds. A senior was waiting in the corridor to pounce on me. He smirked ominously as I screeched to a halt beside him and stood ramrod straight, staring at a fixed point ahead. It was a flawless copy of a posture I had noted in one of the Hollywood war movies. It failed, however, to impress the senior. Minutes later, I made a spectacular entry front-rolling all the way to the centre lobby.

  Nine first-termers stood in a line. I noticed that the ones who had arrived before me sported the barber’s delight, a 0.5- centimetre haircut. Surreptitiously, I fingered my long locks. The cadet sergeant major (CSM) barked, ‘I want you back here after a bath, and change, in two minutes. Your time starts now.’

  The guy must have been practising for a game show.

  He is mad, I thought. It would not take less than half an hour to clean my soot-black self.

  A flurry of arms and legs followed his announcement. We sprinted to our rooms to grab our towels, and ran towards the bathrooms at the end of the corridor. More surprise awaited us. The bathroom had no stalls. It was a large hall with a series of showers stuck on its tiled wall.

  A cadet stood totally naked under the third shower. The only thing covered was his face, under a thick lather of soap. In the buff, there was no way of identifying if he was a senior. Surprised, I stared at him.

  ‘What are you staring at?’ he barked. ‘Don’t you have one, or do you have a hole instead? Strip, you prick!’

  I had no choice in the matter. Time was running out, anyway. With my eyes closed, I peeled off my clothes, and rushed under a shower. The first time is the toughest, as they say. A snigger from my neighbour accelerated my bath. At the last count, there were ten more nude bodies under the showers in various postures. The lukewarm water felt heavenly, and I began to enjoy myself as I washed away all the dirt, along with the fatigue. The joy was short-lived as I remembered the two-minute deadline and raced back to my cabin, wrapped in a towel.

  The seniors were monitoring our moves closely. Like the Gestapo, they paraded outside our rooms, the echo of their boots sending waves of fear through the first-termers. A kick or a knock on the door almost every second, kept us on our toes, and I emerged out of my room, after four minutes, sans watch, wallet, and handkerchief, with trailing shoelaces. Despite my record performance, I was two minutes behind the impossible deadline.

  There were five first-termers already front-rolling from one end of the corridor to the other. Like huge balls of human limbs, they moved down the passageway, their roll accompanied by silent curses and muted groans. Without a word, I joined them. One lesson I had already learnt was not to question anyone, and front-rolling was the most popular punishment meted out to the first-termers.

  A deluge of abuses rained from the seniors.

  ‘Get off your arses!’ shouted one of them. ‘It is time for some modelling.’

  While I was wondering what kind of modelling we were supposed to do, we were told to change into the games dress.

  ‘And you get one minute for your feat,’ the fellow bellowed.

  Sadists, I thought. One minute – as though a war had broken out. We ducked into our rooms, and struggled with the shorts, shirt, and shoes and socks, all white. The laces seemed to elude my trembling fingers, despite my best efforts. I counted to ten
and breathed deeply to control my rising stress level, and tried again.

  Feat achieved, I ran back. Sure enough, it was more than one minute, and we began front-rolling again. I must admit that the punishment succeeded in turning us into humble souls. Kissing mother earth had not been an activity I had previously experienced. Besides, it helped in strengthening the spine, I told myself, trying to be positive about the entire exercise.

  We had hardly assumed an upright position and stretched our tortured backs, when the next command came. ‘Change into your PT dress and report here in thirty seconds.’

  Every chap around knew that it was impossible to do so in the time granted by them. So it was just an excuse to punish us again. After that, it was the mufti (civil dress), and the battle order dress, and so on … with the time limit decreasing each time. We kept rolling till the entire world began spinning before our eyes. I was tempted to tell our tormentors that they could skip the orders and keep us rolling all day.

  The guys were stark, raving lunatics. I cursed the day I had decided to put myself at their mercy. There must be something more to the training than the agony of punishments.

  The charade continued for some time. Later, I learnt that this exercise of changing into different dresses in limited time was called ‘Puttie Parade’, and it was one of the favourite punishments of the seniors. This was one parade that needed to be mastered if one was to escape their ire. I also learnt that in the Academy, everything was a parade. There was the drill parade, PT (physical training) parade, outdoor parade, and umpteen others.

  The exercise wasn’t a total failure. I learnt to drop my pants faster than I had ever done.

  At the end of the parade, my room looked as though a tornado had passed through it. With the dresses strewn all over the place, it was a royal mess. It seemed ages since I had landed in Poona, but I discovered that it was only about 11.00 a.m. We had accomplished a lot with nothing but perspiration to vouch for it.

  ‘Now that you know what Puttie Parade is all about ...,’ said one of our tormentors dramatically, and paused for effect. If he was waiting for applause, he was wasting his time; none of us obliged him with even a smile. Then he said, ‘It is time for you guys to get on to the seventh heaven.’

  That sounded good. I sort of looked forward to the seventh heaven, a delicious sense of anticipation flooding my body. It had to be some sort of a treat or reward for all the punishment we had suffered.

  ‘There, you see the wire mesh on your ventilator?’ He pointed at the thick and jagged wire mesh over the door. ‘Just hang on to it for your dear life.’

  I was still gaping at it when a strong kick on the rear propelled me forward.

  I finally deduced that the name ‘seventh heaven’ had originated because we had to hang from the seventh horizontal wire of the mesh.

  The cry burst forth before I could suppress it. The torture of hanging from the sharp-edged wire, with my body weight dragging me down, was unimaginable. If this was the seventh heaven, give me hell any day. The wires cut into my fingers, and I wondered when I had last taken a tetanus shot. It was worse than a toothache, which I thought was most difficult to bear. In those agonizing moments, I remembered my father’s warning about joining the Academy and for the first time, I wished I had heeded his advice.

  Fortunately, it was time for our visit to the Quarter Master Store, so the ordeal ended earlier than expected.

  two

  p

  Reluctantly, the seniors handed us over to an ustaad (an instructor from the non-officer ranks) assigned to break newcomers in who arrived at dot 11.00 a.m. to take us to issue our kits. Sighing with relief, we trailed him like the rats of Hamlin. We were taken to a small fort-like structure called the Quarter Master Fort, and issued with a whole lot of items like uniforms, and a robe, which would turn out to be the most sought-after attire, eventually. There were boots, socks, belts, caps, berets, towels, army packs and battle kit – quite a load.

  For the first time since our arrival, we first-termers exchanged notes while we waited for our turn. We met cadets from other squadrons who had come with their ustaads. Like frogs that had slipped out of the serpents’ mouths, we celebrated our brief period of liberation. All of us busied ourselves by sizing up each other I sucked in my breath and stood tall. No point in giving a bad impression; first impressions count. Aware that I had drawn a short stick when God was doling out beauty, the only thing I could take pride in was my proud and stately bearing, which I had practised a great deal before coming to NDA. With a bulbous nose and drooping eyes, I couldn’t lay claim to comeliness, anyway.

  I noticed the stocky fellow with a friendly face and curly hair, who had been allotted an adjoining cabin, and approached him. His eyes twinkled with suppressed mirth and his smile was infectious.

  ‘Hi, I am Nikhil,’ I extended my hand.

  ‘Rebello. Albert Rebello,’ he replied, pumping my hand with gusto. ‘Remember me as Rebello, the rebel. That is what my schoolmates named me. You can call me Bertie.’

  I was happy to have made one friend, and a jolly one at that. We could use some laughter here.

  Randhir Singh, a tall and handsome Rajput, looked as though he had been poured into the uniform. He sauntered up to us, and suggested that we should stick together since we occupied neighbouring cabins. It sounded like a good idea. If we were to share things, thoughts, and punishments, the easiest chaps to share them with would be the ones staying next door.

  We had barely introduced ourselves when a thin fellow with a hungry look approached us. Contrasted with Randhir’s impeccable smartness, this guy’s uniform looked as though it had been made for someone a tad bigger in size. His torso ended in a long neck that signalled gene mingling with a giraffe at some stage. It would have got a woman some crown in a beauty contest, but on him, it looked ludicrous. ‘The name is Mitra. Manoj Mitra,’ he grinned. ‘You guys are next door,I noticed.’

  The ice broken, we gave vent to our ire against the seniors. ‘Watch it, guys. One of these days, I am going to extract every bit of revenge from those morons,’ said Mitra, his face lighting up with anticipation.

  Manoj was from Sainik School, Purulia. They teach you a lot of survival tricks at those schools that we, from the public schools, never learn. The mean look on his face assured me that he would keep his word.

  The four of us were in neighbouring cabins and that helped in cementing our friendship.

  Nath, a shy, diminutive fellow with appealing eyes completed our gang. Gifted with a baby face and ruddy cheeks, he looked younger than the others. Just over five feet, the roly-poly look added to his vulnerable little-boy-lost appearance. The only distinctive feature about Nath was his prominent Adam’s apple, which had a way of bobbing up and down furiously at times of emotional upheaval. His cabin was at the other end of the passage, but he wanted to be in our company, anyway.

  We laughed, backslapped and bantered while collecting our things, and lingered on as long as possible. No one wanted to get back to the squadron. The knowledge that the seniors were lying in wait for our return made us drag our feet. But all good things end, and the kit issue ended, too.

  Our arms loaded, we finally returned to the cabins and dumped the lot. Arranging the mess in the cabin was out of question. There was just no time for that.

  Minutes after our return to the squadron, we were told to line up at the barber’s. A keen observer would certainly have noticed a likeness of facial expressions between us akin to sentenced convicts proceeding towards the gallows. The NDA haircut was not a popular style, to say the least.

  ‘While you guys are getting your styling done, I might as well snatch a couple of winks,’ laughed Harjinder Singh, a strapping Sikh with a dimpled smile. His remark was designed to sprinkle salt on our wounded hearts.

  As I subjected my lovely locks to the heartless barbers, the most aw
ful thought that passed through my mind was how I would face my folks back home. With the half-centimetre hairstyle, I would certainly be the epicentre of all jokes among friends! It took under two minutes of expert wielding of the scissors to demolish the six inches that had taken six months of loving care to grow. I stared, horrified, at my reflection. I was almost bald. My own mom could not have recognized me.

  Aghast, we stared at each other. We all looked the same. The identical ‘gobri’ or ‘katori’ cut had managed to erase our individuality totally.

  By now we were a ravenous lot. A bath later, accompanied by a fifth-term sergeant, we ran all the way to the mess for lunch. It was another one of those unjust writs of the Academy that no first-termer was allowed to walk. We had to run everywhere in proper formation. Other first-termers from different squadrons had also begun trickling into the dining hall.

  The mess was huge, fringed with well-kept lawns and a derelict aircraft was placed right in front of the building. The dining hall reminded me of Hollywood epoch movies. Like an immense banquet hall, it was designed to seat over 1500 people, and the ambience was very formal.

  We were assigned seats that were to be our permanent place for all meals. Patrick was the first person from the Academy who displayed a kindly disposition. His face beaming, the portly fellow with touches of grey in his hair, had the unenviable task of catering for a famished pack of first-termers. He was like a mother hen, doling out cheer and dishes to the newcomers, which did a lot to boost our sagging morale. We attacked food like freeloaders at a wedding party.

  The sergeant’s growl slowed us down and reminded us of our surroundings. ‘Pigs! Where are your table manners?’ he screamed, drowning the din of the spoons and forks which were attacking the plates ruthlessly.

  We slowed down for a few minutes before accelerating our jaw movement to 120 rounds per minute, once again. I lost count of the number of helpings I took of each dish. Food had never tasted more delicious.

  Tongues finally loosened on our way back to the squadron. A full belly has a way of making the most harassed of people careless. Instinctively, the four of us – Mitra, Rebello, Randhir and I – fell together. We kept our voices low, trying to talk while on the run. Running after a huge meal was neither agreeable nor good for digestion. A few farts from the front told us so.