THE COMMANDO

My father, seeing my carefree spirit and interest in sports, felt that I was a suitable boy to join the army. A sad day, indeed, for any Bengali father whose child was becoming anything but a doctor. Anyway when the time came, I did give my examination for NDA and finally when the results came out, my scores in math and science were pathetic and the door to becoming General Sen was quashed very early in life.  Now when I became a parent, I tried to see that my child fulfilled my failed ambitions and dreams and thankfully she is now training to become a Commando.

When the word commando comes to mind, I instantly remember Sylvester Stallone as Rambo or Sean Connery in ‘The Rock’ who could survive in almost impossible situations .Surely it must be in their trainings. Here is what the Commando Training weekly program of Royal Marines looks like and these tests are done in full fighting order of 32 lb (14.5 kg) of equipment.

The Commando tests are taken on consecutive days and all four tests must be successfully completed within a seven-day period; they include;

·      A nine mile (14.5 km) speed march carrying full fighting order, to be completed in 90 minutes. 

·  The Endurance course is a six-mile (9.65 km) course across rough moorland and woodland terrain which includes tunnels, pipes, wading pools, and an underwater culvert. The course ends with a four-mile (6 km) run followed by a marksmanship test.

·   The Tarzan Assault Course. It starts with a death slide and ends with a rope climb up a thirty-foot near-vertical wall. It must be completed with full fighting order in 13 minutes

·  The 30 miler. This is a 30-mile (48-km) march across upland wearing full fighting order, and additional safety equipment carried by the recruit in a daysack. It must be completed in eight hours. 

Normally the seven- to eight-day schedule for the Commando Tests is as follows:

·         Saturday - Endurance Course

·         Sunday - Rest

·         Monday - Nine Mile Speed March

·         Tuesday - Tarzan Assault Course

·         Wednesday - 30 Miler

·         Thursday - Failed test re-runs

·         Friday - Failed test re-runs

·         Saturday - 30 Miler re-run if required

The chart implies that there is a Sunday rest and on Thursdays and Fridays only those who fail the earlier tests repeat.  And here is what they get to eat:

Day 1 :Breakfast 3 eggs;  Lunch 3 eggs; Dinner 3 eggs

Day 2: 1 egg or grapefruit; Fresh fruit salad; Steak, Tomatoes, Celery and cottage cheese

Day 3: 1 egg or grapefruit; Fish, Tomatoes, spinach and Salad; Lean Lamb chops, tomatoes and salad

Day 4: 1 egg or grapefruit; Green salad and tomatoes; 3 eggs and dried toast

Day 5: 1 egg or grapefruit; Fish, Tomatoes, and Salad; Lean ham salad, tomatoes and spinach

Day 6: 1 egg or grapefruit; 3 eggs dried toast; Steak Celery, tomatoes and cottage cheese

Day 7: 1 egg or grapefruit; Fresh fruit salad; Lean lamb chops, salad and tomatoes

Where no volume or amount of food is quoted, you can eat as much as you like, within reason. So on the last day a large fruit salad for lunch can be eaten, followed by big juicy lamb chops with a large salad. 

Here’s a day in a life of what a Junior Resident Doctor in a premier medical college in India does.

It’s 6.15 am and an alarmstarts ringing and then within a minute you can hear “Wake up it’s a Beautiful Day”, it’s the jingle in the mobile. One arm to the right and the other to the left, the sounds are silenced.  A few more minutes of lying under the quilt and the blanket in Delhi’s cold is all the toy soldier desires but then a violent rrrrrrrrrrrrrrring of the Twister, as the maid is fondly called ,forces her to open the door. Before the storm arrives into her room, the first reaction is to remove all the phone and medical equipments lying in the room atop the table to avoid the catastrophic loss.

It’s 7.00am and the soldier leaves her termite ridden tent to move to the field duty of the hospital. First of course is breakfast. Monday- Aloo Parantha…Tuesday- Aloo Parantha…Friday- Aloo Parantha. Our most friendly cook can make anda (egg) and toast but they fry the bread instead of toasting it and the soldier does not like it.

It’s 7.30am and the little one enters the wards. She goes through the daily chores of doing the workups, presenting the cases, examining 100s of patients in the Casualty, OPD and the Clinics, assisting in the operation theatres, community service, filling up various forms, charts and files to list a few. In a country where the doctor to people ratio which WHO prescribes at 1:1000 is 1:11,000; where there is 1 bed for 8800 patients the days can be arduous, to say the least. Their exposure to ailments, like TB and Hepatitis, is another stalking killer lurking in the corridors.

You must be wondering what happened to lunch. Of course they do have lunch, once in a while, which again is: Monday- rice with dal & aloo ki sabzi. The friendly man is a perfectionist and the menu also never alters. Yes, on a few special days, the soldier is treated to mushrooms…wow..delicious! On days when the soldier is assigned Operation Theatre duty, the lunch is either a luxury or had at 5-6 pm.

Then there are the famous dinners. Monday- Roti and sabzi which is usually cauliflower and aloo. Here again our Man Friday is a perfectionist…it is the same for all days and on special day it’s again the Utterly Butterly Delicious Mushroom! On some day the soldier’s other troops lay their hands on their ultimate delight of a Domino’s pizza…after all they need to take care of their health to survive such regimen. On days when the work gets over after 11 pm, our Man Friday locks up his canteen and goes for his well earned sleep, my Li’l Soldier goes home to pour some hot water over Cuppa Noodles. The Cuppa Noodles must be terribly good, after all they have Manchester United’s team picture on the body, and Man U is a great team. Surely if Rooney can, my Soldier too can!

The work goes on and on and on, never to stop again. At last it is time to go home which is about 20 minutes walk from the college as no hostel is provided…what irony in calling them Residents while they are truly Non Residents. This moment that they long to go could be anywhere earliest 11pm to 3.45 am. She’s not alone. There are some other soldiers, in some other fields, who get to go home sometimes after 48 hours!

This walk home is the most peaceful as even the dogs and monkeys in the campus have gone to sleep. It is that time when there is no traffic on the road…maybe the Delhi CM could do away with Odd-Even Rule and implement the Midnight Working Rule where half the working class works during the day and the other at night and mind it there should be no exemptions for working women….awake at home parents have become very religious as they pray each night for a safe transit every night. Mind it 3am in Delhi’s winter, walking alone on the streets of the so called R capital of the World…my Ll’l Soldier truly must be very brave. No wonder she is becoming a Commando.

This is the same routine on all seven days of the week including Sundays, National Holidays and Festivals. They also have to manage the home matters of washing clothes, getting water, paying for rent and finding the electrician or plumber when the lights go off or the tap leaks.

Sometime ago a hapless father, who himself happened to be a doctor, wrote a blog “Why I will never allow my child to be a Doctor in India”. It went viral and here is the last para of the same blog:

"You will have every opportunity to choose whether you want to retain your religion or change it ...you will have every opportunity to choose the love of your life irrespective of caste, creed or even gender...you can be a wildlife photographer trekking through the Amazons or dance the poles at Las Vegas. But I will never allow you to become a doctor in India. Because I did not raise my child for two decades just to watch her lose her sense of right and wrong, of humanity or worse, watch her die. And I don't mean just physically."

Not that I wish my Little Soldier, My Commando to become a pole dancer but there are a few requests. She may have grown but she is still my daughter and my ‘noor’ and all I wish is that she gets some sleep, a little more than mere 3-4 hours a day …is it too much to ask? I wish her to get some healthy food at periodic intervals…is it again too much to ask? I wish her to stay within the college campus for her safety…is it too much to ask?  I wish her to get at least a day off in a week on Sundays which even God had decreed to be the holy day of rest.

One night when she returned home, I asked her to go late to work and come back early leaving the work for others. She said,” Baba, don’t say that. After all it’s my work and my life and I have to do it!”

My Commando is getting ready for many more battles and wars. She may not get the Green Beret of the Royal Marine Commando but I will still give her my bear hug every day. Godspeed My Daring Darling.

One happy man of course must be my father up there seeing his granddaughter becoming both a Doctor and a Commando at the same time. As they say in Filmfare Awards and Oscars, I too will raise my hands and say aloud, “Dad, This One’s For You!”

SS