How NDA converted me to a new faith

There are ‘institutes’ and there are ‘institutions’. There are ‘corridors’ and there are ‘pathways to glory’. There are ‘batches’ and there are ‘courses’. There are ‘alma maters’ and there is ‘THE NDA’. I made a journey of converting my beliefs last weekend. This ‘journey’ actually requires a more powerful, weightier, impactful description – it was a peregrination. 

For the longest time I had been the most acerbic critic of whatever I found mindless in the Forces and wondered what was it that makes my husband so deeply passionate and motivated about what he does in the army. What is it that holds his belief intact that THIS is what he is meant to do and there is no better place than THIS for him to live his life, live his dream? Why is his profession his raison d’etre, his sense of identity and pride?

The journey to NDA (my husband’s course’s silver jubilee of having passed out of the Academy) answered these questions and even as an outsider I realized the umbilical cord that still binds the individual to a place where he came to as a boy and left as a man.

BAND OF BROTHERS

At the 2-day event, even as we drank and danced and laughed, what stood out in gleaming prominence was the bond among the band of brothers. Stories flowed, nostalgia hung over like the smell of wet earth after the showers, excitement among 45-year olds seemed to belong to 17-year olds and wives and children hung on with wonder and fascination at the extravaganza of emotions that kept going in a loop over and over. 

The Cycle up position

THE FURNACE There was the bicycle and the NDA furnace – a manhole surface blazing in summer heat, on which the cadet would be asked to put his hands as a punishment. How being punished for finishing food late was acceptable over eating less in a limited period of time and how ‘sugarcane stealing’ and hiding 3 kg of jalebis and 8 milk

packets within the dungarees was easy until the ‘ustad’ caught you and asked you to get rolling. And then the benign ustad who would let you go, once you told him why you wouldn’t get rolling because of the jalebis and milk. How appetites were that of famished leopards and how the lowly 2^nd and 3^rd termers got even by sucking the gulaab jaamuns (on their way from the kitchen to the Mess) and putting them back for those in the higher pecking order.  And gulaab jamuns, by the way, were only for the higher species – the 5^th n 6^th termers. 

THE ROLL UP STAIRS

SMOKING JONES

                                                      

There was the tearoom and the smoking hideout, and the iconic wooden stairs which were never climbed up but 'rolled up'. And the hierarchy was clearly marked even in the 'pissing' department. The urinal in the

THE CENTRE PRIVILEGE

centre was only for the GODS - the 6th termers of course. As backslapping and embraces and loud shouts were exchanged, it was evident that there is bonding and there is friendship and there is camaraderie. But like I said earlier, just like there are institutes and there are institutions, there are ‘friends’ and there are ‘coursemates’. What gives these guys a higher pedestal is what they have been willing to do for the other guy who runs, sweats, does ‘ragdha’ and bears the torturous sadism of what the intrinsic character of training is all about. The training is about subjecting iron to flames to get steel. And so when 2 guys are seen from a distance breaking some rule, but only one is recognized and called for punishment, he refuses to give away the other’s name even if that means that he will have to go for 2 Singhadhs (this is a run up a steep climb to the Singadh fort in full rig weighing 22 kg. You start at 6 am and a drill ustaad is waiting on the top with a token which is evidence of your having 'peaked' and then you come down by 12.30pm). Now that is when I put ‘coursemate’ notches above ‘friend’. And I bow in all humility to what the coursemate spirit actually means, and what it manifests itself as, even years after having left your training ground.

Even though honour, pride, patriotism and glory remain intangibles, I felt them as real sensations as I heard my husband and his squadron types recall their NDA Prayer. If simply, on hearing it once, as an audience I felt this level of pride flow through me, I can only imagine that the sentiment runs as blood in the veins of the guys who repeat it day after day for 3 years as their minds and bodies undergo a series of physical and mental extremities which is like an inoculation for any kind of onslaught they may face in their future. And so when a man with his comrades shouts his lungs saying the following prayer, my belief is, that this becomes his belief for life.

O God, help us to keep ourselves physically strong,

mentally awake and morally straight,

that in doing our duty to Thee and our country

we may keep the honour of the Services untarnished.

     Strengthen us to guard our country

from external aggression and internal disorders.

Awaken our admiration for honest dealing

and clean thinking, and guide us to choose

the harder right instead of the easier wrong.

     Kindle our hearts with fellowship

 for our comrades at arms

and with loyalty to the men we command.

 Endow us with the courage

which is born of the love of

what is noble and which knows no compromise

or retreat when truth and right are in peril.

     Grant us new opportunities of service to Thee,

to our country and to the men we lead, and ever help us to place such service before self.

ONE OF THE POSITIONS TO SAY THE PRAYER

80^th course NDA Sliver Jubilee was indeed a moment of celebration, exultation and exaltation for each of us who experienced the spirit of what the Academy envisages and how it burnishes each raw, rugged individual to step out as a flag bearer of the country’s pride and honour. And like mentioned at the start of this write-up, for me, beyond the moment of jubilation, it was a moment of epiphany. When I told my husband that I was moved to the core as I heard the NDA prayer, and he asked me how, I replied, “It made me wish I were a man (and I am a feminist by the way) and I had gone to NDA too, to feel every ounce of the camaraderie, patriotism and honour that you guys are feeling right now.” But alas not all of us are men and not every man goes to NDA to become the MAN that only NDA can churn out. Cheers to you 80^th course and a bow to you, National Defence Academy.