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Ray · 05-18-2008, 12:23 PM

Have I posted this earlier?

Quote:

SAMNE DEKH (Eyes Front)

I had just joined the Army and had been posted to my battalion.

After a few months, the unit went out for its Annual Training Camp. It was my first touch of the “real army”. I was excited as any greenhorn would be.

We were exercising and training in an area called Shankargarh, near Allahabad. The area was desolate with scanty population, marginal cultivation but had orchards and village ponds. It was a quiet and quaint countryside, and for an urban person, it was heavenly quiet. Paradise!

We were all under canvas and there appeared to have been some flap regarding the field commodes and so the junior officers had to use the Deep Trench Latrines (DTL) with no flaps to cover!

Not a pleasant experience, but then who cared?

We were in the initial stages of setting Camp and so there was whole lot of hustle and bustle with no regular schedule.

The setting up of the Camp was left to the junior ranks while the seniors were busy checking up the exercises and training areas and ensuring that the training would be done under as realistic an environment as the surroundings permitted.

Life was fine and we were getting used to the regimen and it was but a few days more to go before the real thing started. Hence, one did not have to wake up before dawn to get cracking. So, instead of awaking with the sun and then going through the morning ablution, it could be done at a leisurely pace without any pressure of a formalised schedule.

One day, I was a bit late for the “morning routine”.

I sauntered to the DTL, and without worrying about the world, sat down to perform.

The breeze wafted gently and the birds chirped on the trees just above. It was heavenly. The only thing that worried me was that no bird dropping should fall on me. The birds had to show some decorum after all, since an officer was performing and it was not correct to perform together, no matter how high they were above me!

I could see in the distance that soldiers were going about their duty for the various chores assigned to set up the camp. They were in the far distance! It was nice, as a greenhorn, to observe the ways of the Army – all efficiency personified!

Then suddenly footsteps seem to approach in the distance.

Even before one could say “Jack Robinson”, a column of soldiers, with pick axes and shovels, emerged from the left from behind the bushes. They were marching across, ahead of where I was “performing”. I was stark naked to the world and as all could observe, the world was at peace! Lest one forgets, there were no flaps to the DTL to cover my “modesty”.

I was non plussed. I did not know what to do. I could not get up, nor could I cover my nakedness. And yet, as per the teaching, officers had to be ‘on parade’ all the time, especially if troops were anywhere in the vicinity.

It was a serious quandary!

I sat mesmerised. I braced up all the dignity that an officer can muster in total nakedness.

I hoped like hell that the column would pass without observing me.

But no, the column commander suddenly observed me.

Without batting an eyelid, he puffed up his chest in the best of NCO training smartly yelled, “Party, Dahine Dekh (eyes right!)” and executed the smartest of salutes!

The whole column executed “eye right” with total parade ground precision.

I sat frozen!

I squirmed but maintained the required officer like stoic.

I wished the earth would open up and swallow me whole.

But nothing of the sort happened.

True to military training and reflexes, I found that I had stood up!

All I could do was yelling, “Samne Dekh (eyes front)”.

My military training had got the better of me and maybe that saved the day.

I could not salute. I was bareheaded!

The moment passed.

The military preciseness may have been upheld, but not the Langar gup (cookhouse gossip). It was said that they had caught an officer pants down!