Chiwda Times: Naushera - 8

😎THE DAILY OBSERVER😎 ( M-4 )

          

......continuing from M-3 dt  16 Jun.......

In addition to RPS Kang, my two other room-mates were Jagdish Kashiram Sawant from Mumbai and Neel Kamal Narain from Ranchi.Sawant had experience as a sailor in the Merchant Navy.Short,stocky and well-built, he spoke the typical Mumbai Hindi.He was excellent in drawing in addition to being a good singer. He was much in demand whenever there was a requirement for a sand-model or a scaled map on a groundsheet.He really enjoyed this work and gave his services freely, at times to the extent of falling behind schedule in his own work.He was ever cheerful.A good swimmer with a muscular physique, he was quite good in academics too and ended up as a Seargent by the second term, despite spending much of his own time helping others with their work.

Neel Kamal Narain from Ranchi, an ex-Georgian was the dark horse in the room.Very quiet, he moved around in the shadows, hardly exchanging a word. Whenever one of the other three of us found himself short of some item- ranging from a pull-through or cap to a ground-sheet or even a rain cape, at the very last minute, he would produce one from his cupboard.Till today, we do not know how he did that? Gradually, we came to know that this unassuming, quiet fellow was an ace runner, swimmer and a marksman. He was also good in academics and ended up as a CUO by the second term. But drill was his Waterloo and even the Ustads gave up trying to set him right in that aspect. Kang became a CSM and I became the PUO of N-8. None of us actually expected these appointments and when these were announced, we were so thrilled that we christened our room as - Demo Room. Almost forgot to mention the person behind our success,so important, Velu,our batman. Throughout our tenure in OTA, we always suspected that he was the one behind the mysterious and regular disappearance of Brasso and other small items from our room - in fact anything that could not be locked up.This great man took money from Kang three or four times for buying Railway tickets for Kang's mother and brother for their return after P.O.P. Each time he would give a different excuse till finally Kang managed to get the tickets himself at the last minute. Whenever questioned, Velu would take full advantage of the situation by using me as his interpreter and confusing the whole issue with a lot of emotional drama.

But on the whole he was a dedicated fellow who saw us through, despite his minor failings.

As PUO, I enjoyed the full confidence of our Platoon DS, Capt JS Gill whom the whole platoon respected, adored and adulated.Not once, even under the worst of circumstances, did Capt Gill ever raise his voice.The only time we saw him losing his cool was when our Platoon came last in the race-back in the first term despite having Narain and some others in the first enclosure. He simply stood in front of the Platoon in silence and visibly held back his tears. We were all so ashamed at this that we worked really hard and came second in the final race-back. We entered OTA proudly marching in step.

SK Sharma from Himachal was another Sargent in N-8, who later was shifted to Meiktila.One day, PK Sen, his room-mate failed to turn up for a parade. When questioned, PK Sen said he had asked SK Sharma the previous day about the programe but got no reply. After some questioning, it turned out that PK Sen had asked Sharma- " Kol ka programme kya hai ?" SK Sharma had truthfully replied - " Mujhe kya pata Kaul ka kya programme hai ? "

Sharma had misunderstood Sen's kol (tomorrow in Bong-accented Hindi) for Capt Subodh Kaul and replied truthfully that he had no idea whatsoever regarding Capt Kaul's schedule!

........  to be continued............