BLOG 10 - "Marine Musings 3" - PROLOGUE AND FIRST FEW MONTHS IN THE HOSTEL

Blog 10

Chapter 4

LIFE IN THE HOSTEL AND CLASS ROOMS:

FIRST YEAR

Life as a first year was miserable for the first two months due to incessant ragging, but slowly improved as the ragging became less and less. There were times in the first few weeks when I felt I could not take any more and wanted to run back home. A bit of sense prevailed as

1. The obstinacy in me in not wanting to give up, instilling in me the courage to withstand more

2. If I go back home as a failure, I will continue to run scared at various moments in life

3. The economic impact on the family and

4. How my elder brother withstood his strenuous training period when he joined the Indian Military Academy and how it inspired me. Ragging will go on for a short period – let me take it as sportingly as I can.

After the first fortnight, when I came to this state of mind, situations were handled better by me and not always in a panic mode. As long as a senior was not disobeyed or crossed, ragging took on a funnier aspect. Most of the seniors were decent guys and most of the ragging had some humour in it, so all would enjoy it, even if I was the butt of it. Seniors like Amit Ray, RN Chadha, Mukerjea made life tolerable by combining humour with discipline.

But there were two sadistic seniors in my Sadan - who I shall not name - who tried to make life as miserable as they could for me. In retrospect, I would say that their upbringing affected them and they were lashing out at the world, as they found themselves trying to catch up to their peers. I was an easy target, being small made, seemingly intelligent and articulate in English.

First year cadets - in the first month or so - were subjected to quite a few physical “exercises” - push ups, sit ups, so many laps around the ‘quadrangle’, “imaginary chairs” and many more. Making seniors’ beds, arranging their wardrobes, cleaning dormitories, corridors, kit rooms and doing some personal work for the seniors was the norm for the first few weeks. This gradually lessened within a month and practically disappeared within three months or so, unless the first year cadet ‘crosses’ a senior - after which a whole horde of his batch mates would descend upon you like wolves surrounding an unarmed man who is lost in a blizzard.

The hostel was divided into Senior and Junior Hostels, Fourth year students occupying the Senior Hostel, Third, Second and First Year students occupying the Junior Hostel. Each hostel had ten wings, called Sadans, each Sadan named after a famous scientist – Raman, Froude, Bose, Rankine, Marconi, Edison, Newton, Faraday, Parson, Diesel – and I was in Raman Sadan. 6 First years, 6 Second Years and 6 Third Years were part of each Sadan of the Junior Hostel, (18 x 10 Sadans) making 180 cadets in total in the Junior Hostel.

The Senior hostel, likewise, had the same ten Sadans, each with 10 Final Year students, making a total of 100 students. 40 would have come from the Bombay branch for the Final year, joining the 60 from Calcutta.

Each Sadan had a Senior Cadet Captain – who was a Fourth year – and a Junior Cadet Captain – who was a Third Year. They were responsible for discipline, maintenance of clean premises and a lot more.

A month passed and the ragging by the two Second year students became more and more physical. I, not being from their region or state, bore the brunt of this relentless ragging, whereas my 5 other batchmates got away, being from the same region as the two raggers or able to speak the local language. They were, probably, trying to make me quit, so that wait listed boys from their region could get admitted. I tenaciously clung on, as I had decided that whatever may befall me, I will not run away. I was a ‘Madrasi’ to them, which they thought was derogatory and abusive, but I was a ‘Madrasi’ because I was from the southern parts of India and had no shame to bear because of it.. They made fun of my lineage, language and learning - not in a ‘fun’ way but in a very abusive way, much more rabid than what the Indian Cricket team is used to from the Australians, with very demeaning and derogatory remarks about my family. Mind you, all this would happen when other seniors were not present.

In hindsight, I now realise I was doing many more pushups or situps and running around the quadrangle for longer periods than others of my ilk but, at that time, it did not bother me.

One form of ragging that many a First Year underwent was to report to a particular senior early in the morning, before reveille, in a different set of the various uniforms provided to us, with a five minute interval for every change. This was for either one week, 2 weeks or a whole month, depending on the pleasure of the senior concerned. Then one of my smarter batch mates came up with the idea of putting on 4 or 5 layers of clothing, necessitating only peeling off the top layer and reporting every 5 minutes.

My two sadist seniors took me on to another level. After the reporting-in-different-uniforms-every-5-minutes was over, I had to get under their steel cot and do push ups, with my back hitting the bottom of the steel cot regularly for half an hour. Next day I hid a hockey stick close by, would get under the cot and, sitting in a bent position, rhythmically hit the bottom of the cot with the hockey stick, while they were asleep on the cot. After a couple of days, my banging the cot became louder due to which others woke up and complained - I was then let off. After the first attempt at getting me to write their class notes, I was given a reprieve, as my handwriting was, by nature, lousy. This reprieve presented a conundrum of sorts, as writing their notes would have saved me the ignominy of some of their physical punishments.

One of the fallouts of this constant ragging was that I had no time to study and I did poorly in the first set of examinations, the results of which gets you into the ‘Merit’ list, the top ten being awarded scholarships.

Not that I could ever have made it to that ‘Merit’ list, even if I had been given the time to study, as my fundamentals were very weak.

Initially, when drafting this portion of my ‘Musings’, I had mentioned the names of the two raggers, but I, later, edited them out. In the subsequent years of college, I just ignored them.

Then my salvation from this incessant ragging came in the form of table tennis.

Chapter 5 - Table Tennis - My Salvation

The Junior Cadet Captain, MK Dutta, although from the same state as the two raggers, was a very decent person and one of the very intelligent persons I have known. Our Inter Sadan games were to begin in a month and it was his responsibility to check on the First year students’ abilities in various games. I professed my interest in Table Tennis and Hockey. He asked me how good I was in Table Tennis and I truthfully told him that I had played for my College where I had done my Pre University and, then, had played for Osmania University in the All India Inter Varsity tournament. He was sceptical and mentioned that a lot of First Years profess to being very good at this or that, so that they can escape some of the more dreary duties that they need to perform during the first year and to escape any ragging that goes on. I stood my ground, at which he said “If you can beat me, I will get you into the Sadan team”, he being one of the team members.

As I had not been allowed to play during the month that I had been there, I asked him for 15 minutes of practice, before the match. Somehow, my confidence seemed to soak into him and he arranged the match within two hours, in the Recreation Room, when there were no other occupants. I beat him all hands down. When we exited, he took me straight to the Senior Cadet Captain and told him “Ranga is our secret weapon for gaining this year’s Table Tennis Trophy, which trophy our Sadan has never won, ever. We will practice together in as much secrecy as possible. As from now, I will be authorising lesser chores and duties for him and I am going to ensure that those two Second Year b=====ds get off his back”.

Needless to say, a month or so later Raman Sadan won the Table Tennis Trophy.

I was selected for the College team of which Uppal and Pai (4th years) were members.

Those two Second Year raggers did not know what hit them and laid low from then on. Later, they tried to placate me but I spurned them, as their actions were from prejudice, not from the fun element.

===== Blog 11 continues =====