Reminiscences of NDA Life

             Joining at 15 ½ years, daily intake of 4500 calories, with no worry of career – National Defence Academy life was idyllic. But there was an underside. From the foolery of senior schoolers one had to suddenly shift to a strictly regimented life. With exacting discipline, it was a walk through the minefield. One wrong step could kneecap you, or even send you back home.

In my fourth term, a practical workshop period involved hands-on practice on a lathe. It entailed clamping in place a metal rod and switching on the machine, which would cut through it while a milky coolant kept pouring. In 10 minutes the work was done. The rod was then readjusted to another point for a repeat. As I understood, during the sawing, one could do no more than watch. I therefore, took out my Russian book and began preparing for the morrow’s test.

Unbeknown, the officer-in-charge, Captain Jain, saw me from his mezzanine floor office and was on his way down when a colleague warned me. I quickly pushed the book underneath a pylon supporting the workshop shed and began watching exertions of the lathe with mock concentration.

Jain made straight for me. “Where is the book you were reading?” he asked without peripherals. I submissively dragged it out. Visibly disappointed at not finding more steamy stuff, “do you know everything about the machine?” he asked.
“No sir. Actually, I know nothing and thought to utilise the time to prepare for my examination tomorrow.”

Taking my confession of ignorance of what his technical team had taught as a professional slight, the captain bristled. Leafing through the book, and not finding any spicy photo hidden between pages, riled him even more.

After noting down my number, name and squadron, “are you a relegated cadet?” he asked mordantly. “No sir” I replied with sudden trepidation.
“You will be, very soon”,  he said in an acerbic tone. There was frightening gravity in his voice. Relegation meant loss of a term, and a repeat of it sent you home.

“Who is your Divisional Officer” he asked.
“Flight Lieutenant DS Jog, Sir” I said, fighting panic.
“Report to him before lunch” he commanded. I felt the earth joggle beneath my feet.

In the day’s 11 am coffee break, the regulation ginger biscuit tasted bland. I was in mental agony. Recalling the ominous tone in which Captain Jain had uttered the word ‘relegation’, kept raising unthinkable fears.
Flt Lt Dilip Jog was a handsome bachelor with a movie star presence. In a true fighter pilot fashion, he kept his focus on the far horizon while the immediate vicinity remained in penumbra. He harboured nothing negative against me; that is, if an earlier brush could be construed as benign….

[During the post mid-term interview in my third term, he had asked me where I spent the week-long break. On learning that I had stayed with my brother in his battalion in Bombay, he demanded a brief of my activities.
“I watched the shooting of a film sir.” I replied. I was also going to tell him about the sea swim, when he interrupted, “Which film and where?”

“Film ‘Us Ne Kaha tha’ was being shot in the 3 RAJ RIF location sir.”

“I see. What was the cast?” he asked off-handedly.

“Sunil Dutt and Nanda sir.”

Mention of the actress’s name suddenly fired up the airspace. Sitting forward, he asked me more about her. Egged on by his ostensible interest, I gave it my best, both verbally and with use of hands for impact.

Carrying the tail-end academy number I was the last interviewee and Jog had all the time to listen to my narration.

I described Nanda’s soft voice, tender coyness and guileless smile using all the superlatives in my stock.

After listening with what seemed absorbing interest, DS Jog suddenly exploded. Thumping the table, he snapped in a parade ground voice, “You ruddy fellow, not yet seventeen and you have already started taking interest in girls?”
He was suddenly a different person, than what he had been a few moments ago.

With piercing gaze, he sized me up censoriously. I stiffened, with my pulse suddenly on a trot.

Scapegoating is inherent in humans. I found myself silently cursing the actress, though admittedly, not without a pang of compassionate guilt.

In an angry tone, DSJ decreed, “now you write down 100 times, ‘in future I will never think of Nanda again’ and submit by lunch tomorrow”]….

Thinking of an actress did not constitute violation of good order and military discipline. But today, I was up against an offence report, that too by Captain Jain, well known for his priggishness. Also, there would be no digression by way of a film actress. All witnesses in the workshop shed were self-like male teenagers dressed in khaki shorts that came down to the prescribed four fingers above the knee. Our hair was ruthlessly razored to the roots every Sunday by the august academy barber Atma Ram Dogra. We of course had some embryos of admirals and generals, but no film casting director would give us a second glance even if we offered to appear gratis as hand raisers in a crowd.
NDA imparted no vendible skills.

The hours till lunch were full of foreboding. I went through the routine of attending classes like an android.

Jog already had Jain’s report with him when I marched into his office.
After the usual what-the-hell-is-this-ing preliminaries, he gave me a stern look. Realising that in matters of discipline, the academy went purely by actions and not by honesty of intent, I offered no defence.

“Captain Jain is very agitated” Jog said, as if justifying what would follow. I “yes-sirred” and steeled myself for the inevitable. 

Unlike the decisiveness of a fighter pilot, he unexpectedly went into a brooding silence. I somehow wanted the ordeal to end quickly. The intervening hours had prepared me for the worst.

“OK” he said finally, “I will see you again with the results of your Russian examination.”

Slipping on his blue side-cap, he walked out for his lunch while I tried to absorb the import of his words.

That evening after the 10 pm ‘lights out’, I bolted my cabin from inside. Folding the regulation barrack blanket in four, I placed it over the shade of the wooden table lamp that was part of our inventory. I adjusted it to allow only a pencil of light to fall on the study table, which would not be visible to the loitering duty officer.
Seeing the net still not downed on the frame, the mosquitoes hovered around excitedly, but I recked little for them. If anything, my sympathy lay with the bed bugs populating the jute mattress on our wooden cots. They were denied their nourish

ment that night, for I was still toiling with Anna Semeonoff’s ‘A New Russian Grammar’ and Nina Potapova’s ‘Elementary Course’ when reveille hooter was sounded.

Two days later, I was in Div O’s office, wearing the 13-nail boots and duly ankleted, dressed in full drill order to the last button. He had the results on his table; I could recognise the spidery signatures of our Russian teacher Dimitryi Nikolayewich Zurovlev.

“Well,” he said, “98% is not bad.” His hard-boiled tone of two days prior seemed noticeably mellowed.
“Yes sir”, I responded, standing stiff as demanded of an accused.
“But there is that report by Captain Jain” he said knotting his brow.

I reckoned, though apparently not unhappy with my results, he did not want to be seen by a cadet in his formative years, as an officer who overlooked a cognizable offence.
Jog began twirling the pencil in his fingers.

Mercifully, the suspense did not linger long.

“As punishment, you write down 400 times, ‘in future I will never read a Russian book in a workshop class.’”

A feeling of worshipping reverence for this angel suddenly enveloped me. Even a contrition flitted through my mind for not having opted for the air force. But infantry ancestry quickly pushed it aside.

“And make sure,” he said, interrupting my thoughts, “you don’t make a junior write it for you.”

My response was almost instinctive. “Frankly sir, the idea had not occurred. But now that you.…”

“Get out you ruddy fellow” he said, “and don’t let me see you here again in those hobnailed boots.”

But for the risk of committing another offence, I would have let out a loud yowl of joy, as I marched out with springy steps.

God has created a very balanced world; for every Jain, there is a Jog.