What a beautiful ambush...

In the later part of year 1964, a major war game was planned for the Indian Army deployed on North Eastern Front with an aim to test our capability to deal with any possible Chinese Invasion effectively. To train for the impending war game my battalion The Fifth Royal Maratha was brought down from the heights of ?Bomdilla? in Eastern Himalayas? to the plains of Assam in ?Sijosa? forest area.

In the later part of year 1964, a major war game was planned for the Indian Army deployed on North Eastern Front with an aim to test our capability to deal with any possible Chinese Invasion effectively. To train for the impending war game my battalion The Fifth Royal Maratha was brought down from the heights of ‘Bomdilla’ in Eastern Himalayas’ to the plains of Assam in ‘Sijosa’ forest area.

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That time I was a newly commissioned 2nd Lieutenant.

An infantry battalion has four fighting companies of approximately 150 strength each. Each of these four companies of my battalion were placed two to three kms apart from each other in the Sijosa forest area to organize their respective training. For making this training interesting, competitive and realistic, the companies were grouped in two’s with one company acting as mock enemy to the other. For my Charlie (C) Company the exercise enemy was Delta (D) Company.

We use to leave our camp very early in the morning for training and returned back to camp by late evening. On this particular day we had selected a shallow fresh water pond for laying an ambush for D coy which was to come down along a hill track passing a few yards in front of this pond. Every thing was hush hush; D coy had no inkling that we were laying an ambush for them. This pond was located near a village; it had clear fresh water and was surrounded by green foliage. It was an ideal site for laying an ambush.

With meticulous planning and preparation my company commander Maj. PK Chatterjee deployed the whole company on the ground in ambush. We had the Pond right in front of us so that the enemy could not rush us if our position got compromised. All of us had fully camouflaged ourselves with black shoe polish on our faces and green leaves on our helmets. The entire coy was deployed in the shallow trenches that we had dug for ourselves. For the fire effect we had dug in our weapons, especially light machine guns (LMG), in the ground. They were to fire live bullets into the ground.

Maj PK Chatterjee had placed himself near me. His orders were that the company will only open fire when he opens fire with the LMG which he himself was manning. Things were worked out to the last minute detail. Nothing could possibly go wrong now. Our wireless intercept had given us a warning that ‘D’ coy was already on the move towards us and may arrive in the pond area shortly.

Somebody has rightly said that it is the man who proposes and the god who disposes. Lo and behold, instead of ‘D’ Coy arriving at the pond we saw six young village maidens coming towards us.

That area of Assam is populated by ‘Miri’ Tribe who are short, fair and good looking people. Their girls look like Japanese dolls with Mongol features and Chinky eyes. These girls were carrying buckets and clothing in their hands!
We were totally taken aback. My company commander in his Bengali-laced Hindi whispered to me saying “Arri sala yah ladki log yahan kiya kar raha hai? Arun, inko roko” (what are these girls doing here? Arun please stop them.)

By this time those girls had already reached the pond and some of them were already in the process of removing their clothes. They had no clue whatsoever that 150 pairs of male eyes were eagerly watching every move. A real war would not have made this company more alert.

I had no intentions of breaking this party and becoming a kill joy. In any case things had gone to the point of no return. Some of the girls were already in their birthday suits and others were close to following. They were merrily jumping around in the pond throwing water at each other. In pursuance of my Company Commanders’ orders to shoo these girls off, had I appeared dressed in my full war gear with my sten machine carbine in hand, the girls would have surely fainted.

Some of them would definitely have run towards the village in their current state of nudity and then all hell would have broken loose. Villagers would have thought that we had purposely and with mala fide intentions scared those girls.

Following the dictum that chivalry is the best part of valour, we settled down to watch the ‘Raas Lila’ which was inadvertently unfolding in front of us.

When things go wrong, they go wrong all the way. The girls were still playing around when the leading scouts of D Company arrived on the scene.

The girls shrieked and ran into the water gesticulating the D company to go away. D company, realising that they are landing into the private domain of these girls, changed their route and bypassed the pond (our ambush area) giving it a wide berth.

Needless to say our ambush failed and D Coy went scotfree winning the war manuvre. The only solace we had was that the sight we saw that day was worth ten such failures. Our enemy D Coy could not fathom how come we were still in such good sprits despite the failure?

We did however console ourselves that if those girls could not make out for full one hour that they were surrounded by 150 able bodied men hiding at touching distance then surely D company also could not have also made out our presence there had the girls not being there. For all practical purposes our ambush had succeeded only difference being that it was a beautiful ambush and not a bloody one.