Monochrome

My thoughts are without colour. My memories are monochrome. And those are from the deepest recesses of my mind…the idea of the Indian Army, black and white. Much like the institution itself. There are hardly any greys.

It was June of 1994 and I was with a medium machine gun (MMG) detachment, sitting on a sand dune in the middle of Mahajan Field Firing Ranges. A small ground sheet propped up by four wobbly sticks provided us cover from temperatures that were hovering at 50 degrees centigrade. Subedar Amokh Singh, one NCO and one jawan of 10 Sikh Light Infantry manned the MMG det. I don’t remember why I was there. I am from 17 Kumaon. What in God’s name I was doing with a Sikh Li MMG det…I don’t recall. All I remember was Adjutant 17 Kumaon Major DD Baloni telling me to meet Adjutant 10 Sikh Li Capt. Sachin Mallik. Anyway, I had one star on my shoulder. I was entitled to be “lost” and no one could do a fig about it.

I remember I was carrying a bottle of water. The water was hot and tasted of chlorine. I had an ANPRC 25 radio set and a pair of binoculars. I was in my combat dress, with a helmet perched jauntily on my head, hot as a frying pan.

Far below, 17 Kumaon had assembled in platoon rods at the FUP. The Forming Up Place is a location where troops assemble and launch their assault on an objective. FUP also has an informal full form, which is a truer explanation than its real full form. However, that full form is not for a family audience. If you have a fauji friend, he will tell you. If your fauji friend happens to be in the infantry, he will tell you gleefully. In the army, the same jokes remain funny even after a thousand retellings.

Soon, we started firing small bursts at the objective. The “Umpire” of the exercise was taking his job seriously. The Brigade Commander was engrossed in what was happening. Out of the blue, a full-blown craving for cold Rooh Afza erupted deep in my heart. I looked around. There were four of us, each with an issue-type water bottle. There was a canvas “chaagal” with perhaps five liters of water; all of it hot and chlorine fuelled.

“Are you okay, sahab? Is there anything you want?” asked Subedar Amokh Singh.

“Rooh Afza”, I blurted out, instantly regretting it. Here we were in the middle of attacking an objective and I wanted Rooh Afza. Shame on me.

I raised my binoculars to get a better look. The platoon rods were moving perfectly. 17 Kumaon is a typical highlander unit. “Dastoori” is the word soldiers would use for us. We have always everything by the book. The exercise was going well. My throat was parched and I delayed sipping water. It was chlorine, anyway.

I turned around and found that Subedar Amokh Singh was not there. Strange. He must have gone to relieve himself.

Ten minutes passed. Fifteen. No Amokh Singh.

“Sat Sri Akal Sahab”, said Subedar Amokh Singh, smilingly. Behind him was a soldier of 10 Sikh Li carrying a glass full of Rooh Afza, which had real ice cubes. All this was happening in the middle of nowhere. It must be the sun, I thought. I had heard of thirsty and disoriented travelers seeing mirages in the desert. Maybe this was one.

“What have you brought, Amokh Singh sahab”? I asked him.

“Sahab, you wanted Rooh Afza. Here it is,” he said.

Apparently the Division Commander’s caravan was nearby and the administration was under Sikh Li. The enterprising Subedar not only got Rooh Afza for me, he had two glasses himself and carried it for his entire MMG det.

I thanked him profusely.

“All those stories about Sikh Li…they are true, aren’t they, sahab?” I asked him.

Stories about the road roller being buried at midnight and the Cheetah helicopter “temporarily disappearing” in the middle of Siachen Glacier…those were not just stories, were they? But Subedar Amokh Singh didn’t confirm or deny anything. He just laughed.

When the Unit got its orders to move to Tibri Cantt in Gurdaspur, we heaved a sigh of relief. Seniors who had been-there, done-that told me that Fazilka was the final frontier. They promised green grass after Fazilka. And so it was. Punjab was magic. Miles and miles of green fields rolled by and we visually devoured the landscape. We were like thirsty men at an oasis.

Nine hours later, we were at Gurdaspur. We were welcomed with tea, pakoras and aloo bondas. There was some red substance, which they insisted, was tomato sauce but I wasn’t convinced. I let it go. Soon, the process of settling down began.

Tibri Cantt is on the outskirts of Gurdaspur town. During those days, there were three STD/PCO booths in one straight line, five hundred meters apart, as soon as you entered the town. Young army officers always went to the furthest booth to make calls. This was strange. It remained strange until the day reliable int sources (whatever that meant) informed the Station Commander that a very beautiful young lady called Harjeet Kaur sometimes manned the last phone booth.

Harjeet Kaur was oblivious to her massive fan following. Young Army officers subjected her to a lot of “Yes Ma’am” and “No Ma’am”. Deferential to a fault, they kept a respectful distance. This one sided admiration was soon cut short. An unwritten message was passed. Soon, all STD calls were made from the first and second booth only.

As a young 2nd Lt, I owned a Kawasaki Bajaj. I was doing YOs (Young Officers Course) in MHOW in 1994. I remember going on a cold evening to Indore with 2nd Lt Amardeep Singh Bali (now a serving Colonel) to take delivery of the bike. We drove it back to MHOW, Bali more apprehensive than I. He was riding pillion, and with a driver like me, his apprehension was not difficult to fathom. After the YOs course, I soon sold my bike and bought an LML Vespa. This was in 1995.

It was the same time that Tibri Cantt was undergoing what can be best described as withdrawal symptoms due to Harjeet Kaur. The young officers of the brigade requisitioned my new LML Vespa. There was a Raj Rif unit, a Gorkha unit and 17 Kumaon. Seven youngsters of the brigade gathered and called the Gorkha Unit painter who painted the words “HARJEET KAUR” on the fuel tank of my scooter. A bottle of Old Monk was brought. With great solemnity, liquor was liberally sprinkled on the scooter. In the LML Vespa, you have to lift the seat to access the fuel tank. Our collective infatuation was hence both kept a secret and immortalized.

Little did our seniors know that when we said we were taking Harjeet Kaur out for coffee, it simply meant taking my scooter from 17 Kumaon bachelor’s accommodation to the Gorkha Rifles Officers Mess. We would sit in the mess; have coffee and fall back after 2 hours, with no one the wiser. It was a scam and it worked.

Havildar Dharam Singh of 17 Kumaon was the center of our existence. When we went hungry on dinner nights, it was he who kept food for us. He was our Mess Havildar. Dinner Nights are boring, formal affairs. You dress up in 6 Bravos (don’t ask me what that is), there is a layout of the dinner table, which you adhere to, and you are served meals in courses. You keep one eye on your food and another on the “old man”, as the Commanding Officer is affectionately called. The problem with dinner nights is that the food is often bland and the strict formality of forks, knives and spoons take away much of the pleasure of dining.

We had dinner nights at least twice a month. And after dinner, when we bid the Old Man “good evening” and never “good night” (that is again a long story), many of us remained hungry. It was then that Dharam Singh came to our rescue. Platefuls of biryani and dessert were always kept ready. Dharam Singh may have looked like a halwai but to us, he was Superman.

Our Superman was actually given the name Samay Singh at birth, an odd name by any standard. Youngsters of 17 Kumaon had a habit of Anglicizing names, so they started calling him Time Lion behind his back. One fine morning, fed up with what was happening, the CO changed his name. With the powers invested in him by the President of India, the Old Man changed his name to Dharam Singh. This happened much before I was commissioned. I don’t know if Samay Singh was asked or given a choice of names. But it happened.

Old habits are hard to shed. Time Lion became Religious Lion. And so our little world revolved ceaselessly around the altar of the Paltan. Time passed, as time is wont to.

One fine day, we were told that the Unit is moving to Pooh. I had never heard of the place. Apparently it was also called “Sugar Sector”. And 36 Sector. And we had adventures there. Oh yes, we had adventures. But that is for another day.

Some day I will tell you about how we got orders to lay landmines on the Line of Actual Control, to stop a possible Chinese “attack”. Two months later I fell 400 feet into snow. The Kumaoni ‘bhullas’ saved me and then turned the place into a 17 Kumaon “tourist spot”. Everyone who visited was told “Gaurav sahab yahaan pe gire thhe”. This was usually accompanied by much laughter and backslapping. The thought that I had almost died that day seemed to have escaped everyone. In the dark and frigid desert of Shipki La, every laugh was precious.

But as I said…lets leave that for another day.

Major Gaurav Arya (Veteran)

17th Battalion, The Kumaon Regiment

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