Tanushree Podder is a brave woman. No I’ve never met her and neither do I say this because she decided to marry an Army officer. I say so after reading her book “Boots Belts Berets”. To write about a topic so bizarre while at the same time so emotional (for the people connected to it) must have required tremendous effort. In the prologue she writes that it was her jealousy towards her husband’s undulating affection for his “coursemates” that prompted her to get inquisitive in the first place and then to write about it. All those strange incidents that sounded weird to her (if at all they made any sense) seemed to be extremely close to her husband and his coursemate’s hearts.
The book takes us through the three years of trials and tribulations at the National Defence Academy. We get to experience the making of “men form boys” through the eyes of a group of four cadets with one of them narrating their daily rigours. The book is not a history of the NDA, nor any sort of guide to succeed in it - I wonder if any such a guide can ever be written - it is just a description of the life at the academy as Podder could reconstruct from the reminisces of her disband. But more on that later.
The book is set at the turn of the 60s (because that is when her husband was at the academy and hence she could only relate to experiences of that age) with our dreamy eyed protagonist Nikhil Dutta setting foot at “Poona” station unaware as to how big a step he has taken. The day he lands at the hallowed portals of the squadron he is in for a shock of his life. Things are just not as he assumed they would be. For starters there are werewolves all round calling themselves “seniors”. The peculiar thing of this species is that they never run out of jobs to assign to “juniors” and then have an even stronger penchant to dole out punishments en masse. Nikhil finds punishments with rosy names like “seventh heaven” are exactly the opposite of what they sound.
Just as our youngster is thinking of how he would survive in this place for three years, he stumbles upon the solution. To deal with the “seniors” there exists yet another species in the academy, named “coursemates”. They do not override the predators, but certainly help you in dealing with them much better and at times escaping also. Therefore start the long list of (mis)adventures by our quartet of Bertie, Randy, Machh and Pessi. Along the way these four learn a totally different way of lie. Away from the normal pleasures a young boy of their age deserves, they are instead put through the rigours of never ending runs, drills and worst of all, punishments. But in every event they discover a new person in themselves and in people around them.
As they go through the terms getting senior and turning themselves into the seniors whom they hated some months ago, they feel the outright change that has been brought into them in the course of their training. At home they are not looked upon in the same way they were before joining the academy. At the academy they are just not what they thought they would become. In all these differences what is common is their attraction to the opposite sex, penchant for eating and the ability to face the sternest tests which are thrown their way at amazing regularity. Podder has not shied from recounting even the more perverse and uncommon things that go in at NDA. Be it the surreptitious smoking, infatuations or rendezvous into uncharted territories, she has mentioned them all at some point in the book.
However along the way are several errors. Not any glaring blunders, but subtle mistakes that no one else could catch other than those who have been privileged to have undergone the three years at NDA (or a similar academy). She has certainly rushed through the book trying to cover every bit in about 250 pages, in the process not justifying some big milestones in a cadet’s life. There is no mention of the gruelling camp Rovers, neither of the Hexas or the Bakshi cup. Even the coup de grace for any cadet - his passing out has not deserved a chapter and instead been consigned to just a paragraph. For anyone having seen it all, this is a huge let down. Also the importance given to the fairer sex and wanderings of the quartet is way beyond normal. If any cadet were to behave as our protagonists do, he would need a miracle to stay put in the academy for more than a couple of terms. I do not fault her completely for it because as I have mentioned before, the book is just a collection of thoughts that she could gather form her husband’s reminisces. Or more pertinently, it is her understanding and interpretation of those reminisces. For someone who has not been there, done that, many incidents will sound absurd and some monumental achievements might seem a passing matter.
For example the case where she describes juniors duping their seniors/instructors is just not taking as casually as she brings it out to be. At the same time no cadet is afforded the luxury of spare time our quartet seems to have on their hands almost every evening. Then there are many things that she missed out on the daily schedule of the cadets. Was this because her husband did not mention them or because she wanted to limit her book, I do not know. However as I see it the book only gives a selective glimpse of academy life. It does not give a holistic picture of the academy life through which a layman can understand the workings and the culture of NDA.
Having said that, for NDA alumnus the book has several moments to make them feel nostalgic and for the eyes go moist. While for the normal person reading it, it might sound very gallant and equally juvenile in parts. It would be a roller coaster ride at the end of which the final image would be quite convoluted but generally impressive overall. On behalf of Podder I must say again that it is indeed a brave and honest effort. It is just that the subject she chose has so much hidden in it, that it would be impossible for anyone to gouge out all the details. Now only if she could have devoted some more pages to the book.
