Of Red Chutneys and Green Grounds

8/8/2019 Of Red Chutneys and Green Grounds

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The Sunday morning air was overly crisp and light

played in a way that the edges of the scenery looked toosharply defined as if drawn in ink. From my veranda thepicture outside looked like a fresh green carpet slowly and

imperceptibly merging with the woods. The woods at the

periphery of the playground had all hues and shades of

green and looked like the magical forests of the Harry Potter

books, as if any moment Potter may fly out of the canopy in a

broomstick or the huge Hagrid may walk lazily out of thewoods across the ground.

Like many writings about India and the Raj, it is not

surprising that we have been told by a Britisher about a

phenomenon we scarcely bothered to romanticize or even

investigate fully. And I generally find myself often lookinginto the most insignificant things around to write about.

Fantasy is not bad. Fittingly the new forest campus alwayslooked like the Narnia countryside with the FRI building

sitting confidently like a big castle sans the customaryprinces, princesses, goblins, fairies, elves, hobbits and

unicorns.

I had finished almost all the academic compulsions of the

forthcoming week including the elective, two presentations

and a handful of assignments. Sitting in the hostel verandah

with a free Sunday sprawled ahead, I wanted to write

something about our campus and two years of academy life,

for our Academy literary journal. Of all the clubs, the literaryclub is the most crucial because it finally gives something

which we can carry throughout our life – a magazine



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describing our finer moments of triumphs and failures. We

tend to forget the food, games, movies, dance parties,

competitions, festivals etc. but not the slim book in thebookshelf which our children will fall upon to mock us with

our old photographs.

Madanji, a hardworking and sincere member of our mess

staff, perennially ill dressed and shabby out of compulsion

and not habit, shouts at the top of his voice in the corridor

that he brings tea to quench the thirst of officer trainees,

who turned round lazily on their beds stung by the fangs of

his shout. Euro cup ran late into the night. As he approached,the stench dominated by garlic and masala grew wilder and

stronger. Perhaps an instruction to wear the uniform dressonly inside the hostel, a change room, a dhobi to wash their

dresses and a humanly mess off once in a fortnight would

have addressed this universal concern of saabs who hate the

“garlicy”masala odors early in the morning.

Eagerly sipping up the tea, primarily for the temperatureand not the taste and aroma, I gazed with pride at the

beautiful playground. The green of well fed grass which hassoaked up more water than it needed was electrifying. The

red pavilion building loomed over like an overzealous

security guard watching the ever growing grass withprecaution and amazement. The growth of grasses matches

up easily and at times surpasses the mowing rhythm of the

women from the mess quarters, who attend the same patch

of ground at least once in 3 days. Their men who work in the

mess often help them out in pushing the mower around and

surprisingly present such a superior picture of efficiency andspeed, seldom or never seen inside the mess. Their houses

next to the A Block resembled the crumbling walls of



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disturbia and offered a fleeting view of Naipaulean squatters

whose moldy damp bricks, stagnating pools of water and

overflowing septic tanks of mass excreta from saab logs hostel offer you a fond remainder of insanity and evergreen

divides. Mildew, moss and bacteria!

I stared again with a buzz of anxiety at the green playground,

to force back positivity and happiness into me through the

pastoral assuredness of the emerald landscape. A small

disturbance on the sky became evident as dark clouds slowly

marched towards an agitation. The morning clouds of

Dehradun don’t make way that easily for the sun during July.The clouds turned greyer and their other grey counterparts

added yet another blanket of darkness to the already dark morning. The rainfall leaves this stretch of land embossed

with an air of mystic during the monsoonal period every

year. The trees the campus ensured good air and favorable

temperatures prompting many fitness freaks to come inthrongs to the campus for jogging in the morning. This

incidentally promotes bird-watching of a base nature amongprobationers. The milder and the lesser aggressive ones

came in the evening for walking.

The drizzle slowly started. The barbets came to the

corridors, sat in a huddle and looked skywards. The pacepicked up soon and continued relentlessly accompanied by

the steady drumming of raindrops on the tin roofs of the

hostel.

Trevor road was deserted, reminding me of children going to

school on other weekdays. They are mostly covered, aparental precaution against the unpredictable behavior of

the rain gods. They swirl their colorful umbrellas which look



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like the halo of divine protection, their attention wholly

focused on not getting their notebooks wet. The next good

thing about the New forest campus after the good treepopulation is the presence of two or three schools inside,

which means lots of children. Seeing them fresh, innocent with oodles of passion and anticipation keeps jaded soulslike me going.

Street dogs from the road scrambled in anxiety and rushed

towards the new hostel for cover. Many dogs slipped and fell

down outside during the mad rush on the new shining

granite floors on the foreground of the hostel. They felt that it was God’s ploy to prevent them from reaching their Mecca.

Once they reached the blocks they felt safe due to the roughfloors which provided good grip during their playtime in the

corridors, professional security which meant no children

pelting stones on them and food at the right time since the

bin near the wash basin was usually filled with waste foodmaterial.

It was then time for me to break my fast in the regally

designed officers mess furnished with luxuriant velvet drapes and tight-fitted glass windows all around, resembling

a claustrophobic glass drop-box with no outlets, which

means air conditioning even during colder monsoons. Thedining table covered with white tablecloths with

parenchymatous designs and ripple marks of red, brown and

black colour which usually reflected the mess menu of the

last three days groaned under the weight of lip smacking

dosas, sambhar and red chutney. Red chutney made out of

tomatoes, onions, ginger-garlic paste and salt was theobsessive specialization of Tara Singhji who never likes to

be challenged by over-enthusiastic mess duty officers, who



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he feels come up with weird ideas to puncture his culinary

instincts. I devoured the dosas in their normal forms and as

their closer cousins- onion and egg dosas along with yummyred chutney; with scant regard to the battalions of dosa

lovers to follow, who would by then discover to their dismaythat red chutney became history in the first twenty minutesof breakfast. People like Arunprasad, MK Kumar,

Matheswaran, Vijayanathan and myself are usually held

responsible for this mass annihilation of red chutney, which

we proudly accepted like martyrs of the INA mutiny. Frankly

speaking, I feel that red chutney is the best thing to happen

to the academy after the green playgrounds.

After the morning showers died out, the glow of morningdescended on the hostel. Droplets on pot plants glittered in

the new found light, which sneaked its way from a veiled sun

smothered by the remnants of the clouds. There can be no

flooding in our green grounds after a downpour due to theexceptional natural drainage system without the help of

slumberous ground officials, which makes it the best playground in all training academies visited so far.

Immense gastronomic satisfaction often sends people

shooting into cloud nine and I wandered aimlessly in the

corridors meeting similar happy souls like Jitendra andDeva. Jitendra joined the academy as a blue eyed boy keen to

learn and study with oodles of energy and passion towards

anything academic in nature. Oh boy! He has transformed

slowly into a cool dude with an attitude matched by rap star

Eminem alone. Deva, the king of circumstantial one – liners,

would be remembered more for the Subhiksha range of materials from extension boxes to fish pickles carried by him

during outings. On reaching any new place, he would be the



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first person to scan the entire economy, culture and ecology

of the town inquisitively, to come up with a dependable

compendium of shops, hotels, dhabas, theatres, bus stopsand other relevant commercial establishments in the area.

He is a pioneer in his own right.

We stood in the corridor leaning against the railing near the

‘fountain - like thing’ which springs to life occasionally like a

wild mountain torrent, sprinkling water on everybody

possible walking on the corridor accompanied with seedy

colored lights and mossy smell, during official dinners. In

normal times the fountain - like thing caters to the waterneeds the hostel dogs after their share of food from our

mess. We stood there, attracting a few more souls and slowlythe crowd swelled. We made mockery of theorems of

revolving earths, solar systems in constant orbit and most

importantly sweet – nothings about our Academy. Prashant

is the crowd’s favorite because he reached everyone not onlywith his decibel levels but also with an unmatched sense of

humour helped by good timing and a sharp memory. Manishcame a close second in the same genre with the aid of his

additional mimicry skills.

Hours flew past, as we then defeated by our aching calf

muscles shifted venue to the nearby lounge. Efforts of Smitha and Vaibhav to redecorate the lounge, which two

years back looked more like an old furniture rental shop,

bore fruits and we soaked ourselves in the delights of a

plush lounge watching TV and reading tabloids. Sometime

later during last year thankfully, corny efforts to rename the

lounge into some memorial lounge were also fended off successfully.



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Back at the mess for lunch, we sat in hordes waiting for the

chicken curry to descend on the tables. The four musketeers

from Karnataka sat opposite as the gang leader Mallinarrated some events to them in chaste kannada while

others listened courteously and attentively and went about their work of collecting salad from the plate. Deepak is onebundle of energy interested in the 3 T’s of tea, timber and

tennis and believes in fun and frolic more than anybody else

in our batch. He gels well with others like Kenei and Irfan.

Speaking of Kenei, he is exceptionally talented and can any

day win my award for the best all-rounder among the thirty

odd officers – he plays all sports and games with exceptionalfinesse, plays the guitar effortlessly, sings melodiously, gets

along with everyone and is good in academics also. Back tothe four musketeers, both Malli and Bhaskar are striking

personalities that attracts the people around them. Bhaskar

almost did an unbelievable rehabilitation act ala Adam

Sandler in Anger Management, transforming from a hot headed aggressive guy to a composed monk in no time. Raju

was a super hero in the first year excelling in all theactivities which demanded traces of originality and

creativity, but somehow became an absent minded professorin the next one. At the table, other people slowly joined in as

I lazily minced the chicken with my molars. Moments

passed. Two years had gone away unnoticed like theseinnocent moments.

The next duty officer Ganesh looked relaxed in his jeans and

T shirt and wrote something official about the classes on the

message board. I struck a conversation and we walked out of

the mess. A modern day e-pirate, Ganesh specialized inhacking, non-stop downloading and computer wizardry. He

stocked more movies and programs than the Adobe library.



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At the same time, he was a strict disciplinarian and deserved

the President’s Police medal for distinguished service,

courage, leadership and integrity exhibited during our stayat the National Police Academy. We headed towards our

respective rooms for the next obvious activity. Walking back to my room I heard snoring –almost lazy, deeply sonorousrumbles like prostrate, dormant like volcanoes too tired to

erupt from the other rooms. I could not wait and ran all the

way to my room.

A couple of dreams and a cup of tea later I was back in the

corridor. As evening approached there was an aura of expectation and a soporific stillness enveloped the hostel.

The winds assumed a purpose and the clouds darted aroundwith the thrill of having reached their destination. There was

a hush in the green grounds and a sepulchral silence

descended. Thousands of bats flew across the darkening sky

towards the Harry Potter woods at the other end of thegrounds, perhaps to the castle inside. Red salvias in front of

my room swayed sleepily. Tiny specks of light fought a losingbattle through the dark clouds and then stopped flickering.

And the rains began again.

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Of Red Chutneys and Green Grounds