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Spice of Life | Lifelong bond with the men behind the scenes
From dawn to dusk, they cheerfully lend full administrative support to 30-odd cadets assigned to them. Their deft handling and management of mundane jobs leave the cadets mentally free to give their best in training
It’s true that behind every successful man there’s a woman. However, in the army, there is a team that largely goes unnoticed but deserves credit. It provides selfless support from the word ‘go’ when the officer commences training. The strong bond with these men of humble origin gets germinated right from the first day of training whether at the National Defence Academy or the Indian Military Academy. In academy parlance, they are known as orderlies who assist cadets with their daily administrative requirements. Primarily, they are locals contractually hired who dedicate their lives to the cadets, most of them for their entire lifetime.
From dawn to dusk, they cheerfully lend full administrative support to 30-odd cadets assigned to them. Their deft handling and management of daily mundane jobs leave the cadets mentally free to give their best in training. The credit for the cadets adorning smart uniforms with well-polished brass and shining shoes, their spic and span cabins entirely goes to them. No wonder, during three years of training at NDA, all cadets develop a bond with their orderlies which in some cases, last a lifetime. During my entire service, I have remained in touch with my orderly who had just joined at that time, at a young age of 20 years. It is so nostalgic to meet these humble people once again as many memories are associated with them.
During my summer breaks, I always drop by at my alma mater, Punjab Public School, Nabha, to interact with the old stewards. When we were away from our cosy homes, they were the ones who looked after us. It’s a common sight on the day of the passing out parade of any military training academy to see cadets hugging these kind souls who always stood by them in thick and thin. During our tough navigational exercises in camps, they handled the administration of the camp that enabled us to focus on the training. In lighter vein, on many an occasion, these men, on the sly, whispered the exact location of the checkpoint during our tough map reading exercises when we kept going round in circles finding none.
On commissioning, every officer is supported by a soldier buddy who doubles up as the radio operator during war or counter-insurgency operations. I recount during my tenure as a deputy inspector general in an Assam Rifles sector, how my buddy had saved my life in an ambush. On another occasion, while I was patrolling along the Indo-Myanmar border to physically verify border pillars, we had walked into a trap where the militants had laid an improvised explosive device (IED). My buddy not only alerted me before I could have stepped onto it but also defused it in a jiffy.
There was another tough day when two of my company commanders had caught hold of suspects in the town of Churachandpur in Manipur. The civilians got whiff of this and surrounded the vehicles of our young company commanders. I, along with the commanding officer, rushed to the scene of action where the crowds led by women would have gone on a rampage had my buddy not saved the situation. Being a Manipuri himself, my buddy tactfully spoke to the ring leaders and calmed them down. He indeed saved the day for us.
We remain indebted to these buddies who remain the backbone behind an officer’s operational efficiency. advityanidhi14@gmail.com
The writer is a Patiala-based freelance contributor
