Boots Belts Berets

Tanushree Podder

Description

After leading a sheltered life for sixteen years, Pessi, Bertie, Randy and Maachh are thrust into the world of the National Defence Academy. Soon they realize that life here is not just about spit and polish, but six terms of adventure and achievement. It is about soaring ambition and tough challenges, a punishing regimen and endless Puttie Parades. However, rugged training and severe ragging cannot keep their spirits down for long. Weaving yarns about imaginary girlfriends, bragging about their escapades and sexual exploits, they turn from greenhorns to tough soldiers. United by their experience, these comrades-in-arms form a bond for life. Tanushree Podder, in this tongue-in-cheek saga of youth, camaraderie and 'growing-up', skillfully reconstructs life at NDA - where boys become men of honour.

Sujets

• DeFence
• National Defence Academy
• Men of Honor
• Beret
• Boots
• Officer
• Training
• Military
• Military academy
• Army
• Youth
• NDA
• Comrade
• Camarade
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Roli Books
• Date de parution: 31 janvier 2008
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9788174369314
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

BOOTS BELTS BERETS
Tanushree Podder


BOOTS BELTS BERETS
Eight years in the corporate sector after her MBA, Tanushree Podder decided to follow the call of her heart and quit everything to take up writing. An author of seventeen books, with two more on the editing table, she has her hands full.
Boots Belts Berets is her second novel, the first one being Nurjahan's Daughter .


OTHER INDIAINK TITLES
Anjana Basu
Black Tongue
A.N.D. Haksar
Madhav & Kama: A Love Story from Ancient India
Boman Desai
Servant, Master, Mistress
C.P. Surendran
An Iron Harvest
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
The Mirror of Fire and Dreaming
I. Allan Sealy
The Everest Hotel
I. Allan Sealy
Trotternama
Indrajit Hazra
The Garden of Earthly Delights
Jaspreet Singh
17 Tomatoes: Tales from Kashmir
Jawahara Saidullah
The Burden of Foreknowledge
Kalpana Swaminathan
The Page 3 Murders
Kalpana Swaminathan
The Gardener s Song
Kamalini Sengupta
The Top of the Raintree
Madhavan Kutty
The Village Before Time
Pankaj Mishra
The Romantics
Paro Anand
I m Not Butter Chicken
Paro Anand
Wingless
Paro Anand
No Guns at My Son s Funeral
Ramchandra Gandhi
Muniya s Light: A Narrative of Truth and Myth
Ranjit Lal
The Life &Times of Altu-Faltu
Ranjit Lal
The Small Tigers of Shergarh
Rashme Sehgal
Hacks and Headlines
Raza Mir & Ali Husain Mir
Anthems of Resistance: A Celebration of Progressive Urdu Poetry
Shandana Minhas
Tunnel Vision
Selina Sen
A Mirror Greens in Spring
Sharmistha Mohanty
New Life
Shree Ghatage
Brahma s Dream
Susan Visvanathan
Something Barely Remembered
Susan Visvanathan
The Visiting Moon
Susan Visvanathan
The Seine at Noon
Tom Alter
The Longest Race
FORTHCOMING TITLES:
Prafulla Roy trans. John W. Hood
Freedom s Ransom
Ranjit Lal
The Simians of the South Block and Yunyum Piglets
Paro Anand
Weed

I ndia I nk

© Tanushree Podder, 2008
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the publisher.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to real characters, living or dead is purely coincidental.
This edition published in 2008 I ndia I nk An imprint of Roli Books Pvt. Ltd. M-75, G.K. II Market New Delhi 110 048 Phones: ++91 (011) 2921 2271, 2921 2782 2921 0886, Fax: ++91 (011) 2921 7185 E-mail: roli vsnl.com; Website: rolibooks.com Also at Varanasi, Bangalore, Kolkata, Jaipur, Mumbai & Chennai
Cover design : Nitisha Mehta Sharma Layout design : Narendra Shahi
ISBN: 978-81-86939-38-3 Rs 295/-

~
For all cadets of NDA – past, present and future – the sentinels and pride of our nation
~

acknowledgement
p
I am grateful to my husband for allowing me to intrude into the memories of his Academy days. Like a true officer and a gentleman, he stuck to his gallant offer of seeing me through the gruelling hours of work.

author s note
p
T his book comes with a caveat. If you are young, adventurous, impressionable and eligible, and receive an invitation to attend the POP (Passing Out Parade) at the National Defence Academy (NDA), Khadakvasala, Pune, don t accept it, because if you do, you are most likely to return to it as a cadet one day. The POP works its magic on young blood. It evokes patriotic emotions, makes you proud of being an Indian, and reminds you of your calling.
The POP can perhaps take the credit for bringing in more cadets, each year, than the high-flying advertisements in the media released by the Ministry of Defence.
Without doubt, the Indian defence services are the best in the world. And I would say, better even than the Sandhurst of the UK, and the West Point of the USA. Geopolitically, our country is at a disadvantage, as some neighbouring countries have displayed hostile tendencies in the last half-century.
It is to the credit of our armed forces that we have always managed to emerge the winners in most conflict situations. It is the NDA that deserves the credit for turning boys into real men. Turning out lean, mean, and clean toughies with hearts of gold, is not a small feat. The ragging, punishments, and hardships are just a part of the game, taken by the cadets in their stride.
With the mysterious aura around the army, it is not surprising that most civilians are clueless about army life, and have fanciful notions about it. I do not blame them. Although I have been married to an army officer for a long time now, there are certain facets of army life that still baffle me. It is the same with most wives – believe me. I spoke to many of them about this and they agreed that there is so much we do not know. The time spent at the National Defence Academy, for instance. It seems to hold a special significance for the officers, whether they are in the army, navy, or the air force. The bonding between the course mates is eternal, and so are the memories.
The idea about this book occurred when we were posted in Bangalore. Since there were quite a few of my husband s NDA course mates posted in the city, they decided to meet regularly on Saturday nights. As I watched them going back in time, I realized how much it meant to them. They were as excited as the teenagers who went into the Academy on the first day. Notes were exchanged, secrets revealed, weaknesses disclosed, and nicknames divulged amidst much banter. In the beginning, I was jealous … simply envious. I felt like an intruder who had barged into a fun party. The language, the codes, and the jokes they shared, made no sense to me. Watching the camaraderie between them, I realized that their years at the NDA would always remain the best phase of their lives.
Along with that realization came the awareness that there was so much I did not know about my husband s life at the Academy. It was a hidden facet of his persona that sounded too interesting to overlook. I decided to find out as much as I could about it. Although my husband had shared many experiences and memories of his days at the Academy with me, there were many gaps that needed to be filled in. To say that the NDA days were a high point in his life, would not be an exaggeration because all that came later, fell flat before the adventures and experiences shared at the Academy.
During a vacation, I began goading him to narrate the story of his Academy days. I began making notes at the end of each session, surreptitiously. The idea was to surprise him with a book about his experiences at the Academy. At the end of the vacation, I discovered a huge cache of anecdotes and other experiences. I knew that it had to be shared by everyone, and so, I went to work. Prodding him to reveal the details was just one of the hurdles; putting them together was a major challenge.
The book is set in the 1970s, during the time my husband was training at the Academy. It was the time when Pune was called Poona, and Mumbai, Bombay. It was a time when Rajesh Khanna was the teenagers heart-throb and the Big B was nowhere in the reckoning; getting above seventy per cent marks was considered superlative, and there were no computers around. The concept of control, alt, delete had not hit mankind, nor had video games inhibited youthful minds. Jaya Bhaduri, foreign jeans, and discotheques, were the rage.
There were twelve squadrons in the NDA at that time. The boys came into the Academy straight after passing high school, and were very young. My husband joined at the age of fifteen and a half after tackling the entrance examination, which is as tough as the ones for engineering or medical schools. Ragging was backbreaking, and called for a lot of courage to face. Today, ragging has almost disappeared, except for a few stolen moments of good fun. In keeping with the times, there is a more liberal approach towards everything. Much seems to have changed in the Academy, and yet, nothing has actually changed. The ethos, training, and the attitude remain the same.
I am sure all the officers who have gone through the Academy will identify with the episodes, and the wannabe officers would find them inspirational. Life at the Academy retains the same moments of fun and pain, as starry-eyed, patriotic youngsters pass through it each year, their dreams intact, and their experiences priceless. Writing about the experiences at the Academy, was the best gift I could have given to my husband as well as his friends. Cheers to the NDA!

Index
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-one
Twenty-two
Epilogue

one
p
I t was 9.00 a.m. The morning was crisp and the atmosphere businesslike that July, on the platform of the Poona railway station. It had rained all night, and the station building appeared as though it had been washed clean, its exterior cleared of the accumulated cobwebs, soot and dust. Puddles of water had collected in a few places where leaks had sprung up in the roof.
Tea vendors jostled newspaper hawkers, toy sellers elbowed fruit vendors, and all around was a melee of human limbs. Snack-laden trolleys occupied centre stage, thronged by hung