COURSE SPIRIT

  

It started with a call, “Hi where are you?”, “Indore” was my response, “Oh I thought you were in Mhow”. RCT was on line and I immediately pounced on him,”You must read the blogs, which I send out”, knowing fully well, an Army Commander is a busy person, but then course-mates have a right to pull each other’s legs. I enquired what was he doing in Mhow, now it was his turn to take a dig,”You are retired, but you may like to peruse the papers once in a while, we are here for the ‘Infantry Commanders Conference’”. He said “We must catch up”. There we both agreed and I said I will await his call. I knew these conferences are time consuming so we would probably get a small window sometime over the course of next two days. When next day I didn’t receive any call, I understood, their schedule was quite packed, so I suggested that both he and Andy, the two Army Commanders of our course should drop by on their way to the airport. Both of them immediately appreciated the idea and we locked it.

While Preeti my better half, got on with the preparations, knowing fully well, that there would be a full fledged cavalcade following them, I started wondering, what exactly is this course spirit? In NDA, we were not in the same Squadron or even Company later in IMA, not even in the same academic class, the two of them are hard core Infantarians, I am a Signaller, it was only much later in Service, that with RCT I did the staff course and with Andy, served in Leh and then we went back to Wellington together as DSs. But the spirit did not get kindled during these stints, it was always prevalent and the spark need not even be a physical one, just a phone call is enough. This spirit, as people say is in the air in the academies, highly infectious, as all of us catch the bug without exception. The reputation travels through the word of mouth and even in the academies, we do get to know one another as though each one is a chuddy buddy. We were 300 of us when we joined the NDA and 200 of us who landed up in the IMA, the balance 100 went to the Air Force Academy and Naval Academy. With Army counterparts, we generally do cross paths over the three decades plus service that most us have put in, either on courses of instruction or postings together, with the sister services too, the tri-services  courses like Staff Course, Higher Command, NDC you get to rub shoulders, where our better halves too learn to bond as they have no other option. We socialise with them and chat up about them, so they do realise that they would be missing the fun, if they stayed out of this close bond. The ‘bond’ reminds me of a song in the yesteryear classic film “Rajanigandha”, where the heroine croons, “Kitana sukh hai bandhan men”, meaning the pleasure of this bondage has to be experienced to be realised, she is of course referring to her lover. But the context remains the same, this bond has to be lived through to realise its true worth and meaning in our lives. My Dad was sick, in the ICU, Andy comes calling, puts in a word. My daughter Ananya’s wedding RCT makes it a point to grace the occasion, having promised her.The gestures matter. These are moments to treasure, yesterday too was a similar moment, RCT with Gauri and Andy with Ruchira landed up for a cup of coffee and lit up the place literally. Two warm bear hugs, lots of backslapping and some leg pulling and we were back in the academy. That spirit, which can’t be defined, which has to be experienced, was evident, you can see me beaming with ride at the glorious achievements of two of our stalwarts.

Our quiet lane was buzzing with activity since the day before when the CMP pilot vehicle came to check on the route. The civilian world is suddenly shaken up when they see people in uniform and having watched the spectacle of the cavalcade, I am sure it will be the talk of our neighbourhood for a number of days. We will enjoy in the basked glory. Here you can see an extremely proud father relishing these moments with us.