SAVING PAPER

 

SAVING PAPER

 

LT COL NOEL ELLIS

 

09/XII/2022

 

“Life in the Army they say was mighty fine…. You ask for Bond paper they give you Form nine”.

 

Those were the days when officers' ‘Aamdani was Attanni and Kharcha Dus Rupiyaa.’ We owed money to the unit bainya, the tailor and you name it. They already had our post-dated cheques. Paying the mess bill needed a waiver from the PMC.

 

The Army was not rich either. People would remember an oil called OX-52. What all it would lubricate besides the rifle? I shall share one as I go.

 

Those days Typewriters were the mainstay. Their ribbons were wound over and over again till they got perforated. Head Clerk HC won’t issue a new ribbon till he was satisfied that there was no ink left in the old one. Dare you waste a single paper those days.

 

Mass printing was done on a cyclostyling machine. Stencils were cut. Clerks would say, “Part II orders Kootna hai saab”. Kootna in the sense like we Kooto masala in the Hamam Dasta (Mortar and Pestle). Bang-bang-bang, tap-tap-tap. That is how the fingers of a clerk would hit the keys of his typewriter.

 

Those days, writing the manuscript of a Court of Inquiry was done by ‘pipsqueaks’ like yours truly. ‘Babuji zara stationery dena,’ meant asking the clerk for his life. With one pip on your shoulder, you couldn’t ask for a draft pad. Only the Adjutant had the privilege to write his daily carry forward points on it. He too would save paper using a Chinagraph pencil on a white Sun-Mica board.

 

Babus could produce tons of one-sided papers from the  ‘tijori’ (stationery box) they kept in the office. They guarded it like ‘controlled store’ of sorts. I even wrote love letters once on one sided paper. My ‘would be’ wondered why is she being made to read certain struck and scored ‘Findings of the Court.’

 

SA Saab, SM Saab, etc carried a thick notebook with a tarpaulin cover, hand stitched by the unit EBR. Babus gave them a bundle of unused ‘Indian Army forms,’ which no one ever filled but they existed.

 

You name an event or an accounting procedure there was a ‘form’ for it. That too printed on ‘Khadi’ paper. It used to be crispy and crumbled when you touched it. Some even had oil stains. Invariably it was spilled OX52, which the babu would keep in that stationery box, for lubricating certain parts of his typewriter.

 

During Op Parakram we were deployed somewhere in the desert sector. Our typewriters were giving away due to dust clogging the keys. The Head Clerk once suggested. “Sir, mauka hai, let us send one truck to the stationery depot, Meerut. I will spare a clerk, you being the DQ give me a 3 ton. It is war time and let us see what all they can spare”. ‘Tathastu’, I said.

 

That 3-ton returned with four tonnes of paper and two brand new typewriters. I asked the HC; how do we account for it? He said sir, aap char three-ton aur do, bees saal ki stationery de denge. The depot got rid of all the junk stationery and forms which we collected happily.

 

Later, I had to dish out those forms to the Section Hospital, no not a ream but one Ambulance full. I wasn’t surprised when the doctor wrote my SIQ slip on an IAFF 3033 form. I asked Mam if she wanted more stationery. She thanked me no end and said that her boys had never seen so much stationery ever and had stacked it in medicine racks. I smiled and noted a point for my next inspection.

 

That reminded me of some more good old days. I was once incharge of the ‘Spider School’. A cradle for imparting ‘rock-climbing’ training. The Chief Instructor CI wanted me to write a new script of a ‘Rock Climbing Cum Raid Demo’. As usual, the clerk did not give me stationery. I approached the Adjutant, who diverted me to the HC.

 

I not only had to write the script but read that script to the CI next morning. The HC gave me a bundle of some forms. ‘Bun shide joose kar lo shaab’. I had no choice.

 

Now that I have finally retired, I was digging my old trunk when I came across that manuscript written on an IAFS-1581(Stack Sheet). Most of us wouldn’t have even heard that such a form even existed.

 

The old paper which must be rotting in the HC trunk for decades. It  kindled so many memories of the good old days when it was easier to get a rifle issued, than to get a sheet of paper from the clerk.

 

We are now going paperless, only on paper I suppose. Has that mentality changed? I wonder!!!!!!!

 

JAI HIND

© NOEL ELLIS