Of Forks, Knives and the dessert Spoon. (My first day the National Defence Academy)

            Imagine a young adult, just out of school, leaving home, literally forever, having chosen a life in the armed forces, something neither he nor his parents had any clue about. Well that was me in July 1991, when I left to join the National Defence Academy. This was the first time I was going away from home and I was going away kind of forever. The entire train journey from Bangalore to Poona, I was immensely sad with the thought of leaving home and wondering if I did the right thing.

           

            So, very apprehensively I got off at Poona Railway Station with a Trunk, a bedroll and a suitcase wondering what lay ahead. I struggled in the twilight to find the lone and huge “Shaktimaan” truck waiting to transport the cadets to Khadakwasla (I was joining about a week late and hence the usual arrival formalities of reception at the Rly Stn had already been wound up). It was already late and dark by the time we reached NDA and the Truck driver after conferring with the authorities on the telephone literally dropped me and a dozen other fresh “lambs to the slaughter” in front of a huge stone building which had the alphabet “F” emblazoned on a red and yellow rectangle.

            Having been abandoned in front of this building, we were wondering what to do, when a stocky and authoritative person came out, dressed in a Khaki suit, wearing a cap like the NCC cadets did and barked some instructions at us, which many of my fellow travelers seemed to understand and instantly started complying. Anyways, with a bit of help from my new found course mates, we lifted our entire luggage and were given temporary shelter in “F Squadron” for the night. Just as soon as we set our luggage down on the top floor of the building, there was some commotion and we heard footfalls of all the cadets of the Sqn (Squadron) doubling (a kind of a trot- I was later to learn) and so we joined them as the entire Sqn assembled back in front of the Sqn building where we had been unceremoniously dumped about an hour earlier.

           

             It was easy to spot the “First termers”, since we were the only ones wearing “Muftis” (a dark trouser, white shirt and tie combination), everybody else wearing the Khaki “Walking Outs”. We all were huddled at the head of a long column of 3’s and doubled off, god knows where. Between huffing and puffing, I asked another 1^st termer, where we were going and he looked at me with panic and hissed “The Mess and don’t talk”.  And then we crossed a broad avenue and saw a majestic building, long and low, lit strategically to outline its shape, in front of us and this entire snake like column of about 150 cadets doubled up to its entrance. The entrance to this building was a large, grand set of steps leading to a porch supported by columns. As we doubled up the driveway to this building, I happened to glance to my right and I saw two aircraft parked ceremoniously at the entrance, one with wings folded (this was called the “Academy Namaste” I would learn later).

            

As we formed up column after column in front of the mess, it reminded me somewhat, of Roman soldiers forming up in movies like Ben Hur and the like. I was somewhere in the front in my Sqn’s column and there in front of us were (obviously) some senior cadets lounging on the steps, some seated, some standing and they kept calling us “freshers” in turns. I was summoned soon enough and questioned of my name, school, whereabouts and my regional affiliation. In those days, my Hindi was terrible and the moment I answered the questions in Public school accented English, stating that I was from Bangalore, there were hoots of laughter and some derisive remarks “Yeh loh Bhai ek aur Yank ka Chodhha…” (no clue what it meant then). When they finally lost interest and let go of me, I turned around to return to my Sqn and horror of horrors, they had vanished. There was NO ONE and the whole area in front of the mess was EMPTY.

            I had a major panic attack, and just blindly ran into the mess. At the entrance I was faced with a large area, full of wood paneling and ornate columns, with large chandeliers, full of big tables placed in a rectangular fashion, but nobody sitting at the tables, though there was some important looking chap hanging around. I looked to my left and right and in both directions till as far as I could see, were the heads of cadets, all standing at their tables behind their chairs. I had just met a few of my coursemates a couple of hours back and wasn’t even sure I could recognize any of them in this sea of faces. I had ABSOLUTELY NO CLUE where to go. As I helplessly and desperately looked left and right, the important looking cadet walked towards me menacingly and growled, “You, just Fuck off from here”. I reacted like someone had whipped me and took off like a jack rabbit to the left. I couldn’t spot a single soul who looked familiar and quickly gave up and started looking for an empty place at any of the tables.

           

               I finally found one at the end of the mess hall and quickly sidled up and stood behind a chair. The cadet adjacent to me looked at me in annoyance and asked “Who the fuck are you and what the fuck are you doing here??” (expletives seemed to be an integral part of communication in this place). With an air of desperation I pleaded with him to let me stay, explaining my predicament to which he reluctantly agreed. There was some commotion and some one seemed to make an announcement, similar to the call of a muezzin and shortly after, everybody sat down. The table was already laid with food, with a dinner plate and a smaller plate (a quarter plate, I was to learn later) to its side, which had two cylindrical cutlets. There was a fork on the left and a knife on the right, a glass of water on the left and a mug of milk on the right completed the ensemble. Along the table were placed plates stacked with bread and bowls filled with cabbagey kind of stuff as well as some liquid. I saw people helping themselves quickly to the food and so did I.

            I took 2 slices of bread and put it on my plate and helped myself to the cabbage and the liquid. The liquid was actually  a kind of stew of black eyed peas (lobia, I learnt later), rather runny to be honest. I looked all sides and I could see the cadets using their knives and forks with great precision and efficiency. They placed the bread on the plate, cut it into smaller pieces with the knife and fork, shoveled some lobia onto the fork and smoothly transferred it to their mouths. Now, though I had a public school education, I came squarely from a middle class Brahmin family, where we ate with our hands and the highest level of sophistication was using a spoon. This knife and fork was like Greek and Latin to me and had me flummoxed. I carefully watched the cadet across the table and I copied his actions to perfection but I just could not get the lobia to stay on the convex side of the fork, come what may.

             We were already about 10 minutes into the dinner and not even a morsel of food had entered my mouth, while food was being consumed at a fantastic rate by everybody around. In fact, people had finished and were beginning to get up. In desperation, I broke a slice of bread lengthwise and dipped it into the milk. As I did that the cadet next to me hissed “Bhen Chodh, What the fuck do you think you are doing??” I felt this was not exactly the right time to correct the senior, that I had no sister and instead pleaded that I could not use a fork and knife because I had never eaten like that before. I do not know whether it was my pleading or whether it reminded him of his first few days at the Academy. Whatever it was, he waved his knife at me imperiously and bade me to carry on. And that’s how my first meal at NDA and my first brush with the knife and fork was…..