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Marching Orders:
My Adventures in the NCC
Part One

by T. SHER SINGH

It wasn't until I had enrolled in my first year of university that I found out that each student had to do a mandatory year in the N.C.C. - the National Cadet Corps. One year of compulsory military training. It was meant to help India keep itself secure.

No, it wasn't designed on the Israeli model, or the Singaporean one ... India had come up with its own scheme - which would allow the semblance of an idea, which in turn would justify oodles of money to be poured into it ... so that a handful could become obscenely rich. A pattern still employed in the country today for all of its ‘initiatives‘. And the NCC continues to flourish!

I was informed - I am talking of 1965 - that each student was to report on the evening of the first Monday, and every Monday thereafter, at any one the three units: Army, Navy or Air Force. In uniform. For a two hour drill.

There was to be a boot camp later in the year.

A student could sit for his/her final exam only if he/she could produce a note certifying proper attendance with the NCC through the preceding year.

I chose the Army unit. It was located on the school grounds, while the other two were considerable distances away. And all that an enrolment in the Army unit involved, I was told, was parade and drill.

The initial shock was quickly overtaken by our disgust of the uniform each one was handed as part of our "kit". Coarse, shapeless, uncouth. The trouser legs were flappy. The shirt billowed. The belt was crude - the buckle was just NOT cool. And the boots? Clogs would have been better.

Well, I made a bee-line for the tailor. Further bad news: the fabric was regulation standard and it simply could not be changed. So, we decided to do the next best thing: the legs were slimmed to a respectable gauge; the shirt was tapered. Seams were loosened here, and taken in there ...

Nevertheless, come Monday, we prayed that all the females in our classes would be long gone for the day from the grounds at muster. [The female NCC units were mercifully on another campus.]

After a full first-day in class - I'd just been introduced to 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci‘; to W.B. Yeats and Gerard Manley Hopkins; and Henry James; Eugene Ionesco - the first NCC drill was going to be impossible!

We marched and swung around and marched all over the grounds mindlessly.

Worse: it was difficult for me to understand the commands - they were in Hindi! I spoke the language, but not very fluently. Certainly, not enough to understand the drill terms. I knew, for example, what the Hindi for ‘left' and ‘right' were, but had yet to learn to distinguish between them.

A few kicks on the shins that evening from my annoyed co-cadets, and I figured that one out very quickly!

Midway through the evening, the parade officer - a real Indian Army Sergeant - asked me - "Cadet Singh!" - to ‘fall out‘. Once I figured out that it was me he wanted, I struggled with the command. What was I supposed to do? A conspiracy of whispers told me. I stepped out and stood before him, as stiffened as I could, quiet sure it was my uniform he was after, and braced myself for the worst. I was miserable anyway, I thought - I didn't care any more.

"Keep them going. I'll be back in five!" he gruffly told me. And he swung around and stomped off the field for a break.

So, what do I do?

I asked my fellow-sufferers. They laughed. I giggled. I didn't know how to mouth a single command. We stood around, until the Sergeant re-appeared at the edge of the field a few minutes later. To impress him, I quickly barked out, one by one, the few Hindi terms I had just picked up from my charges while he had been away.

"Attention!" "At Ease!" "Attention!" "At Ease!" again and again - all in my hesitant Hindi, of course. On and on. The Sergeant was soon within earshot. I threw in an "Eyes Right!" - it was the only other command I could remember.

Good, said the Sergeant. The platoon snickered. I winked back.

"OK, Corporal. Just follow me and see what I do."

Corporal?

I sheepishly shadowed him around the field, praying for the evening to end so I could get back to the new world I had discovered that very morning ... a world of words in English that collided with each other and exploded with meaning and passion!

When the platoon was finally dismissed for the evening, I was ordered to stay behind.

"You've been promoted. Corporal. You're going to help me with the parades!"

I stared at the Sergeant dumbfounded, while a couple of other soldiers hung around, nodding their heads. I was puzzled ... and terrified. He read me.

"You march like a soldier," he said. "And you're a Sardar. Sikhs make good soldiers. You'll do well in the army."

I remembered to my horror that I was the only Sikh in my class ... and the platoon!

I protested. He insisted, and wouldn't hear another word. "No need for modesty ... you're a soldier!"

I went home and headed straight for the bathroom. Locked the door behind me and stood before the mirror. A soldier? Looked stern. Then fierce. Flexed my biceps a bit. Breathed in and stood at attention. Hm-mm-mm. I couldn't spot the soldier.

Mighty perceptive of the Sergeant to notice my hidden talent, I said to myself. Especially since it was so well hidden. Well, it must take a soldier to recognize another!

Next Monday, it wasn't too bad. It was easier barking orders than marching around moronically. I had been practising the commands and picking up the Hindi terms. I was getting to know some of the fellas in the platoon and it all seemed a big joke. We giggled and winked liberally, but always behind the officers' backs.
          
As the weeks went by, the privileges became apparent. I could send them all on a jaunt around the perimeter of the soccer field and I could stand back and rest against a tree, waiting for them to come back huffing and puffing.

And, when the rifles arrived - heavy, ugly, clumsy, First World War ones - I was the only one who didn't have to lug one around.

A few more weeks and they promoted me again. A cadet sergeant. Sikhs make good officers, said the Sergeant one evening, as he and his colleagues got into their army truck.

I was confused. I stared at him, speechless. All he can see is that I am a Sikh. Does he know I'm only 16? No, he doesn't. My nascent whiskers had him fooled.

There followed more sessions before the mirror. I desperately searched for a clue.

I began to polish the unit crest, the brass buckle and boots more fervently.

Next Monday, I, Cadet Sergeant Singh, took the platoon through the exercises as usual.

At one point, we stopped for a breather. When I brought them back to "attention" and was about to take them out for one final lap, I noticed that a chap in the second row, three places from the right, had a smirk on his face.

Two minutes later, I glanced at him again. The smirk was still there. A few minutes later, we caught each other's eyes for a moment. He looked me straight in the eye, and smirked back.

I warned him. Wipe that smirk off your face ... or else.

He didn't.

I waited a bit, and then caught his eye again. The smirk was definitely still there.

Good, I muttered.

"Fall Out!" He stepped away from the platoon, still looking defiant. "Hold the rifle above your head. Straight up. All the wa-ay! One round of the field. On the double!"

I kept an eagle eye on him when he came around the corner and rejoined the platoon.

I looked back at him a few minutes later. The smirk was still there. There was no doubt whatsoever.

"Fall Out! Two rounds, this time. On the double. Rifle in the air!"

That would teach him. That would show them all who was boss. If wasn't fun for them, it wasn't fun for me either. There was to be no smirking. Period. We all stood and watched him huff and puff away in the distance.

"Sir?" I ignored the voice from the ranks.

"SIR?" I pretended I hadn't heard.

"SIR!"  I swung around.

"But sir. He isn't smirking. It's his face. He's always like that. He's had it since birth."  

This was obviously a conspiracy. First the smirk. Then, nobody told me it was a birth twitch. And now this new fellow was trying to embarrass me before the entire platoon.

I ordered him to fall out. I was about to send him around the field ...

I felt beads of sweat. It isn't my fault, is it? Surely, he should have spoken out earlier. Both of them.

I quickly dismissed everybody. Walked away, separately from the others. Thoughts ajumble, atumble.

Prayed nobody else had heard what I had just been told.

Wished I was miles away.

I sought out the cadet with the ‘smirk' after classes the next day. We went over to the cafeteria and sat over cups of chai, quiet for a long time. I tried to say 'sorry' several times. Each time he waved me silent, and smiled back at me, through his ‘smirk'. He knew I was miserable, and hugged me as we left that day.

We became and stayed friends.

The following Monday, though, I went straight to my Army Sergeant and told him I couldn't do the job anymore. I wanted to revert to cadet.

It's as if he didn't even hear me. "Congratulations, young man. You've been promoted to Junior Under-Officer!" It was the highest rank a student could hold in the NCC.

I said ‘No, I can‘t. I just can't ...!"

He picked up his briefcase and walked away, leaving me alone on the field ... with my platoon.

Continuing tomorrow ... NCC Boot Camp.    
November 18, 2010 

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