My Tryst with Destiny – Joining NDA

            Here is an honest confession – I was never the ‘Army type’ of guy. Perhaps this would be equally true even if converted to present tense. My close friends may give their honest opinions.

            But I had a tryst with destiny – that of joining NDA. Sometimes I wonder as how can a person of my lineage – born in one of the most retrograde villages of the most dehati of all districts of (as per Akhilesh yadav - Ubharta & Ummedon ka) but still a backward Pradesh. For those of you who don’t know, Kanpur Dehat is the only district in India with the suffix ‘Dehat’ added to it officially. Why in Bhartendu Harishchandra’s name could they not have thought of a more civilized term (say Gramin) beats me?

            Somehow, I had to keep my ‘tryst with destiny’ and despite an initial shock (of being declared medically unfit for 44 NDA Course by Command Hospital Pune in May 1970) I was found medically fit for 46 NDA Course a year later by Air Force Hospital, Bengaluru (sorry, it was Bangalore then). It is pertinent to note that I supposedly had ‘splenomegaly’ (whatever it means), did never suffer from any disease prior to the medical check up, had no symptoms whatsoever and never went to any doctor after the medical declaration let alone get it treated during the intervening year. Mysterious are the ways of our medical services – a friend of mine joined the Army after being found medically fit in all respects in 1975. In 2005, when he suffered from some bodily ailment and was undergoing all possible examinations in a military hospital, it was discovered that he had only one kidney. The doctors asked him as to where was his second kidney to which he rightly answered as to how the hell would he know if the doctors didn’t.  So, because they wanted me to keep my tryst with destiny, the Bangalore doctors found me medically fit in all respects.

            So on the appointed day in July 1971, with crew-cut hair, a conspicuous tilak in the centre of my forehead and a largish garland of makhana & chhuhara with a conspicuously large nariyal in the centre and a large entourage of my dehati folk who had come all the way to bid me farewell, I boarded the a third class compartment (there was no sleeper class in those days) of 44 Up, Lucknow-Jhansi Mail – which was the fastest train on the route and connected with the 5 Up Punjab Mail to Bombay at Jhansi with a two hour layover. It was not surprising that a group of four NDA cadets; (who, as I learnt later, were my immediate seniors in the Academy and were called to report early to pass certain tests that they did not clear in the previous term) guessed that a new NDA murga was on the train. So when I got down at Jhansi after a five hour journey, they gheraoed me and asked if I was going to join NDA. Since I was briefed extremely well by my good friend M K Tyagi, (who incidentally never made it to the NDA but joined IMA the same year as me) I smartly evaded the trap by replying that I was going to join the AFMC. Although the ‘wolf pack’ which was hounding me was sure that I was lying, they decided to let me go for the time being. So I had the second leg of my journey to Kalyan without any trouble and boarded a connecting train to Pune for the third leg. The ‘pack’ was closely monitoring me throughout without of course troubling me in any way.

            As per the joining instructions sent by the Academy, I was to disembark at Kirkee (now Khadki) railway station. So I disembarked there. Immediately I was confronted by the leader of the pack with the question, “You? Why have you got down here? You should go to Pune instead as you are joing the AFMC.” Now I was in ‘kaato to khoon nahin’ situation and gave the famous blank look which NDA cadets learn within a day of joining. So the first thing which I learnt while keeping my tryst with destiny was how to front roll on the ‘bajri wala’ platform of Khadki railway station in full public view which appeared to be immune from the proceedings. Words like – “you thought you can fool your pop?” and “we will teach you how to tell lies” were distantly audible throughout my learning session. After about fifteen minutes of this learning session, I was rescued by some ‘sahebs’ who were to muster the new cadets and herd them in the waiting transport, which in my particular case came out to be a three ton.

            So that is how I kept my tryst with destiny – riding a majestic three ton along with a few more freshers along with our bags and entered the Academy for more ‘learning sessions’ to follow on our arrival there.