AUR CHOOPO GANNE

 

Long-long ago when I was a newly promoted Barsati Captain, posted in the golden sands of ‘Ja-sale-mer’. Our company along with our BMP-Is and BRDMs was deployed for annual training in area of ‘Khiyan-Danwar’.

 

We youngsters had no other work but to recce our operational area inch by inch, dune by dune till we became masters. Believe you me, we could go blindfolded and tell you where we had reached when our vehicles turned or went over a bump on those desert tracks.

 

We learnt map reading on a map which had no landmarks. BOPs (Border Out Posts) were manned by a ‘camel battalion’ were the only reference points. Tracks were few and far between. All movement was mostly cross country. The border fence had not been conceived by then. Boundary pillars were often missed. We would cut across to the Paki side between pillars routinely.

 

The only thing one understood was that we were supposed to fire our missiles onto the oncoming enemy tanks/mechanised forces. For that you had to climb the highest dune with a clear field of view.

 

In doing so, we took our 1 tonners, jongas and jeeps up every sand dune, memorised routes, kept certain marks like bones of a dead camel and cattle to turn towards our firing positions. No toba, taal, talai, sar, dhora, tibbi, tibba, r, or trig height was left unexplored in our AOR.

 

Now came the funny part. We would sit together under the Company Commander’s caravan, a modified 1 ton with a folding bed, folding table and a jeep’s rear seat removed to make a sofa in the body of the vehicle. The interiors were illuminated by battery powered a lamp. Afternoons used to be beer sessions under the huge Camo net woven so densely to provide more shade than camouflage. We were Lords of the desert.

 

Our abode was made by joining seats in the stick compartment of a BMP. Life used to be fun. We considered ourselves the desert foxes, nothing less than Rommel. We got lost many times. There were no GPS, the only navigational aid used to be a telephone line called cable JWD.

 

The Company Commander used to tell us a story about two people from the land of five rivers. (With due apologies and no offences meant to any one). There is a reason to tell you this story and the background to it.

 

After having consumed the best of ‘pahle tor di desi sharaab’ both sat together to discuss how to earn a living, instead of riding horses all day. They wanted to become rich fast and make their lives more comfortable.

 

Both came up with a ‘business plan’. They decided to open a Dhaba. This eatery would attract truck drivers and passers by. They would charge a premium (tariff) as the quality of food they served would be the best on this side of Beas. The highway was about ten kilometres away from their village. They found no takers and shelved the Dhaba idea.

 

The second idea was opening a puncture shop as those days people had shifted from horses to bicycles and two wheelers. They decided to open a puncture repair shop on the first floor of a mall. This idea didn’t work, obviously.

 

They owned land which was lying ‘fallow’. How could they utilize it? They decided to grow sugarcane/gannas. The dreamt of bumper crops and making lots of jaggery/gur and selling it in the market at a premium.

 

In the meanwhile, they downed another bottle of their home made desi and started day dreaming. They imagined that they would have to have a good security of their sugarcane field as the villagers and passersby would steal sugarcane. They did not want to suffer losses.

 

Why not teach the villagers a lesson preventively! So, that day any villager passing by was beaten up with a ‘daang’ (baton) till people were black and blue. The villagers got together to question them as to why were they beating them for no reason.

 

“Aur choopo ganne” was their answer. The more you chew our sugarcanes, the more we shall beat you. The villagers got surprised and asked where are the sugarcanes. They said, in our fields. Where are your fields? In the village. What the hell and the villagers united and gave them a thorough beating till both of them fled from that place.

 

The situation in the middle east is something like that. Someone is thinking that someone is making a nuclear bomb. So, they started tracking movements of people. Before ascertaining the facts, they started bombing them, sinking their navy, and killing everyone they felt could become the leader of that community.

 

Aur choopo ganne ji, aur choopo ganne? Is there a similarity? I wonder!!!!!!!

 

JAI HIND

© ® NOEL ELLIS