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DAY ONE AND THE FIRST SIX WEEKS
103
SEVEN
Waiting
in queue to be
initiated into the army’s
infamous culinary tradition.
if everything was all right. The tenderness would not last and soon the true standard of
cooking, which was supplied by army cooks for a fairly long time, became evident. The food
would be made palatable only by the sauce of ravenous hunger due to training and there
would be plenty of that.
After lunch, all the enlistees were herded on to the parade square and back to the company
lines. Platoon instructors then came to the respective barracks and told each platoon to
proceed, section by section to the main quartermaster store area. Here, they were required
to participate in two time-honoured traditions of military recruits the world over: get their
military haircuts and collect their uniform items from the clothing store.
Four phlegmatic Indian barbers, one or two wearing the traditional dhoti in lieu of pants,
were waiting for them at the barbershop. Some of the trainees, with limited situational
awareness, trustingly specified the kind of haircut they wanted, which the barbers duly
acknowledged. Except that it took about one minute flat to complete one haircut. As each
trainee came out of the shop, those who were queuing up watched in stunned disbelief at
the final product: there was an apron of stubble from ear to ear around the back of the head
almost up to the crown and a short tuft of hair at the top. Meanwhile an ever-increasing pile
of black locks, lately part of many a well-coiffured head, was accumulating on the floor of
the barber shop. It was the first of many reality checks for the trainees. They could hardly
recognise what stared out at them in the mirror. The only thing that could be said in favour
of the experience was that it was a free haircut. But the Sikhs got away with it, as they also
would with the steel helmet or helmet liner.
The enlistees did not fare much better at the clothing store, where they were kitted out with
uniforms, combat boots, jungle boots, canvas shoes, Physical Training (PT) shorts, green T-shirts,
jockey caps and muslin drawers. Everyone had to settle for what the Regimental Quartermaster