THE GARUD STRIKES by Mukul Deva Read Free Book Online

would want us to lead,’ Colonel Surinder took over the conversation again. ‘Himmeth had tremendous confidence in the paltan . And rightly so, since this was the same battalion he had been commissioned in. Did you know that on 1 December 1971, the day we went into attack, he left us free to get things organized and actually went off to play a round of golf,’ Colonel Surinder gave a faraway smile. ‘Himmeth was a soldier’s soldier; tough as nails, but what a charismatic person. Ask Glucose and he will tell…’
    ‘Who is Glucose?’ I could not help interrupting.
    ‘I!’ Major Dewan, lounging in the far corner, raised a half finger.

     
    ‘If anyone knows Himmeth, he does. Glucose was the adjutant back then and with him during the operation, almost every minute right from start to finish,’ Colonel Surinder explained.
    I had spent a good hour with the gentlemen in question the previous evening, and was unable to correlate the person to the nickname. ‘Why on earth did they call you Glucose?’
    ‘Because he was such a Glaxo baby,’ Surinder did not wait for Glucose to reply.
    Everyone in the room roared with laughter. I threw a quick look around. I am sure they must have heard this story many times before, but they all seemed as engrossed in it as I was.
    ‘All of us had nicknames,’ Glucose clarified. ‘When I joined the unit, Som … Colonel Somanna, who had been the Commandant then, gave me two options, Glucose or Glaxo baby,’ another loud guffaw, ‘and so I obviously opted for Glucose.’
    His logic was far from obvious to me, and I was still unclear about the correlation, but fascinated nonetheless. ‘And you?’ I turned back to Surinder. ‘What was your nickname?’
    ‘I was nicknamed Granthi (Sikh religious teacher),’ Surinder replied with a naughty grin. ‘They called me that because I’m a Sikh, and did not cut my beard and I didn’t drink either. So one day, when we were playing football and I missed the ball, Pup Mann (General H.R.S. Mann) yelled at me, “Come on, you granthi ”, and the name just stuck,’ he finished, amid laughter.
    Looking at the sixty-plus man sitting before me, honestly, it was hard for me to imagine that he had once been young. I struggled momentarily to picture a young captain, improbably and illogically nicknamed Granthi.
    ‘Paunchy. That’s me,’ Major Chandrakant, tall even while sitting, swarthy, with black, horn-rimmed spectacles that would have been considered nerdy even in the dotcom era, flashed a cheeky smile. ‘I always had a paunch, even when I was a cadet.’
    ‘And Tuffy was my nickname,’ Major S.P. Marwah gave a broad smile. Looking at the slim, not so tall man seated before me, I had trouble figuring out why they’d given him that nickname.

     
    I was aware that Army nicknames, though fascinating, are seldom based on anything logical. ‘And Colonel Himmeth? What did you guys call him?’ I asked.
    ‘Himmeth?’ Granthi guffawed. ‘Himmeth was Himmeth. Nothing else.’
    ‘No, really, I mean it. Himmeth was just Himmeth. We either called him that, or Old Man, like in the other units.’
    I shrugged and gave him a please-go-ahead wave. He started to, but Glucose got in there first.
    ‘Colonel Surinder is right. Himmeth was a tough taskmaster. His fundas in life were very clear. A soldier had to know how to shoot straight and had to have the will to win. That’s all there was to it, as far as he was concerned.’ There was a very short pause. ‘In the same way, Himmeth also believed that every officer had to have three things to be a good regimental officer.’
    I could not keep down a quizzical eyebrow.
    ‘An officer had to be able to play bridge, play golf, and have a rucksack.’
    I understood the fetish about the games; these were common to many Army officers across the world, but the third one went past me. ‘Rucksack? What’s with the rucksack?’ I asked.
    ‘During the months that we were preparing for war, I remember