WHAM, WELDS, AND A ROAR: A TIGER TALE FROM NAGALAND

 

     You might raise an eyebrow, dear reader – or possibly both - if I  claimed to have come within close range of a royal Bengal tiger in Nagaland. Near enough for the big cat to have rearranged my anatomy creatively. Nagaland, after all isn’t known to be tiger country - at least not in the way places like The Sundarbans, Bandhavgarh, Kanha, or Corbett are. But hold on. I am perhaps getting ahead of myself. So allow me to start at the very beginning and explain how I, ended up well within the ‘oh no’ zone of four hundred pounds of striped feline - every pound in a thoroughly foul temper..

      At the time, I was loaned out by the Indian Army to the Assam Rifles and found myself commanding the largest engineering support unit in the force – a jolly bunch of chaps with spanners for fingers, welding arcs in their hearts and eyes that could pick out a faulty transistor from a sea of them on an inscrutable silicon wafer. The unit headquarters was in Dimapur, the most important commercial and transport hub of Nagaland. One weekend, I was on a quiet, off-duty visit to the Dimapur Zoo - the sort of outing where one expects to see monkeys, bored peacocks and perhaps slurp through ice-cream while at it. What I hadn’t counted on was encountering Obed Bohovi Swu, the Zoo Director.

     Obed, seemed to be on his routine rounds - doing whatever inscrutable things zoo directors do when on rounds which are routine. No sooner had he set eyes on me than he appeared to recognise, with the instincts of a seasoned naturalist, that here was a distinctly non-native species in his zoo. He ambled over with the mild curiosity of a cat discovering a new goldfish bowl on the teapoy. Once introductions had been dispensed with, he graciously appointed himself my guide to the zoo. He was, as I discovered, a sharp, affable man with a challenge on his hands — one that lay squarely at the crossroads of veterinary care, metal fabrication, and zoo administration.

     A gleam of hope lit up his eyes when I let it slip that my unit had fabrication capabilities. With quiet astuteness, he asked if we could help design and build what he breezily called a “squeeze cage” for the zoo. The term squeeze cage sounded vaguely sinister to me and sent a shiver down my spine. It was reminiscent of the "Scavenger’s Daughter", a medieval torture device I’d once read about. Mercifully clarification was soon made that he meant a contraption used to administer injections to large animals of the particularly vengeful kind without requiring veterinary volunteers of exceptional bravery or suicidal temperaments.

     Think of it as a glorified vet’s chamber — except with steel bars, bolts, and absolutely no patient cooperation. The idea is simple: the animal walks in, one side of the cage moves inward, gently pinning it against the other side, and voilà — the vet gets a safe shot at the job. Try getting a tiger to roll up its sleeve otherwise.

     WHAM (Winning Hearts and Minds) projects counted for a huge deal with the Assam Rifles - a counterinsurgency force ever eager to get into the good books of the local citizenry and here was this little caper presenting itself as the perfect opportunity to twiddle the right knobs at headquarters and pocket a few of those ever-elusive brownie points. A cage for the zoo, goodwill for the force, and no insurgents involved. What’s not to like?

    Except Obed, bless his ambitious soul wanted a fancier version — a cage with two adjacent movable sides. The cage had to be collapsible along two horizontal axes at right angles to each other. This simple requirement turned it from an ordinary fabrication job into a bit of an engineering brain teaser.

Obed’s guided tour had included an introduction to the zoo’s latest VIPs - Royal Bengal tigers named Mani and Karthika, recently relocated from the Thiruvananthapuram Zoo in Kerala. These majestic fang-wielders, along with some other bearish, wolfish and boarish fellows, would be the primary beneficiaries of the squeeze cage.

Many rounds of brainstorming with my welding boys, and we cracked it. The design was prepared. Not, I might add, with any of your fancy AutoCAD software, but with an empty matchbox. The humble matchbox commissioned into service as a scale model acquitted itself with honour and aplomb. Once Obed and his zookeeper team gave the design an approving nod – the pièce de resistance was ready just in time for a grand New Year’s Day handover in 2018 — complete with a neat little plaque that read in noble script:

"A gift from the Sentinels of the North East to the People of Nagaland"

The handing over ceremony done and dusted, all with beaming photographs and a press release from Obed, the squeeze cage was wheeled into a holding area right behind the tiger enclosure —separated from the stripey inhabitants by iron bars. Now, let me reassure you — we were perfectly safe. Those bars were sturdy enough to hold off both curiosity and claw.
Or so we thought. We stood chatting in the holding area in the self-congratulatory manner of men who have wrestled steel into submission, admiring our handywork, our backs to Mani and Karthika who last we checked appeared to be watching the proceedings through the bars with the interest of a bored housecat contemplating a particularly dull and slow-turning ceiling fan. All of a sudden, a loud sound shattered the ambience. Not the kind that one might mistake for an overenthusiastic thunderbolt but something with distinct primal authority.

My mind blanked. Instinct took over. I spun around — and there it was.

One of the tigers - my brain far too numb to file an identity - was on its hind legs, reared up against the bars, towering above me like an ill-tempered battle tank on tip-toe. Its face a mere three feet above me, its breath hot and foul, seemed to envelop me.  Not content with the opening performance, it followed up the roar with loud growls that rattled the bones inside my chest and sent shudders into my trousers. For a split second, I was convinced I was about to become a footnote in the zoo’s incident log. As I stared into its canines — a good four inches long — I genuinely believed I was staring into the last thing I’d ever see.

Then reason returned and I silently thanked the workman who had put those bars there, still solid holding off 200 Kilograms of angry muscle, teeth and claws with serious views about trespassers on its territory.

Unfortunately, my knees hadn’t got the memo. They were still very much shivering, threatening to give way under me.

I slowly turned back around to glance at my team of weldboys. They were frozen, wide-eyed and looked like lizards were crawling up their legs. And then a look at the zookeepers expecting signs of alarm. 

Nothing… 

One was picking his teeth, another stifling a yawn. Obed was paying as much attention to the angry feline as a seasoned flyer would to the safety demonstration. Business as usual for them. Just another tiger doing its daily sound check.

Thankfully, our driver had waited by our Gypsy outside the zoo and wasn’t afflicted by the post-traumatic stress disorder that we were suffering from. He could be counted on to take us back safely though he must have wondered why the vehicle seemed to be affected by a certain curious vibration. I am certain that none of us at that moment could have  even rolled a wheelbarrow safely down the road if it were arrow-straight, had safety rails, and was padded with bubble wrap.

The Night a woman fought without a gun

 This was written at an airport on Women’s Day, 08 March 2025, when I had plenty of time to kill. An announcement over the PA system, lauding the stronger gender, stirred old memories—memories that may or may not have played out exactly as I recall them. But they seemed fitting for the occasion.

Kashmir, winter of 1994.

The valley was a frozen silence.

Our unit, a Gorkha battalion, had been operating in the sector for months, hunting down a particularly vicious tanzeem responsible for a series of brutal ambushes. Intelligence had been scarce, leads unreliable—until one of them was captured alive.

The capture itself was unremarkable. A routine night cordon in a village, a slip-up by the hostile, and a swift, professional takedown. But this one was no ordinary foot soldier. He had rank. He had knowledge—routes, safe houses, names. Yet, as he was brought to the battalion headquarters for interrogation, there was defiance in his eyes. He wasn’t going to talk.

Major R, a hardened veteran, had seen that look before. He wasn’t one for patience. Experience had taught him that men like this rarely cooperated, and when they did, it was mostly lies. As the prisoner sat there, silent, staring back with cold detachment, something in Maj R snapped.

"You think we have time for this?" he muttered, drawing his 9mm Browning pistol. "One less rat to deal with."

He wasn’t bluffing. In the unforgiving reality of counterterrorism, hesitation could mean another attack, another dead patrol. His logic was brutal, though not entirely irrational. I, a Second Lieutenant at the time, held my tongue. Subalterns didn’t question field officers’ decisions.

That was when Second Lieutenant T stepped in.

She wasn’t from our unit—just on attachment from the Corps of EME. A woman officer, a rarity in our sector at the time. She wasn’t naive; she understood the stakes. But she also believed in the power of information, in intelligence over impulse.

"Sir," she said, her voice steady in a way mine was not. "Give me a chance. Let me try."

Major R looked at her, his frustration clear. A subaltern—an attached officer, no less—suggesting she could succeed where he could not? But something held him back. He holstered his weapon.

"Fine," he said. "You have one night. If he doesn’t talk, he isn't wasting space here."

No one expected much. But as the night wore on, something changed. My men and I watched her work on the prisoner.

She didn’t beat him. She didn’t threaten him. She talked. Patiently, persistently. She found cracks in his armor, appealed to his survival instincts, played on the very thing that had kept him alive so far—his ability to adapt.

By dawn, he had started to talk.

By the end of the week, we had everything we needed—locations, hideouts, names of overground workers.

Over the next two months, the tanzeem that had plagued the sector for years was systematically dismantled. Raids, arrests, and a few decisive encounters wiped it out. What had seemed like just another nameless, faceless insurgent turned out to be the thread that unraveled an entire network.

Major R never spoke of that night again, but we all knew—if not for that one moment, that one intervention, the story would have ended differently.

And so, in the dead of a Kashmiri winter, a terrorist was spared—not out of mercy, but because a woman had the foresight to see that sometimes the greatest weapons aren’t bullets. They are words.

(Disclaimer: The events in this story happened as described—except, of course, for those that didn’t.)

THE MEDITATION HOAX

 

 

Don't all of us – even if only occasionally – succumb to emotions like irritation, jealousy, sadness, and anxiety?

There are nary many of us who wouldn’t like the power to change the way things are in our life – in the world around us! We labour under the belief that it is the people in our life, the objects we own, and our interactions with them that cause negative emotions that make us unhappy. We all seek happiness. We do not earn money merely to buy the barest necessities of life.  Money, to us, is something that can buy us comforts and luxuries that can bring us 'happiness' – either now or in the future. In short, most of us conceive of 'happiness' as a dividend of external factors – possessions, relationships, and wealth – extant in our lives.

This is paradoxical because most people will agree that all the negative emotions that make us unhappy emanate from the mind. While a great deal of attention and energy is devoted to physical beauty, material wealth, and building and maintaining relationships, the mind receives the least grooming and attention.

 

Meditation exists in myriad flavours – each with its technique but all with a common underlying concept. All seek to bring the mind to a single-pointed focus – to stabilise the unstable mind. Such a stable, controlled mind can then be caused to generate controlled thought processes. The individual who was a victim of her/his moods now emerges as their controller.

 

Easier said than done!

Indeed anyone who begins to meditate quickly realises that it is difficult to keep the mind focussed on anything – a form, a name, an object, a sound, the breath – the mind seems to slip away unnoticed, repeatedly, and frustratingly! Sitting down with the eyes closed for even 30 minutes turns out to be far more difficult than it would appear to be to someone who has never tried it. Keeping the mind focussed for even a brief period turns out to be well nigh impossible!

      Daniel Goleman in his book The Varieties Of The Meditative Experience (1977) examines twelve different types of meditative practices – including Sufism and Jewish Kabbalah. There are many more. The spectrum ranges from pop meditations involving visualization or meditation music to intense and serious practices like Vipassana and Kundalini Yoga which need years of sustained effort. Visualisation meditation, meditation music, and other techniques that are available on online platforms like YouTube and Spotify have undeniable benefits. They can reduce stress levels. They bestow a certain sense of peace and calm. They do not demand a great investment of time nor a high level of commitment and can be practised almost anywhere and at any time. And yet, these rarely make any deep impact on one's mind. The calmness and positivity felt barely outlast the period of the meditation practice. The mind stays uncured of its deeper malaises.

 

It is intuitive for human beings to expect great rewards at the end of great efforts. The few who do attempt to get into intense meditation practices - especially those of South-East Asian origins like Vishuddimagga, Kundalini Yoga, or Vipassana - sometimes do so in expectation of states of transcendental bliss, rapture, ethereal experiences, or special powers. A persistent meditator may indeed experience any or all of these as the practice progresses. Yet, it would be a serious mistake to consider these extraordinary experiences as the goal of meditation. It is these experiences that make up the meditation hoax.  They amplify the craving for pleasurable experiences leading to discontentment

 

The state of the meditator who loses himself in the enjoyment of the extraordinary experiences has been symbolically expressed in the mythological story of Sage Vishwamitra who gives up his penance distracted by the charms of the celestial nymph Menaka. The perception of these experiences as 'good' is something that the meditator needs to overcome if he has to arrive at the goal of developing lasting equanimity that gives peace.

Meditation is a hoax if one expects it to bring anything extraordinary. If anything, it should make one content with being ordinary and should rid one of the craving to be extraordinary!

Gulbar

 That evening, Gulbar Choudhary stood firmly in my way in the foyer of the unit officers’ mess. The expression on his face carried an expression of apology tinged with mild amusement. Yet there was no malice.

As the senior steward of the officers’ mess, Gulbar was the oldest member of the officers' mess staff. Gulbar, Hailing from Bihar, he had mastered Nepali, the language that was the very essence of the Gorkha regiments.  He possessed an unrivalled knowledge of the history of each piece of silver that adorned the anteroom and was an authority on the enigmatic realm of 'mess etiquettes’. Three young officers resided in the single officers’ quarters -  an annexe to the officers’ mess - at that time, of which I, the juniormost held the rank of second lieutenant.

 

“Maaf garnuhos sahab" he gently chided, his voice dripping with Nepali finesse, "tara hazurle afsar meys ko lagi uchit dress lagaunu bhayeko chhaina”. My proficiency in the Nepali language deserved no more than a ‘beginner’ rating at the time. Nonetheless, but I picked up the operative words ‘afsar meys’(officers’ mess), ‘uchit’(correct), ‘dreys' (dress), and ‘chhaina’ (not).  My attire - a t-shirt, shorts, and slippers hardly befitted officers' mess etiquette. Entering the mess dressed like that would have been a sacrilegous act, second, only to appearing on parade unshaven! Had any one of the senior officers been present, I would have never dared to such a venture. As it happened on that day, both of them were away, leading me to believe that I held dominion over the mess for the day. I hadn’t reckoned with Gulbar Choudhary. Little had I realised that he would swiftly shatter my illusion. There he stood politely admonishing me for my dress (or undress). The portraits of past commanding officers of the unit that lined the foyer seemed to scowl down at me disapprovingly. Shame washed over me for I had committed the grave offense of violating the sanctity of the premises of the First Battalion of The Ninth Gorkha Rifles Officers' mess with my scruffy attire.

Gulbar was a master of the art of humble confidence. Many officers had come and gone and had been served by Gulbar's capable hands over the two and an half decades that he had been in the mess. I later discovered that  I need not have been unduly contrite over my misdemeanor. I was not the first officer that Gulbar had thus ‘groomed’ in mess etiquettes. Nor was I the last to be checked by him. My redemption came about when Gulbar once dared to counter the commanding officer (a virtual demi-god in an army unit). I shall now narrate this singular episode.

         It so happened once that, a dinner party was hosted by the Brigade Commander. I do not recall the exact occasion, but for some reason, the party was held at our unit officers' mess rather than at the Brigade HQ officers' mess. As the Commander and our unit commanding officer(CO) stood together chatting, Gulbar appeared with their respective drinks in crystal glasses on a silver tray. He offered the tray to the commanding officer first. The Commander was the senior officer of the two and the protocol normally would have been for him to be offered a drink first. The CO furtively gestured with his eyes to indicate as much to  Gulbar. After the Brigade Commander and the other guests had departed, Gulbar was summoned by the furious CO. The CO - who preferred Hindi to the regimental language Nepali - went all guns blazing as soon as Gulbar was in range, “Gulbar tum meri Naukri kharab kar doge kya?” (Gulbar, are you bent upon ruining my career?)” Gulbar standing to savdhan but nonetheless calm and confident, the trademark twinkle never leaving his eyes spoke, “Aapki Naukri kaun kharab kar sakta hain sahab? Aap toh CO sahab ho” (who can ruin your career sir? You are the CO). The officers watched with bated breath. Gulbar had surely gone too far this time. Yet curiosity seemed to have gotten the better of the CO’s fury. To his questioning glare Gulbar went on to expound “Sahab party brigade commander sahab le dinu bha thiyo. Hazur party ma guest hunhunthio. Guest lai pahila drink dinu parchha” (Sir, the brigade commander was hosting the party and you were his guest). Gulbar’s logic was right on the button and the CO burst out laughing. That was the quintessential Gulbar - polite, smiling, and yet outspoken.

         For all his candour, Gulbar had a soft heart. There was the occasion of my dining-in party when I had newly joined the battalion as a young wet-behind-the-ears second lieutenant fresh from the Indian Military Academy. I must explain for those uninitiated in military customs that 'dining-in' is a formal welcome accorded to a newly posted officer to the officers' mess. Just as I had got dressed and was ready to leave my room, a knock sounded on my door. I found Gulbar there with a little covered bowl and the hint of a smile in his eyes. “Yo  khanuhos sahab” (Please eat this sir). In the bowl was a small blob of butter. I must have looked puzzled – as I indeed was. Was this some kind of unit tradition that I wasn’t told about? Gulbar said that the butter would slow down the effects of alcohol – which of course, did nothing to explain anything as far as I was concerned. I was a teetotaller. Running behind time and not wanting to be late, I did as he said. I gulped down the butter - more to get him out of my way than anything else. I wasn’t quite prepared for what awaited me when I arrived at the officers’ mess.

A huge silver cup with a concoction in it. This cup was over a century old and had been presented to the unit by an erstwhile British monarch in the pre-independence era.   The cup contained, I was told, a cocktail of nine alcoholic beverages – the 'nine' being significant for the Ninth Gorkha Rifles. Tradition had it that a newly-commissioned officer needed to ‘prove his mettle’ by ingesting this liquid without separating the cup from his lips. The blob of butter now made sense. Gulbar had tried to fortify me from being ‘hit’ by this halahala. Of course, it only slowed down the rate at which I got drunk that night – as I eventually did before throwing up and passing out.

Gulbar was retiring from the Army. I, like the rest of the officers in the unit, had really grown fond of him.. We invited him to cocktails at the officers’ mess. This was not as per protocol but what the heck! We wanted to do something special for him. We received him, and after he was seated, served him drinks and snacks ourselves. On that day, he was a guest in the officers’ mess where he had served for years. His eyes were moist – as our hearts were heavy.

 

The officers' mess would miss its mascot!

 

The Crime

The Brigade Commander ('The Commander' in Army lingo) gazed at me with an expression that was a mix of irritation and curiosity.

Standing to savdhan in The Commander's office my mind went into flashback for a moment.

On that day three months back . . .

Subedar Munshiram, the senior JCO had the air of a Socrates at his The 'Eureka' moment.

 "Sahab surplus ration ration apne phamily member ko sale karke jo paisa aayega usse mixie le lete hain"

(Sir, let's sell the surplus ration to our 'family members' and buy a mixie with the proceeds).

A 'mixer-grinder' in the cook-house had been a long standing demand from the men. Indeed, I completely endorsed the requirement. The problem was - our monthly allocation of regimental fund from the HQ was barely enough to make ends meet in the sub-unit. A mixer-grinder would cost Rupees 1200 (a small fortune in 2002) and that we did not have. I would have to requisition The HQ for a special allocation for the 'mixie'.

After all the troops of my tiny sub-unit were as much entitled to  their Idlis and Dosas as M Karunanidhi. P Chidambaram  or Amma were to theirs, no?

 I would show my men that their new kaptaan sahib was a real go-getter.

 A noting sheet to HQ complete with 'Background of the case', 'Proposal', 'Justification' and 'Financial effect' employing my best military writing skills was promptly drafted and despatched to HQ. 

As a young captain placed in command of a little detachment of sixty men, I had much to yet learn about military bureaucracy. 

In the three months - that had elapsed since my beautifully drafted noting sheet had first gone to HQ, if there was one thing that soon was clear to me, it was that headquarters have tight purse strings when sub-units ask for funds. The noting sheet had been traversing the channel of Army unit bureaucracy in both directions.

A stream of  'observations' were unleashed by HQ :

"How was the requirement being met so far?"

"How was the cost estimate arrived at?"

"Had a board of officers been constituted to determine the lowest price?"

"Why was the procurement not being done through the CSD?"

"Why had the requirement not been included in the Annual Procurement Plan for Annual Contingency Grant"

It was truly exasperating.

OC would listen to my 'follow-up' phone calls patiently and promise to ". . . do something soon . . . " - which as I learnt soon enough was Army bureaucratese for "I will forget it the moment  you get off the phone"

It was then that Subedar Munshiram, the senior JCO came up with the Eureka idea.

 We had quintals of 'surplus' rice and sugar in the ration store. Our 'family' men (personnel who lived on base with families) would be willing to buy this ration at concessional prices and we could thereby raise the money needed for the mixer-grinder.

I was aware of this surplus that had built up over a period of time. Rations were authorised to all troops as per a certain fixed scale. While the 'family' men took home their authorizations from the ration store, the 'single' mens' rations were collectively issued to the unit cook-house. The quantity of ration that we collected from the supply depot  was as per the scale of rations authorized to each man. An average jawan could not possibly consume all the atta, rice, sugar. dal and refined oil that he was authorised. Thus the accumulation of a surplus of rations that had been charged off the books but had not been actually consumed was inevitable. The rules catered for this eventuality and said that surplus rations should be taken back on ledger charge and less rations drawn to that extent the next month. The problem was that if we did that the local audit officer would demand an explanation for 'not providing the troops with adequate nourishment'.

I was to later discover that such catches-22 abounded in The Army. The auditor who was there to check for correct accounting of government funds and resources did not like it when we followed the rules!!

Munshiram's idea seemed to resolve the conundrum perfectly. Selling off government rations in this manner was 'highly irregular' I knew. Yet there was no ethical dilemma in my mind. What I was doing was 'welfare of troops..." There was no selfish or dishonest motive. Wasn't it my duty to see to their welfare? And after all . . . it was surplus stock . . . not on the books. 

And so the deed was done ... the rations sold and the mixer-grinder purchased! And I . . . was one self-satisfied officer that day . . . convinced that I had lived up to the second line of the Chetwode Credo inscribed in the oak panelling at the Eastern entrance to The Chetwode Hall at The Indian Military Academy :

"The safety, honour and welfare of your country come first, always and every time

The honour, welfare and comfort of the men you command come next

Your own ease, comfort and safety come last, always and every time."

Days passed without event and then one morning an olive-green Maruti Gypsy drove up to the unit gate. The red plate on the front announced that the vehicle bore The Officer Commanding. With the minimum of security fuss, the vehicle was let in and drove in to pull up in front of the main office building. It Lt Col S____ , The OC who was my immediate boss and Capt A___ , The Administrative officer! I was a bit taken aback because The OC had driven down over 50 Km from his headquarters and it was most unusual for him to be coming on a visit to a sub-unit thus unannounced! The OC cursorily returned my salute and walked past me into my office followed by Capt A. There was a distinct lack of the usual warmth and I could clearly sense that all was most certainly not well.

Sitting across from me, OC extracted a sheet of paper from an envelope and placing it on the desk, motioning to me to read. I picked it up and read.

It was a photocopy of a typed complaint addressed to the Corps Commander alleging that

 " . . . government rations meant for troops were being sold in the unit . . ." 

It was signed  "Bahadur Gumnaam Sipahi"  - (Brave Anonymous Soldier). The oxymoron did strike me but I checked myself from making a tongue-in-cheek remark about the bahadur sipahi who was too scared to put his name down on the complaint. I sensed that OC wasn't in a mood for wisecracks. Bahadur Sipahi went on to allege that Munshiram had pocketed the proceeds of the sale. Looking up I met his stern questioning glance.

 I stalled for a moment to consider what to say, but then found myself blurting out, "This is true Sir. I ordered it. However Munshiram has NOT pocketed anything. I have supervised the entire process and the money has been accounted for"

OC was apparently not expecting a blunt admission of guilt and looked taken aback. 

"Why?" seemed to be the only word he could utter. 

Having regained my composure, I explained the matter and took him to the cook-house to show him the 'mixie'.

After this he appeared somewhat mollified but then said I had to accompany him to The Brigade Commander . The Brigade Commander, Brigadier D____ had been asked by The Corps Commander to investigate the complaint - a 'one-man inquiry'. 

I was asked to wait outside and then  after a while was called in. . . 

The tension was so palpable that one could have cut it with a knife. As I stood at savdhan, Brig D __ , 'The Commander' (Army lingo for 'Brigade Commander') - a bluff man with huge whiskers looked at me.

 " Your OC says that you admit to having given orders for rations to be sold. Is that so?

"Yes Sir, That is so but . . ."

The Commander  cut me short : 

"Yes I know about the mixie and I appreciate the fact that you have owned up. That is what an officer is expected to do. You did not have a dishonest motive. Yet your act is highly irregular to say the least. Couldn't you have pursued the noting sheet for regimental fund to be approved?"

"Yes Sir. I could have but then there was also the problem of the accumulated surplus ration that had to be disposed off."

"Well I think it was a bad decision you took - if it was a question of surplus ration why couldn't you give it away to the 'family' personnel for free?"

Once again I found myself blurting out, "Permission to speak freely to The Commander sir?" The Brigadier nodded and then leaned forwards to listen.

"I beg to disagree that my decision was bad sir. Doing what "

The Brigadier looked visibly miffed "You disagree? Do you realise that you are admitting to have committed a major financial irregularity for which you are liable to be court-martialled?"

Then his expression changing from annoyance to curiosity, "Go on, tell me why you think I am wrong. And you'd better think on your feet son"

"Well Sir. The ration was authorised to the 'single' men. If any benefit accrues from it's sale then it is the 'single' men who should get it. Giving away the rations would have amounted to transferring the benefit of the 'single' men's rations to the 'family' men."

The Commander seemed to be mulling over this for a few seconds as he stared me in the eye. I knew I had crossed the barbed wire into the minefield and in all probability had stepped on a live mine. I braced for the mine to explode.

The Commander turned to The OC, his expression inscrutable "Who do you think is right 

S- ? I or this young man"

The OC looked decidedly uncomfortable and was definitely wishing that The Commander's attentions would be bestowed back on me. Without waiting for an answer The Commander turned to me. He stared at me for a long moment and then burst out into a booming laugh.

"Sit down son" he said in an amiable tone, motioning to the chair next to The OC's. It was my turn to be taken aback. I had been preparing for the worst.

"Listen Raja Harishchandraji . . . " continued The Commander looking at me with most of the merriness still on his face.

"I am giving a written report to The Corps Commander that I have investigated the complaint and found no evidence of substance in it, It is an anonymous complaint and as per regulations no formal action is compulsorily mandated on such complaints. The matter therefore will die after I submit my report. "

"But before I do that I must be sure that you will not be a little less honest if you are asked about this by anyone else. No sale of rations ever took place in your sub-unit. Do you agree?" The Commander had an amused expression on his face.

"Nothing like that ever happened Sir" I replied. 

I had told The OC and The Commander the truth. If The Commander desired me to deny it who was I - a lowly Captain to overrule him??

A flood in my heart

The various posts on the Kerala floods, the experiences and inspirational anecdotes , remind me of my own experience  leading an Army  column in the Tamil Nadu floods of 2015.

My column was airlifted from Begumpet Airfield, Secunderabad and landed at Arakkonam Naval Airbase since (Meenambakkam (Chennai) was non ops due to flooding.

The behemoth that flew us to the mission - C-17 Globemaster

        Into the insides of the monster

                                           
                                         

My first flight in a US made IAF aircraft. Found them better than the Russian ones

This monster has a large belly

We operated for 24 days in all - 02 days in Chennai and the rest of the 22 days in Cuddalore District.

Kasi Theatre Area - Chennai

Zaffarkhanpet - Chennai

Briefing

After the rage of nature and the fury of the water had subsided and rescue ops were over we stayed on for relief ops - helping the district administration to get food/water units and medical aid to people in affected areas.

A captive ferry operation across Gadilam river(Cuddalore)

My medical team were real rockstars working tirelessly 

for 9 to 10 hours on end wading through waist deep water

Unloading relief material 

The sights were heart-rending, people were devastated. Pukka houses were standing but their contents had been ruined completely and the morale of their inhabitants shattered. Worse was the condition of those who lived in huts and kaccha mud houses. They no longer had houses. 

The only inhabitants in some houses were dead bodies.

 House inundated in Villupuram, Cuddalore

  Kaccha huts - The Poorest lost all they had

                                            

Children had skin infection ulcers due to prolonged exposure to infected waters

I had a difficult time feeding the troops because we had to find locations away from the eyes of the half-fed people in the villages to have our own food. We didn't even feel like eating , but it was important to force troops to eat to keep their strength up. 

Lunch break

I saw both the best as well as worst of human nature on display.

On one hand we had enthusiastic student volunteers who had harnessed the power of social media and got tons of relief material pouring in from all over the Country. There were young doctors who would plead to be allowed to be accompany my relief teams. There were common villagers who showed great initiative, selflessness and courage in helping others.

Enthusiastic young doctors

                                                        

On the other hand, there were political goons who would commandeer relief material  sent by individuals and organisations from across the Country and abroad leaving in trucks from Cuddalore Port. The perishables in these would be distributed selectively in certain constituencies to secure vote banks. The durables like bedsheets, clothes etc would go to their godowns to be used  in election season. In other places there were miscreants busy looting houses abandoned by those shifted to relief camps.

Later, back at 1 EME  Centre, Secunderabad, I  was asked to draft citations for the entire team.

 I did so - for the members of my team.

As for myself, I had already got my reward

.

.

.

.

. . . When in some of the villages people lined up to clap when the vehicles of my column  passed through while we were de-inducting back to Chennai. The love and appreciation I saw in those eyes were ample reward for me . . .

I may not wear that reward on my chest but I carry it in my heart. 🙏

The Salute

One of my (civilian) friends recently asked me whether it is mandatory for a senior officer to return a salute received from a junior. 

I learnt the answer to this question long ago - the hard way . . . 

Subedar Dhruv Singh Thapa of 1/9 Gorkha Rifles (First Battalion The Ninth Gorkha Rifles) was posted as a drill instructor at The National Defence Academy (NDA) when I was a cadet (an officer trainee) there back in 1989-90. He was the senior drill instructor of my squadron and was a hard taskmaster. He wouldn't accept the slightest slackness while putting us through our paces on the drill square in turn-out, marching, saluting, arms drill and so on.

I completed my training at The NDA and at The IMA and was a newly commissioned Second Lieutenant (We had that rank in The Indian Army back then). I had opted for The Gorkha Rifles and as luck would have it I was commissioned into 1/9 Gorkha Rifles. Dhruv Singh Thapa had by then been posted back from The NDA to the unit (1/9 Gorkha Rifles) and had been promoted to the rank of Subedar Major - the senior-most JCO rank in the unit, but nevertheless a rank junior to Second Lieutenant (Which is a commissioned officer rank).

I duly joined 1/9 Gorkha Rifles after my post commissioning leave - a rookee 2nd Lt joining his first unit and was received by Dhruv Singh Thapa at the railway station.

The next day - my first day on duty as a commissioned officer in The Indian Army - I was outside The Commanding Officer’s office waiting to be called in by The CO for an interview when Subedar Major Dhruv Singh Thapa emerged from The CO’s office and on spotting me saluted smartly (I was his senior officer now).

Newly commissioned as I was, I wasn't yet used to being saluted and perhaps the salute I returned was an awkward one, for, he stopped and walked up to me, Subedar Major’s cane smartly under his left arm, looked me in the eyes and said “Sahib, this isn't the kind of salute I trained you in at The NDA”. He then added, “ I shall salute you again and would request you to salute me the way I trained you”. . . and that's what he did. Went back a few steps, passed me again and saluted me again.

Needless to say, I have never ever been sloppy in returning a salute since!

The Saviours of Piffer

I am about to tell a story – a story of tenacity and courage.

I must tell this story, before it gets permanently lost from the annals of the regimental history of 1/9 Gorkha Rifles.

1/9 Gorkha Rifles, was deployed along the Indo-Pak Line of Control (LC) from 1995 – 97. The area of responsibility stretched along the LC which ran parallel to National Highway 1A and a few Kilometres offset to the North. Delta Company, 1/9 Gorkha Rifles had its headquarters at Post 43 – a mere 300 metres from the Line of Control and arguably the closest to it anywhere!

  

Delta Company was spread out along the Line of Control in different pickets and satellite posts stretching along a part of the Line of Control entrusted to the 'First-Nine'. The forward-most satellite post of Post 43 was called ‘Piffer’. Piffer was literally a stone's throw from the Line of Control (and from the corresponding Pakistani post across it). Regulations required anyone moving ahead of Post 43 towards Piffer to remove all forms of identification like rank badges, name badges and in fact anything else that would make one look different from the troops on duty. This was rigidly ensured. Even senior officers visiting Post 43 who did venture beyond Post 43 were requested to comply with this requirement, not only because The Pakistanis were watching at close range and since anything unusual could escalate tension on the LC, but also, because of the strong possibility of a Pak sniper putting a hole in a target as interesting as an Indian general presented to him at temptingly close range.

             

                           The Company Commander's Bunker at Post 43

 'The Mile-stone' at Post 43 

      (POK 300m, 

      Bielargo - 7 Km

      Olthingthang- 16 Km 

      Skardu- 110 Km

      Islamabad - well within reach)

            1/9 GORKHA RIFLES took over Post 43 in 1995 from 26 MADRAS. The unit soon after taking over began improving defences and making minor alterations to bunker alignments. The Pakistanis routinely objected to such work as being in violation of the terms of The Simla agreement (which forbade any defence work activity in the near vicinity of the Line of Control). 

It was a tinderbox situation that prevailed there on the LC. Troops on the two sides were so close to each other with an heavy arsenal of weaponry pointed at each other’s posts and tensions ran high. It was easy for any situation to get escalated out of hand leading to a firefight and casualties. A drill had been evolved to prevent this from happening. 

Either side which had any objection to any activity on the other side of the Line of Control would raise a red flag in warning before opening fire. The company commander would usually go to Piffer in such an eventuality and the activity objected to would be conveyed in a shouted conversation across Piffer. It was then upto the side at the receiving end of the objection to either stop the activity or negotiate a temporary peace. There was however always the possibility of an escalation of the situation into a firefight as it sometimes did. While something as innocent as porters and their donkeys carrying supplies to Piffer could trigger off a red flag drill (or even a warning shot into the air) from the Pakistanis, we on the Indian side were more tolerant. It however became sometimes imperative to do a red flag drill on our side too if only to maintain an aggressive posture and prevent a ‘victim’ psyche from taking over the troops. So we lived, each side constantly on guard against and occasionally intimidating the other!

Piffer was commanded by a junior commissioned officer and had six men besides. It was equipped with a 7.62 mm light machine gun apart from the personal arms (7.62 mm SLRs and 9 mm Carbines) each individual carried. Piffer itself was in a poor state of repair since - given it’s close proximity to the Pakistani post - it was nearly impossible to do any but the barest minimum form of maintenance without the other side hearing you (and presumably running up the red flag). There was a breast-wall about 6 feet high running along the track leading from Post 43 to Piffer (about 300 metres long) which enabled porters and donkeys to carry supplies like food – tinned and fresh, water and kerosene to Piffer without the Pakistanis observing it. On one side of the track was the mountain-side and on the other side about 25 feet below flowed the River Shingo which crossed the Line of Control at Post 43 into Pakistan occupied Kashmir. Life on Piffer was tough - not in the least due to the stress of living in close proximity of the enemy. The possibility of a ‘grab action’ or a night-time raid across the Line of Control was all-too-real. Thus did an uneasy calm prevail in The Shingo Valley. It was a fateful night in April 1996 that was to change that!

The snow had barely melted at Post 43 itself and was still melting on the mountain-side above Post 43. Subedar Pritha Bahadur of Delta Company was in command of Piffer. The melting snow had probably loosened the rocks on the mountain-face above the track leading to Piffer. On that night there was a deafening roar – one that resounded over the roar of The Shingo. The Company Commander was away from his headquarters at another satellite post called ‘New Post’ which was about 45 minutes climb from Post 43. The scene that met him when he scrambled down to his headquarters was dismaying. A landslide had occurred which had washed away a portion of the breast-wall that concealed the track between post 43 and Piffer. The track itself was covered by a huge mound of rubble and rocks which made a smooth passage over it impossible. Donkeys could no longer get across to Piffer and even troops and porters laden with supplies would have a tough time doing so. 

The Pakistanis quickly realised the nuisance potential that this caprice of nature offered them. Their next actions would put Piffer Post and the small band of men who manned it in a precarious situation!

All day long after the landslide, The Pakistanis kept up intermittent machine gun fire on the portion where the breast-wall has been felled by the landslide and the mounds of rubble lay on the track effectively cutting off Piffer from Post 43. Although night did offer cover from observation, progress on clearing the track was frustratingly slow since the Pakistanis had machine guns placed on fixed line sporadically firing on the area and shifting by a few clicks to the left or right every few seconds  By the next night, the Pakistanis had powerful searchlights in place focussed on the area. These were effectively protected from fire from the sides by rocks or sandbags and were intermittently switched on and off so that it was difficult to aim at them except if a sniper was directly in the beam path (and thus in the line of fire). We tried but could never hit a light even though the range wasn’t much. Even in that situation, it was difficult not to admire our enemy’s ingenuity!

Subedar Pritha Bahadur and six men with him were trapped in Piffer. Any crossing of the landslide area- although only about about 30 m wide - could be achieved only by climbing over the boulders and loose rocks slowly and deliberately. An extremely risky venture. It was impossible to time the crossing since the lights were switched on and off in a completely random manner and any silhouette picked up by the lights promptly invited a burst of machine gun fire from across the river. Using porters and donkeys was out of the question. 

Although Piffer had some stock of rations, thanks to the surplus from the advance winter stocking, this stock would soon run out. Piffer needed water, fresh rations and lots of morale boosting . The brave men of Delta Company ferried loads like jerricans of water, fresh supplies to Piffer across the landslide area every night. The Company had two medium machine guns deployed. These along with the light machine guns tried to silence the enemy machine guns while ferrying operations were on. So did the machine guns from ‘Bagicha’- the BSF post across The Shingo. Yet we bought casualties night after night. There were gunshot wounds aplenty - fortunately none of them fatal. Something had to be done and done fast! Water was the first priority. A way had to be figured out to get water to Piffer without the company commander and his men having to put their lives on the line every night. The commanding officer Colonel (later Major General) Namesh Singh Jamwal assessed the situation and a plan was hatched.

          A 500 litre Sintex water tank was brought up from the base at Kargil and installed at a height of about 10 metres above Post 43 concealed from enemy observation and fire. A pipeline was then laid in jointed sections from this tank across the landslide area till Piffer which already had a tank to store water. A Shaktiman 3-ton water bowser would bring water to Post 43 which would be transferred to the Sintex tank in buckets manually (3-ton water bowsers did not have water pumps). All this could be accomplished safely out of sight of the enemy. Opening the cock to let the water into the pipe-and on its way to Piffer was however a tricky affair. Open the cock too little and the pressure wouldn’t be adequate to get the water over the landslide area (where the pipe actually had to climb over the mound of rubble and boulders). Open it too much and the pressure would cause the joints to give way causing a leak of the precious fluid. Piffer would have to be alerted on telephone or radio before the cock was opened. As soon as a drop in pressure was reported from Piffer- meaning that the line had sprung a leak somewhere - personnel stationed every 100 metres of the length of the pipeline to listen for leaks would swing into action to fix it. Before the joint could be re-established the pressure would have to be brought down by closing the cock at the tank end. Sometimes the leak would be in a joint in the landslide area which meant that someone would actually have to crawl over and risk getting caught in the searchlights and being fired upon to be able to fix the leak (eventually we managed to reinforce the joints with coils of string wrapped around them which was partly effective since the leaks were now less frequent). It was a tedious procedure and risky too but it definitely beat heaving jerricans of water across the landslide patch - and risking getting shot in the process.

The state of affairs at Piffer was reported to The General Officer Commanding, 3 infantry Division who came down to Post 43 to take a look. After different options were war-gamed, a plan to construct a sort of tunnel using sandbags was finally agreed upon. A section from the divisional engineer regiment was allotted to Post 43.

 It took weeks. Delta Company worked under the guidance and with the help of the sappers. Night by night, stone by stone, sandbag by sandbag and bit by bit a tunnel was built across the gap. The Pak side tried their best to interfere by firing on the work-site. Many were the splinter injuries and grazing bullet wounds. It was apparent to the Pakistanis after the very first day when the work started that something was afoot. In a few days, what we were trying was quite clear to them  but eventually the link to Piffer was established. The tunnel was christened The Cassino Tunnel. I do not know if it still exists or whether it has been replaced by something better but The Cassino Tunnel does still stand in my mind’s eye – A testimony to the fortitude and courage of 'The Jethi Paltan'. While every man of Delta Company put in his bit (and quite a few pooled in from other companies too, the ones who bore the brunt of the whole episode of course were Subedar Pritha Bahadur and his brave band of men who truly deserve to be called – THE SAVIOURS OF PIFFER

                           

                      The Saviours of Piffer (Sub Pritha Bahadur in the centre)