By An Ex NDA
Tom Foolery, The Fun Of Youth
One Sunday morning in 1968, in our 4th term in NDA, we reported to the swimming pool in PT Rig with a costume and towel, to jump off the 7 mtr board and swim a length to pass the minimum swimming ability test, failing of which usually led to relegation. Jumping off the 7 mtr board was a monkey trick which many of my course mates dreaded to do. At least the ones like me who were not born to be a fish or volunteered to join the Navy. The swimming tests were scheduled between 0600 to 0800 hrs, after which the pool was reserved for use by the officers and their families.
The tests were conducted by the venerable, formidable, Maj Darshan Singh (aka Dushman, alias Dush) who was the PTO. On that particular day Dush had a plaster cast on his right leg, an accident that took place from a misplaced kick at the backside of one of my die hard course mate Bhagawanpal two weeks earlier. Bhagawanpal was quick and agile and shielded his backside with a medicine ball and hence ‘Dush’ kicked the wrong ball. A dislocated ankle was not something that deterred the highly conscientious Dush from his work, basically to mentally, morally and physically cast our mind in RCC and Portland Cement. The tests commenced on time, one Squadron at a time, with Alpha Squadron leading.
Dush would blow the whistle and the cadets would troop up the ladder to the 7 mtr board, and form a line. On his next whistle, they would jump off the board one by one, like para troopers without their parachute, after shouting their name and number on top of their voice. That was the plan. But like all battle plans, there were glitches. Some cadets would not jump and it took lots of persuasion and threats to make them jump. Often Dush would laboriously climb up the ladder, and using his plastered foot, kick the cadets down from the 7 mtr diving board. It went on like this and it was almost eight O’clock by the time Echo Squadron’s turn came. Those of us from Fox were still sitting on the side of the pool in a squad waiting for our turn.
Very soon a crowd began to gather, officers, their wives, and several of them with their grown up daughters, all of them in their swimming trunks or gowns. There was also Sunita Bakshi, the very buxom daughter of an ex Cmdt. I think she was at that time staying with one of the officers to complete her school education from Poona. She was a very good looking girl, very dynamic and good natured, more or less our age.
In due course, everyone from Echo Squadron also jumped, after some form of persuasion or the other, and the kicks, all except Cdt AK from Echo Squadron. AK refused to jump.
When Dush climbed the stairs, AK would find a shortcut to come down usually by monkey crawling along the vertical supporting structure. When Dush came down, AK would climb back to the 7 mtr board like a monkey going up the pole.
‘Cadet, I will punish you’, Dush roared, blowing his whistle, long bursts, for emphasis.
‘Sir, Sir, please Sir, give me a chance, I will jump, …….I will jump on my own’, AK would say.
The drama would be repeated all over again. It was really very hilarious to see Dush and AK doing monkey tricks on the diving ladder. We could not stop giggling.
First the Divisional Officers stepped in and when that did not get AK to jump, the Squadron Commander took over. Nothing made AK jump, his antics became more and more hilarious, monkey like, crawling all over the place with Dush chasing him up and down. After a while, Dush managed to corner AK on the 7 mtr board.
‘Sir, I will jump, …….I promise I will jump, …….can you come up to the edge with me, just to give me confidence ?’ AK shouted and poor Dush took him on his word. When they reached the edge, AK pretended to stumble and gave Dush a push.
Dush fell from 7 mtr board like a sack of potatoes and some of the PT ‘Ustads’ had to jump in to fish him out. The Cmdt had arrived by then and was quietly watching the ‘tamasha’ from a corner.
‘Let me try and make him jump’, said Sunita Bakshi.
‘Can I come up there ?’, she called to AK with a very sweet smile.
‘Yes Mam, but don’t push me OK ?’ AK called down to her.
‘No No, I just want to talk to you’, she said to him loudly, as she climbed up the stairs.
For next ten minutes Sunita cooed and hushed, put her arms around and cajoled AK, right there on the 7 mtr board, right there in the public view. Fox Squadron died with jealousy.
Finally, inch by inch, Sunita managed to bring AK to the edge of the diving board. And when they reached there, AK put his hands on her backside and gave her a push. Sunita too fell from 7 mtr board like a sack of potatoes. Many of us wanted to jump in to save her, but the young bachelor officers beat us to it.
‘Call the Bugler’, the Cmdt roared. ‘I am going to relegate this bugger right here’.
Come down here’, he commanded AK.
AK came down, hesitating at each step and stood at ramrod attention in front of the Cmdt, unmoving, gaze on the horizon.
The Cmdt gave him a long bullshit, we couldn’t hear much of it.
‘Are you going to jump ?’, he asked loudly, once again.
‘Yeeeeeees Sssssssssssir’, AK answered in a loud parade ground voice.
He made a big show of going up the diving board, came down half way and went up all over again. He stood for a while contemplating on the 7 mtr board.
‘Sir …….can I jump from 10 mtr instead ?’, he called to the Cmdt.
‘Well done AK, that is it, show me that you can do it’, answered the Cmdt, equally loud with a broad satisfied grin.
AK slowly climbed to the 10 mtr board. He went to the middle of the board and stood at attention for almost two minutes, taking deep breaths. He was short, very muscular, perfectly built, with prominent biceps and pectoral muscles, 6 toffee abs. He was like Adonis, waiting for the inevitable. Sunita huddled on the side of the pool like a wet otter, looking at AK with doleful eyes. The Cmdt was probably hyper ventilating. We sat there holding back our giggle.
There was pin drop silence, all eyes turned upwards to look at AK.
Slowly AK took three steps and went to the very edge. He took another few deep breaths, shook his shoulders to relax, his eyes focussed on the distant horizon. Very slowly, in perfect slow motion, he did a hand stand at the edge of the 10 mtr board. He stood on his hands for another minute, perfectly still, head craned backwards, his toes pointing at the sky.
All of a sudden he pushed with his hands upward and forward like ejecting a Polaris missile from a submarine. For a second or two, he stretched his hands out, in an inverted crucifix position, body stiff and toes pointing straight at the sky. As the gravity took hold, he rolled himself into a ball clasping his knees with both hands, chin tucked into his chest, somersaulting backwards once, ………..twice, ……….three times. As he approached the water, his body uncoiled, hands above his head, ram rod, and entered water in a perfect dive, with hardly a splash. In terms of diving it was an inverted triple summersault, with a pike value of 4.9, a most difficult one, executed by AK like an Olympian diver.
There was loud and reverberating silence. I couldn’t hear anyone breathing. Every one held their breath waiting for AK to surface from the deep diving end. We waited, and waited, for almost two minutes. There was no sign of AK.
Suddenly there was a splash at the opposite end of the pool, the shallow end.
AK ejected himself out of water like a Dolphin.
There were shouts, ‘Cadet, come here’. The Cmdt shouting louder than the others. Everyone was laughing and cheering, Sunita Bakshi loudest.
But AK ran for his life in his swimming trunks, he ran past the Gym, behind the QM fort. He kept running as if the devil was after him. He went back to Echo Squadron in his swimming trunks and hid in the tea room behind the parapet for next two hours.
AK was marched up to the Cmdt next morning. I believe the Cmdt got up from his chair to shake AK’s hand. But AK was awarded 14 days restriction for ‘Shirking’. Do you have any idea what ‘Shirking’ means ? I don’t. I think it was just healthy tom foolery, the fun of youth. The swimming tests were cancelled that eventful Sunday and Foxies had to go again the following Sunday, with the lot from G to L Sqns. We were told, ‘Cadet, No Shirking, Relegate Hoga’. And Sunita was not there to watch, so there was no fun to take ‘Panga’.
Afterwards, AK was the runaway diving champ in NDA and there was none to beat him. He had been a diving champ even before he joined NDA, but had not told anyone about it. AK served in Sikh Regt with distinction. Many years later, he grew old like the rest of us, and hence retired. Col AK continues to be a very lively old man and enjoys orchestrating elaborate pranks on daily basis, especially if his wife is not watching !!
We were delightful rascals in NDA, full of tom foolery, the fun of youth
