Thum khali ek do - Drill ki kahani

 Author : Salil Prashar

'Thum khali ek do'

Anyone who has gone in through the portals of any academy of any service is automatically transported back to those days on hearing this command.

Drill is a ritual which is blended by the academy into our fauji fibre..... The technique of blending is varied but follows the simple principle of "atomic restructuring using variable stress technology"..... Yani ki..... Boot. Boot sirf pehan ne ke liye hi nahi istemal hota, when planted properly it can be used to reorient your molecular structure. During drill if your boot is missing or its  'nail and naal' (nail here means nail and naal means more nails and not the punjabi wala naal) is missing you get a boot in the drill square from Drill Ustad.



Drill has one major side effect called 'Drill Ustad'. They are the most effectively selected candidates ever, each has his own idiosyncrasies and can be classified from psycho to alien (kyonki aise log earth mein nahi mill sakte). Their dedication to their job is something to be idolised.


They also had an alien vocabulary, for example

Cheff                         -  left

Fai                             -  right

Cheff, fai, Cheff     -  left, right, left

Yek                             -  ek

Doh                            -  do

Mudi                          -  mudh

Burd                          -  word

Burd o command  -  word of command

And so on and so forth, with flexible meaning according to the tone and tenor of usage.

Aisa hi november squadron ka ek drill ustad tha 'Awana'.... waise uske takkar ke bahut thay jaise Borgohoin (who used to call all cadets 'siriya ka badshah'.... Which we later came to know was actually 'chidiya ka bachcha' in assamese hindi), Rajan (also known as kala bhoot) and many more of their ilk.

Placing Awana in the classification of drill ustads was a difficult preposition as he swayed from 'Psycho' to 'Alien' every 10 minutes or so. Mujhe dekh kar toh woh straight alien mode maintain karta tha for as long as i was in his presence. I never came to know why, maybe it was my phenomenal drilling abilities which made him envy me..... I know my ninja brethren would be trying to hold back their crooked smile.

Life in November squadron was going on normally with our share of ustads doing their bit to shape us up. One fine morning when we reached the drill square we were told that Awana had been transferred to our squadron as senior drill ustad..... Life was never the same again.

His introduction speech was "cadet.. mere andar khoon nahi... aag daudti hai" and i was daring enough to remark "ustad, MI room mein check karwa lo"..... Shayad mere ko uski reputation ka andaza nahi tha and i guess that is where he developed his affection towards me. Drill which was as it is a pain became a torture after this remark.

Drill they say is the bedrock of discipline and in the same vein the drill square has to be the rocky bed were cadets are rocked till they are disciplined. If you visit the drill square of NDA during the day you will behold a deserted ground splattered with ceremonial attachments and on a hot day you can see the heat rising up from the asphalt surface and a few dust devils running amock. In the morning this same deserted ground becomes the centre of attraction of the academy and it resounds with shouts and stamps. Orderly files of cadets led by drill ustads are everywhere, warming up or practicing their drill moves.......
            Wait a minute...... There in the far distance, in one of the corners is a disorderly group carrying out activities normally not associated with a drill square...... This corner is the dreaded "Zero point", a place which evokes a very strong emotion in a normally emotionless cadet (The emotion is one of despair)

Zero point is the place where a cadet goes from hero to zero in nano seconds. Any cadet found wanting in dress, commitment, attitude or discipline anytime during the drill period was dispatched to the "zero point" which was under command of one of the drill ustads..... and the aim of zero point in Awana's words was " tumhara khoon paseena nikal kar usme Lava bhara jayega".

As I was his favourite, so i was given citizenship of zero point. Every day In the morning when we were being marched in from the QM Fort into the drill square the command given by Awana was 'November squadron samne se tej chal, aur cadet Prashar daud kar zero point report', reason uss se aaj tak 10 mulkon ki police bhi nahi nikal payee.
            Toh main daudta hua zero point pahunchta tha and sure enough according to my kismati wahan ka incharge hamesha academy ka koyee na koyee khunkhar ustad hi hota tha. Mujhe door se dekhte hi woh chilla padta ' yeh cadet rifle upar aur 100 flat foot jumping carry on', many more such Zero Point techniques were used to try and convert my  khoon to lava. Wahan drill ke alawa sab kuch hota tha. I still remember once when ustad Borgohoin was incharge and he said ki 'hum aaz bahus sotha excersize korega, bus riphle ko head ka upar utha kar rakho, jiska riphle neeche aaya woo mere sath yahan par breakfast karega' we kept our rifle up for 45 minutes. Normally after 30-45 minutes of this torturous routine we were sent back to join up with our squad, and I had to face Awana again. Aasman se gire khajur par atke.

One day after a couple of months of this routine Awana cornered me in the squadron and said 'cadet tumhara drill bahut kharab hai, tum mein josh nahi hai, kya problem hai' so i told him 'ustad aap roj zero point bhej dete ho, main seekhoonga kahan se'..... uss din meri zuban par kissi ruhani takat ka control tha warna main kabhi kulhadi par paon nahi marta... Awana became senti and took it upon himself to improve my drill.......... How i missed the zero point.....

We were even more blessed when ustad Phukan was also detailed to November squadron, he was just one row below Awana in the drill Ustad classification. One day when he was instructing raw first termers who had just joined the academy, one of them remarked "bus uncle ab aur nahi hota"..... Uncle did not know how to react...... Phukan the khunkaar was labelled 'ustad uncle' after that.

Even though the ustads were khunkar, extremely dedicated and very good in their job, they were very simple souls and showed extreme concern and passion towards their task.

While I am at their simplicity I must recount the day when Ustad Rajan (6 foot ka kala bhoot, as he called himself) was taking the fall in of cadets reporting for 'restriction punishment' (academies feel that making a cadet run and report at odd times will restrict his nefarious activities, not realising that it actually gave him a chance to escape the Ragda in the squadron). Well, Rajan took the fall in, and checked our presence. The duty officer of the day was an amicable Naval officer, he reached the site of the fall in site to take the report.

Seeing the duty officer, Rajan got us into savdhan, turned crisply, with a loud stamp of his boots and shouted out aloud "JAI HIND SHRIMAN'.... shriman was in a happy mood and wanting to impress the lesser mortals, us the cadets, with his cool demeanour replied

"Good evening Rajan, how are you, is every one there"

Now....... Pause...... another long pause........ silence...... Rajan, steeped in drill procedures was expecting "Jai Hind Sahab" as the reply, so he turned back towards us and asked the nearest cadet in a hushed tone

"saab ne kya bola"

the cadet told him, "saab ne bola hai ki cadets ko jaane do"

Rajan now confidant in his understanding shouted "Squad line todh"...... iss se pehle ki duty officer kuch realise karta hum ne record time mein break off kar liya and Rajan also marched off into the darkness, the poor duty officer was left standing alone.

Drill square ka malik hota hai Academy Adjutant with an asst Adjutant as co-malik, their job was to ensure that their property is utilised according to their whims and fancies. During my time the adjutant was an officer from the Rajput regt who had a barrel chest and thus he was christened छाता because of his big छाती...... His passion to drill us was guided by his passion for perfection .... His one sentence would send the drill Ustads scrambling to sort out the errant cadets. Once when the POP practice did not work out as per his liking he punched the ships mast installed in the drill square..... Mast toh iron ka tha, lekin hath nahi tha..... But the whole academy was watching and he had to keep a straight face, as straight as he could. His struggle with horse riding I leave for another day.

The Adju used to be there at the drill square daily overseeing the drill classes. One day he got the shock of his life when he saw one cadet marching boldly alone straight towards him in the drill square. He stopped the cadet and asked where he was going, the cadet gave a dumbfounded look..... frantically scanned all the cardinal directions and remarked "Squad kahan gaya?"..... Drill SM seeing the poor cadets exasperated look rushed to his rescue and told the adju "sahab drill mein chashma pehen na mana hai, issi liye cadet loose ho gaya"....... Actually the ustad had ordered left turn and this cadet turned right and kept marching without realising that he was doing "Ami Ekla Chalo re". before the adju could react his horse decided to turn and do "Ami Ekla Trot chalo re", poor adju got busy in controlling his horsey and our Rabindranath ka chela disappeared before he could be given the 'no-bull' prize

The impact of drilling was so much that that even in their dreams cadets walked in a squad with martial music playing in the background.

Drill mein jaise hi ustad bolta tha, "jaise thay", toh dil se aawaz nikalti thi ki "Ustad, kaise thay, hum toh bachpan se hi aise the"

Lekin unho ne humey "aise" rehne nahi diya

God bless Drill and its fraternity