Boots Belts Berets

by Tanushree Podder

  ‘We could have had a feast elsewhere for the money we’ve paid for a single cup of coffee,’ Maachh cribbed, as usual. ‘What an utter waste.’

  ‘It is not for the coffee you are paying, buddy, it is for the entire ambience,’ commented Randy.

  ‘I have made a decision,’ I told the gang. ‘I am coming back here to spend a night.’

  We were seated in the lobby of Hotel Oberoi, in which a single room for a night cost more than what most people earned in a month. They threw me an incredulous look.

  ‘Alone or with a girl?’ Maachh asked.

  ‘The first time will be solo.’

  ‘And how do you intend paying for it?

  ‘I did not say I am coming back tomorrow. I will come here when I get my first salary.’

  ‘That makes sense.’

  After a thoughtful minute, Randy spoke up. ‘Let’s make a pact. All of us will come back for a night at this hotel when we get our first pay packet, and we will have a blast.’

  We shook hands on the pact, happy at the prospect of sharing fun at the hotel, at a later date.

  The naval mess at Colaba was quite impressive. The ambience was as good as any upmarket hotel. It provided a glimpse of the life that awaited us after we got our commission. The thought of the promise of the future did a lot to cheer us up.

  The trip was more enjoyable than we had expected. Unlike bad times, the good times roll away quickly. The days glided away too fast for our liking, and we braced ourselves to face the challenges that awaited us back at the Academy.

  We landed back at around noon at the Academy. There was an entire evening to ourselves before we got back into the rut of Academy routine.

  In the evening, Bertie returned with his suitcase bursting with cakes, pastries, sausages, and lots of goodies. My favourite was the homemade chicken pickle that his mother had thoughtfully packed for him.

  ‘My mom went berserk when she saw me,’ he informed us while unpacking his bags. ‘According to my dear mater, I have lost a lot of weight. And boy, did she try to fatten me up in the forty-eight hours I was there!’

  ‘Good for us,’ said Maachh, sampling a sausage. ‘Bertie boy, you have done a great turn for your pals by bringing all this stuff.’

  ‘Wait till you see the special package,’ he said, conjuring up a bottle from the bottom of his suitcase. ‘This is the famous Goan feni. The treat is on me.’

  ‘Bertie boy, please thank your mother for all this when you speak to her next. She’s serving the nation, literally.’ Randy fingered the bottle fondly.

  ‘By the way, all of you have an open invitation at my place,’ said Bertie. ‘My mom found all of you underweight.’

  He had taken home a picture of the four of us standing on the battle tank.

  ‘It’s the haircut that makes us look like that thin and hungry as if we have just arrived from Ethiopia,’ said Maachh.

  ‘Didn’t your mom comment on the hair cut?’ Maachh continued.

  ‘She failed to recognize me at first, and then started crying. When I asked her why she was crying, she said it was my hair. It makes me look like a convict serving a sentence,’ laughed Bertie. ’I guess it is quite an apt description.’

  ‘Let’s go to the Gole Market,’ I suggested.

  We exchanged notes about our trip, as we cycled down to the market. When we told him all about the beaches and the babes, and the coffee in the five-star hotel, Bertie cursed us loudly.

  ‘You morons! You had all the fun, while I had to put up with my sobbing mom.’

  The Gole Market was almost deserted. Most of the cadets had not yet returned from the break. The atmosphere was relaxed, and we felt on top of the world as we pedalled around the shopping area at leisure.

  ‘Look at that!’ Bertie exclaimed pointing towards a female.

  ‘What?’ asked Maachh, as he peered in all directions but the right one.

  ‘That female, damn it! Pretty, isn’t she?’

  ‘Wow! She is really cute,’ echoed Maachh.

  ‘Not my type,’ I commented, feigning boredom.

  ‘Who asked you, anyway?’

  There was no stopping Bertie now. He headed straight for the gift shop where the female was busy selecting a gift.

  I tried to hold him back. ‘Bertie,’ I cautioned. ‘I would be cautious if I were you. This is inside the campus, and you never know who she is. You might get into trouble.’

  ‘I am just going to say hello to her!’

  No one else said a word. I was the only one firing warning salvos.

  Before Bertie could enter the shop, the female emerged from it, and halted near the parking lot. She spent a few minutes rummaging through her bag, and then reversed into the gift shop. Obviously, she had forgotten something.

  ‘I am going to follow her,’ Bertie was waiting with his bike.

  ‘Let’s not stand right in front of the shop; it will alert her,’ said Maachh. ‘We can wait under the tree at the other end. The moment she starts moving, we can tail her.’

  ‘Look, I saw Captain Sabharwal’s scooter in the parking lot. There will be trouble if he sees us,’ I warned again.

  ‘Pessi, stop being such a dampener. Sabby is nowhere here,’ retorted Randy. ‘I have checked all the shops.’

  Since there were just about half a dozen shops, it was not difficult to locate someone like Sabby. But then, why was his scooter parked there, I wondered.

  The lady was still inside the shop. I had half a mind to leave Maachh, Bertie, and Randy, to their fate. Tailing a female inside the campus could prove to be dangerous.

  ‘Please carry on with your misadventure,’ I told them. ‘I am going back to the squadron.’

  ‘Cautious Carl,’ teased Bertie.

  Leaving them sniggering behind my back, I entered a shop, bought soap and toothpaste, and went over to the parking area.

  As I was pulling out my bike, I saw the female heading my way. She said hello to me before pulling out Captain Sabharwal’s scooter from the parking lot. Minutes later, she drove off. Warning bells began pealing loudly in my mind. In the meantime, Bertie and the rest of the gang were gathered under a distant tree at the other end.

  I cursed. It was obvious that she was related to Sabby. It spelt trouble. There was no way I could warn the gang, who had already begun tailing the female.

  I gathered the rest of the story when they returned, flustered from their escapade.

  ‘Back so soon?’ I addressed Bertie as he ran towards his room.

  ‘Pessi, my dear chap, it was a very dangerous situation.’ He was panting. ‘Lucky you dropped out.’

  ‘But what happened?’

  ‘We tailed her up to the staff quarters successfully. Not once did she look back. Then she halted in front of Sabby’s house.’

  ‘And you guys were still on her tail?’ I couldn’t believe their stupidity.

  ‘Maachh was sure that she couldn’t be Sabby’s relative. She must have borrowed his scooter, he kept saying. We hid ourselves behind the tall hedge and watched.’

  At this juncture, Maachh arrived, huffing and puffing like an obsolete coal engine.

  ‘Pessi, you *** baboon!’ he began. ‘Why didn’t you warn us?’

  This was absolutely intolerable. How could he accuse me of not warning them when I had been doing just that during the entire episode?

  ‘You idiot! Did I speak in German or Japanese that you couldn’t understand? What do you mean I didn’t warn you?’ I flared up.

  I don’t get angry easily, but there is no stopping me when I do.

  ‘Cool it, Pessi,’ Randy had joined us by now. ‘You did warn us. It was stupid of us not to have heeded.’

  Always the fair chap, Randy was a guy after my heart.

  ‘W
ell, what happened after that?’ I was curious to know the rest of the story.

  ‘She honked twice, and Sabby emerged from the house. He greeted her saying "back so soon, darling?" And boy, did we scoot!’ Randy let out a long sigh.

  ‘And Maachh literally fell off his bike behind the hedge,’ laughed Bertie. ‘He couldn’t believe she was Sabby’s wife.’

  ‘She looked so young,’ Maachh defended himself. ‘Who could have imagined that crusty fellow being married to such a pretty woman?’

  ‘The moral of the story is: never follow a female without ascertaining her family tree,’ I ended.

  eight

  p

  One evening, in the anteroom, all the first-termers were told to write articles for the NDA journal. There were just two stipulations: it had to be short, and it had to be related to the Academy.

  We all knew that there was no room for so many articles from the first-termers in the NDA journal. With literary contributions flowing in from twelve squadrons, it would be impossible for the journal to accommodate all the budding Miltons and Shakespeares that populated the Academy. We calculated that only two articles from each squadron would find their way into print. Our SCC was an intellectual type, and he was sure to write a good piece. That would leave scope for only one more from the entire lot of us.

  But orders are orders, especially in the Academy, and they can’t be ignored. So we wrote stupid articles to complete the formality. Most of us were too lazy to put in the effort. Besides, where was the time for intellectual pursuit? The upside of the exercise was that the evenings at the anteroom promised to be entertaining, as each one of us was told to read our articles aloud. Maachh vented his ire against the punishments he had received; Bertie penned his philosophy about the training; and Randy jotted down a few thoughts about his loneliness. I was in the process of churning my brain over a few pages on the magnificence of Indian army. The efforts, were mostly hilarious, and had the cadets rolling with laughter. Plainly, we were not cut out for a career in writing.

  Harry wrote a howler about the cows, which entered the greens of the Academy from the dhobi ghat end, and caused havoc grazing and defecating all over the place. He opined that a small-scale enterprise for cow dung usage could benefit everyone.

  Khare penned his views on the abolition of Sinhgad hikes and cross-country competitions. Ravi wanted athletes to be exempted from academic examinations. Rana went a step further. He penned a unique idea about allowing females into the Academy as cadets. All in all, the howlers provided fodder for laughter.

  Only Srinivas Murthy, a studious kind, managed to pen a decent article on restrictions. It was titled ’Journey to Nowhere’.

  His piece dealt with the daily evening run that a cadet punished with a ‘restriction’ had to undertake. Restriction involved wearing battle order dress, and running for about fifteen kilometres with a rifle, in stipulated time, while the other cadets were either playing games or relaxing. If he failed to finish it in time, he had to repeat the exercise. Murthy made the entire write- up quite poignant by pointing out tragic facts, including that the punished cadet, who returned totally exhausted and famished after the run, invariably discovered that tea had finished, and there were no snacks left, either.

  Murthy went on to provide facts and figures to prove that with the amount of running a cadet did during his entire tenure at NDA, he could have run around the world. We weren’t surprised when his article got selected for the journal, and he also bagged a prize for it. Murthy shot into the limelight and his articles were published in the journal each term till he passed out from the NDA. We knew he had an alternative career carved out for himself, were he to quit the Academy.

  As the end of term exams approached, all ragging came to an abrupt halt. The cadets began slogging seriously. Maachh was the only one who seemed to remain unaffected.

  ‘How does it matter, man?’ he philosophized. ‘All I want to do is pass. I am not aiming for a distinction. Besides, I have decided to cheat.’

  Randy didn’t burn the midnight oil either. Nor did Bertie. They laughed and jeered at me when I expressed my concern.

  ‘Hey, Pessi, cram, man, cram!’ laughed Bertie. ‘Maybe I’ll get lucky enough to sit behind you.’

  While I learnt military history and geographical details by heart, they wrote small chits, and shoved them into the hemlines of their shorts.

  ‘This is like taking a short cut during the cross-country run,’ I told Maachh. ‘Remember what happened when you tried to cheat?’

  The tests came and went without creating a ripple of worry on their placid minds. I fretted and tensed up, while they sat for the tests, sneaked at their bits of chits, and came back laughing.

  I wasn’t surprised when Maachh just about scraped through the ordeal, with Randy giving him a small lead. Bertie made a smooth landing, thanks to his immaculate diagrams and neat notes.

  As for me, I stood heads taller than all of them. I topped in maths as well as engineering drawing.

  ‘Hard work always pays,’ I repeated my father’s oft-quoted words.

  ‘You have to prove yourself to your father, we don’t,’ was the reply I got in return for my well-meant advice.

  The first time I glimpsed envy in the eyes of my pals was when I received the much-esteemed small badge with a star engraved on it. I strutted around the Academy with the badge pinned to my uniform pocket. I was now a torch holder. Torch holders were cadets who did well in academics.

  ‘Pessi, you lucky dog! You are a hero,’ declared Randy.

  ‘Correction! Firstly, I am not a lucky dog, I am just a slogging dog versus you sleeping ones. Next, I am not a hero, but I have stopped being a zero.’

  ‘I don’t envy you the badge, but I do envy you the tea,’ confessed Maachh. ‘I have heard that the tea and snacks served at the commandant’s bungalow are out of this world.’

  ‘How I wish I had been able to cheat more effectively,’sighed Bertie.

  Although I feigned nonchalance, my chest had puffed upby several inches. There was a look of grudging respect in theeyes of other cadets when I passed by. Even the seniors stopped abusing me.

  The commandant gave away prizes to the toppers in each subject over dinner during a grand function at the mess.

  The real significance of my badge dawned upon me when I was invited to tea by the commandant at his bungalow. It was customary for him to invite torch holders for tea, once every term. It was a very exclusive and prestigious event.

  For the invitee cadets, it was a rare treat. The massive tables laden with the choicest snacks had the cadets drooling. In fact, for some cadets, the party was a motivating factor to do well in the exams.

  For others, the party was the goal, regardless of whether they did well or not. One of these was Surjeet Gill, who was a glutton. He did not miss a party, whether he was invited or not.

  ‘I will definitely go for the commandant’s tea,’ he declared, although he was far from being a torch holder. The thought of the delicacies served with the tea made him salivate.

  ‘But the instructors know all the torch holders. You will only invite trouble for yourself if you walk in at the party,’ the others warned.

  For Gill, it was a challenge. ‘Don’t worry chaps, I’ll manage them,’ he assured us. ‘I know all the tricks.’

  He walked into the party confidently, along with the invitees. When an instructor of the science block questioned him, he told him that he had topped in English, and when an instructor of the Sudan Block confronted him, he said the award was for his engineering drawing. I admired the ease with which he sipped his tea and gorged on the snacks, while I stood sweating at his audacity.

  Honours and medals were one thing, and being able to perform on stage, quite another. Even though I could manage a few awards in academics, I got cold feet when I went on stage. A smal
l entertainment programme was held in every squadron at the end of each term. A few skits, songs, satires on the seniors, teachers, and officers, were the major attractions. Since the families of the senior officers, which included their daughters, were also expected to attend the show, the cadets vied with each other to capture the limelight.

  Bertie and Maachh were exhibitionists. They liked nothing better than being on show. So when it was time for the end of term social, they volunteered to put up a skit.

  Maachh came up with the brilliant idea of performing a ‘Nagin (snake) dance’ although he had two left feet.

  ‘I could dress up like a female and do the contortions. It isn’t too difficult to wriggle and writhe after all the front-rolling we have done.’

  Everyone laughed at the thought of a moustachioed nagin, so the idea was dumped immediately.

  In the end, Bertie and Maachh had to satisfy themselves with a hilarious impersonation of Captain Sabharwal, with gags about punishments. They managed to get a fair share of wolf whistles from the cadets who had suffered umpteen punishments awarded by the captain. Randy’s skilful rendition of a hit tune on the harmonica brought him a lot of applause.

  But it was Balwinder, with his peach-and-cream complexion, and long locks, who carried the day. The surd with delicate features dressed up as film star Mumtaz, and gyrated to a lusty cabaret number, bringing the house down. The whistles he generated were enough to set a record in the Guinness Book.

  End of term also meant farewell time. The sixth-termers were on their way out after the three-year training. While it was good fun, a few rituals connected with the farewell made the event momentous. It was customary for the squadron officers and their wives to indulge in a mock fight with the seniors, in which they hit the sixth-termers with pillows, after the end of the programme. The mock fight was the harbinger of a more punitive practice. Trouble usually began after the departure of the officers. The sixth-termers were then left at the mercy of the juniors, who turned it into a night of revenge.