Boots Belts Berets

by Tanushree Podder

  Bertie called out to Randy. ‘Hey winner, look around. There are people waiting for your highness’s royal attention.’

  Randy was busy towelling off his sweat after the game, which he had won with a thumping score.

  He casually looked around, and this time, he noticed the girl waving frantically at him. ‘Oh, god, not again!’ he swore under his breath.

  ‘What happened?’ I was curious at the expletives that dropped from his mouth.

  ‘That girl has been hounding me for the past couple of weeks,’ he muttered, waving back at her. ‘She turns up at the court every evening, and tries to distract me from my game.’

  ‘I thought that should please you,’said Bertie.

  ‘No, yaar, she doesn’t interest me.’

  As we stood talking, she crossed the court and made her way towards us.

  ‘Hi,’ she smiled. What a smile it was! I was instantly floored. With a winning smile like that, one could floor the angels, but she hadn’t made a dent in Randy’s armour. I wondered why. Was he really abnormal as Bertie had diagnosed? Or was he being faithful to a steady girlfriend back home?

  ‘I am Reema,’she paused for a reaction, which didn’t seem forthcoming.

  Bertie and I quickly extended our hands and introduced ourselves.

  ‘And this is Randy… Randhir Singh,’ I spoke for Randy, who seemed to have passed into the world of the deaf and mute.

  The girl had her eyes trained on Randy, but the stupid man was studying his racquet with utmost concentration. ‘You are too good. I wish I could play like you,’ she ended lamely.

  Randy had still not reacted. He seemed to have transcended into another realm.

  ‘Will you teach me the backhand manoeuvre?’ Her eyes were pleading.

  ‘Well, thanks for your compliment.’ Randy remembered his manners just as we thought he had forgotten them. He cleared his throat, and chose his words carefully, ‘I am sorry I won’t be able to show you the manoeuvre. I have a project to complete, so I am taking a break from tennis for a couple of weeks.’

  Her sigh shook up our hearts. It came from the depth of her heart like a typhoon that had lost its way.

  Bertie gaped at Randy as though he had taken leave of his senses. I thought it was time for me to arbitrate. It was necessary to console the girl.What if she broke into tears that were hovering dangerously around the rims of her eyes? She had not taken Randy’s rejection lightly.

  ‘Well, Reema,’ I began. My voice trembled as though it was out on a mission to the Antarctic.’ Here is what we will do. Both Bertie and I will help him with his project so that he is able to return to the courts and teach you the backhand.’

  ‘Thanks, you are such an understanding guy.’ Her words suffused my body with warmth, and I felt I was sailing in mid-air. Afraid of falling down, I looked at my shoes, and the lump in my throat began tapping dangerously at my mouth. Not wanting to risk my heart leaping out of the ribcage, I bowed low and excused myself.

  ‘What’s wrong with you, man?’ exclaimed Bertie, as we cycled back to the squadron.

  ‘What’s wrong with you guys?’ Randy fielded.

  ‘I mean, here is such a pretty girl, panting for you, and you treat her like dirt.’

  ‘Do you know who she is?’ asked Randy.

  ‘No.’ Bertie and I jointly claimed ignorance about the girl.

  ‘She is Chopra’s daughter. Now if any of you want to develop a friendship with her, you are welcome to it.’

  Chopra was our physics instructor, as evil a man as could be. No cadet dared to cross his path. The guy was a demon. My ardour cooled off like ice poured on burning logs.

  ‘For Reema, I would take on Satan if need be,’ replied Bertie, his eyes lit up with reverence. ‘She is worth hazaar (a thousand) battles.’

  ‘Unfortunately, she won’t look at you,’ I reminded the guy cruelly. ‘Besides, have you forgotten Lizzie?’

  ‘That’s the saddest part. Anyway, tell me why you can’t take on Chopra. I have taken on the Bulldog, haven’t I?’ he asked Randy, his voice belligerent.

  ‘I am not interested in her or any other girl here in the Academy.’

  ‘You expect me to believe that?’

  ‘That’s up to you. All I regret is that I will have to miss out on the game for a few days.’

  Maachh couldn’t believe his ears when we told him about the rejection episode.

  ‘He’s gone off his rocker,’ he finally commented. ‘If a girl like that approached me, I would jump from space without a parachute.’

  It was an unusually quiet Randy who cycled with us towards classes one morning.

  ‘What is keeping Randy boy quiet?’ asked Bertie, who didn’t like morose faces around.

  ‘Yaar, Bats has awarded me three restrictions,’ confided Randy.

  Flight Lieutenant Arun Batra aka Bats was our divisional officer.

  Normally a happy-go-lucky chap, Batra would get mad once in a while when things went wrong with his love life. Restriction was something that even the bravehearts resented. It involved running a specified distance every evening, dressed in full battle order with a dummy rifle, under the supervision of the ustaads. If one did not complete the run in time, the same had to be repeated.

  The timing was very stiff with no scope for a break in the run.

  ‘But what did you do to earn the wrath of our beloved Div O?’ I asked.

  ‘It was the stupid bike inspection that caused all the trouble. The bike mechanic told Bats that my bike was all screwed up. According to him, the ball-bearing was gone, and there was a great deal of mud stuck to the bike. If I had known about the inspection, I would have cleaned it up,’ Randy said.

  It had rained the entire day, and cycling around had left a lot of muck sticking to all our bikes. The bike inspection was ill-timed.

  ‘You are really a stupid guy. Should have left it standing in the rain all night,’ I suggested.

  ‘The idea didn’t strike me,’ Randy replied.

  That night, as we went out to our favourite haunt for a fag, Randy spoke his mind.

  ‘ I think Bats is taking revenge,’ he confessed.

  I agreed. All the bikes were mired in dirt, yet he chose to punish Randy.’ Why would he do that?’ I asked.

  ‘I think he saw Reema waving at me at the tennis court that day’.

  ‘So what?’ Maachh interjected.

  ‘Don’t you know that the guy has been haunting the tennis court for her?’

  ‘Et tu Brutus!’ exclaimed Maachh, his penchant for misquoting playing up.

  ‘No wonder the guy has been throwing deadly looks at you for the past few days.’

  Batra was a bachelor on a constant prowl for female company. Like the cadets, he frequented the tennis courts to impress Reema. Unfortunately, Randy, unaware of his love interest, had beaten him in a few games.

  ‘ Go, tell him you are not interested in the girl,’ prodded Bertie.

  ‘Don’t be silly. How can I tell him that?’

  ‘Keep off the tennis court, buddy, that is the only remedy,’ commented Maachh.

  Randy had to bear with the punishment. He stopped playing tennis for a few months, during which Reema lost interest in him, and so did Batra. Whether Reema returned his interest or not we never found out, but Batra also stopped haunting the courts after a while. He had found a new love interest.

  fourteen

  p

  The Führer wasn’t getting any more popular with the cadets. His strictness, coupled with stringent punishments, was a sore point with cadets right from the first to the sixth term.

  One Sunday morning, we decided to play cricket in the squadron parade ground. Since it was not a cricket ground, and there were no proper wickets, we improvised by using chairs f
or wickets, and hockey sticks for bats. The casualness of the game made it more exciting.

  We were hard at our game when the deputy passed us on his rounds. He stopped his car and joined us in the game. Initially, we felt a little uncomfortable in his presence, but as he got involved in the game, we relaxed and began enjoying ourselves. He dropped all pretence and played the game on an equal footing.

  Half an hour later, when he decided to leave, he called all of us, and in a grave voice, charged us for misuse of government property. It was improper to use chairs for wickets, he said.

  This was rather underhand, we felt. Did he not realize that chairs were being used when he joined in to play?

  Ghai, a third-termer, was a brave guy. He spoke up. ‘Sir,’he said, ‘you shared the fun so you should share the punishment, too.’

  There was pin-drop silence as Ghai matched the deputy’s stare without flinching. We waited for the flare-up that was likely to follow.

  ‘What is the guy up to?’ muttered Randy under his breath. ‘He’ll send us for a high jump.’

  We were surprised at Ghai’s audacity. The deputy seemed stumped by his reasoning. The resultant heaviness in the air seemed to drop like bricks on us. After a minute, the Führer broke into loud guffaws. ‘I love it, my boy. I love it!’ he roared. ‘What guts! I admire your nerve. What’s your name, my boy?’ he asked.

  ‘Cadet Amit Ghai, sir.’

  The Führer thumped Ghai on his back, ‘Carry on. Enjoy yourselves. Have a nice day,’ he said, as he got into his car, with only his posture displaying the anger he felt.

  When the Führer left, we lifted Amit on our shoulders. He was a hero who had dared to take on the lion.

  ‘You are one helluva gutsy guy,’Randy spoke for all of us. We all surrounded Ghai, and waited for his reply.

  ‘Did I do anything wrong? It was just fair,’Ghai stated casually. ‘It is known as the law of natural justice, buddies.’

  Later, we got to know where his bravado came from. Ghai’s father was a general in the army, and no one takes on a general, not even the Führer.

  We were now in the third term, and reasonably well adjusted to the problems in the Academy. Most of us were full-grown adults now. The passing time had also given us some maturity. We began to take things a little more seriously although there were some like Maachh who displayed no change.

  Most cadets attached a lot of importance to badges and ranks. Wearing the lanyard had a special significance. It was an indicator that you were good at drill. To be allowed to wear a lanyard, we had to go through the ‘drill square test’, which simply meant that we had to bang our feet as hard as possible, creating as much din as we could. The awarding of the lanyard depended ninety-nine per cent on banging our feet to please the adjutant and the ustaad, with only one per cent as the luck factor. The harder we banged our feet, the better the chances of passing the test.

  Hardly any cadet passed the drill square test in the first term. It required serious banging, which one got used to as time passed. Most cadets passed it in the second term, and the balance in the third. If a cadet didn’t pass it in the third term, he could be relegated.

  Maachh, with his casual attitude, had failed to pass the test in his first as well as the second term, while the rest of us had cleared it in our second term.

  ‘Damn this banging,’he raged. ‘I feel as though my brains are popping out of my skull.’

  We didn’t sympathize.

  ‘Even if your brain becomes unhinged and begins to wobble all around your skull, you will have to continue the drill,’Randy declared ruthlessly.

  ‘Have a heart, Randy,’begged Maachh. ‘I really can feel my brain wobble when I bang my feet. I see stars by day each time I bang my feet, I swear.’

  ‘We’ll have to help this guy out,’ said Randy. ‘Without our help, there is no way he is going to clear the test.’

  So we planned a double strategy to help out Maachh to clear his drill square test. On the one hand, we did our best to motivate the Bong and psyche him into packing all his power into his feet, while on the other, we put in some PR work on the ustaad.

  ‘Ustaad, this time Mitra will definitely clear the drill. He has been practising very hard to clear the test,’ Randy told the ustaad.

  ‘He had better!’ growled the burly Sikh, who was to judge Maachh’s performance.

  To reinforce his point, Randy led the ustaad to the squadron parade ground where Maachh was busy torturing his feet, banging them hard on the ground. It was all planned, of course. Nevertheless, the sight of Macchh had the desired effect on the surprised ustaad.

  ‘shaabash, cadet. Is baar pucca pass ho jayega (Well done, cadet, this time you will surely pass),’ he declared with feeling. The sight of a cadet practising drill at the odd hour had touched his heartstrings.

  And sure enough, Maachh cleared his test. It was celebration time inside the battle tank that evening. Bertie had brought some Goan feni on his last visit home. We all took tentative swigs from the bottle and the effect of the brew was noticeable. I turned philosophical, Randy got sentimental, and Maachh turned into a laughing machine, while Bertie began lamenting loudly about the missing hatch of the battle tank.

  ‘Thhish is a serious matter’ he slurred. ‘Whoooshh stolen the damn thing?’

  ‘Not I,’ Maachh tittered. ‘It is Randy, I am sure.’

  ‘Even if he’s stolen it, he can’t escape from the clutches of his conscience,’ I sermonized. ‘Randy, my brother,’ I continued. ‘it is better to exist with a clear conscience than to live with the stolen hatch.’

  ‘I knew it,’Randy began, ‘I knew you guys would backstab me one day.’

  It was Natty who finally reminded us that we had a bed in the squadron and it was awaiting our arrival.

  ‘Damn the bed, Nath,’said Bertie. ‘If Randy had ssshhtolen the bed, I wouldn’t mind. But a hatch of a captured enemy battle tank isshh a different matter.’

  The moon had crossed over to the other side when we finally hit our beds.

  In the first term we were unsure, groping and insecure and the ragging had taken the wind out of us. The second term was marked by a casual and carefree attitude. We had got used to the gruelling lifestyle, and adjusted to the seniors’demands. The beginning of the third term was breezy, but after we returned from the mid-term break, a competitive attitude began to surface. The third term was marked with all-round competitions, be it games or academics. There was a challenge at every step, and one had to prove oneself. Life had begun turning serious.

  Each competition brought out the squadron spirit in the Academy. Camaraderie and the competitive spirit bubbled like champagne. During the competitions, the entire squadron turned up at the grounds, and the cadets yelled their guts out for their favourites. Although we had come to the third term, the seniors still remained detested enemies. During the boxing competition, if the participant was a sixth-term appointee, the entire Academy would cheer against him. The greatest excitement was when a second-termer was pitted against a sixth-termer. Everyone cheered the junior, and if, by chance, the sixth-termer lost to the second-termer, it was considered highly disgraceful, and the senior had no option but to go into hibernation.

  Although the four of us had kept away from all competitive sports, it was by default that I got to participate in one. Inter-squadron boxing competitions were held every term, and the participants treated like royalty. They got a lot of privileges like extra food, early bed, and excused fall-ins, besides the ‘no punishments’ benefit.

  Towards the end of the term, a bout was arranged with a cadet in the same weight category. This was known as ‘novices boxing’. Although I harboured no ambitions of a pugilistic career, I was pitted against a sardar called Dhillon. Frankly speaking, I was terrified of sharing the ring with my opponent who sported a thick beard, and had a lot of hair
on his body. His ursine appearance had earned him the nickname ’Bhalu’in the Academy.

  To spar in mock fights during classes was a totally different thing from getting into the ring. Just trying to keep the arms up in a sparring position for three minutes in the ring was a Herculean task for me.

  We had to fight three rounds. In the first round of three minutes, Dhillon chased me and I circled around the entire ring, trying to avoid him. It was a cat-and-mouse game where yours truly was the mouse. Despite my best efforts, I finally got cornered. It was a do or die moment. Left with no option, I landed a solid punch on his jaw with all the power I possessed. The bear was not expecting a punch, and it shook him. I was amazed at my punch.

  I got bolder, and in the second round, I stood my ground and faced him. The match was now evenly poised. In the last round, it was again a cat-and-mouse game, but this time, Dhillon was the mouse. He parried me, but I managed to land a winning punch. Dhillon fell flat on his back, and the crowd cheered. I was the underdog who had won.

  Academics bored us. While most of the cadets were happy doing their outdoor activities, they resented being confined in the classroom for long hours, poring over different subjects.

  It was the English class that we found most boring. Shakespeare and Milton didn’t interest us, nor did the lopsided grammar. Most of the cadets caught up with the backlog in other subjects, or did their project work while the teacher waxed eloquent about Shelley and Wordsworth. Some wrote letters home, or doodled, or caught forty winks. It was our time to relax. No one took English seriously.

  Most of the instructors who took classroom lectures had been in the Academy for long, teaching the same subject year after year, so they were familiar with the attitude of the cadets as well as the lessons.

  Mr Raina, our English teacher, was grey with age and experience. He would start the class by reading a passage from the textbook, which he would continue to read till he came to the name of a place, be it in India or abroad. At that point, he would close the book and start off with his experience in that particular place.