JOGI AND THE GENERAL

JOGI AND THE GENERAL

By

Maj Gen VK Singh

Jogi is not his real name, which is just as well. Apart from the obvious risk of beatings by fathers of his numerous girl friends, he could have been even killed by some jealous husbands. His exploits at the NDA, IMA and in the various units he served are the stuff of legends. Jogi has been compared, variously, to a glass of champagne, a surf-topped breaker, a million-watt bulb, a Chopin sonata, even a misguided missile. One of his instructors at the NDA once remarked that he was ‘intelligent to the point of insanity’.

I first met Jogi on 12 July 1961, the day we joined the NDA. It was also the day that the Kharakvasla dam broke, flooding half of Poona City. Ever since then our course is called the ‘Dam Busters’, with Jogi living up to the name more than anyone else. His name being a twenty-five letter, triple-barrelled, tongue-twisting monstrosity, he was promptly christened Jogi, as he is known even today. Being in the same squadron, we soon became friends. Jogi was a quiet sort of chap, who liked, in his own words, to stay out of trouble. This, I found after the first six months, was not only difficult but well nigh impossible. Jogi has never, for all his good intentions, managed to stay out of trouble for any length of time, except when he was laid up in hospital for a fractured collar-bone or measles, both afflictions to which he seemed particularly prone.

            I remember, vividly, the case of the ‘missing horse’. For a bet – he never gambled, but was an incorrigible wagerer – Jogi stole a horse from the NDA stables, rode it all the way to Poona, let it loose on the race course, and was back under his blanket before reveille. The stallion was found on the third day, and Jogi was eventually caught after one of the riding instructors remembered having seen him feeding sugar cubes to that horse. There was hell to pay, not only because of Jogi’s irresponsible behaviour, but also that of the horse – as a result of the escapade, a mare in the Poona stables became unfit to ride for the coming season. There was a touch of romance to the story, but the owner of the mare did not see it that way - it had cost him the Western India Derby, he complained bitterly.

Jogi was also, I think, the World’s first ‘streaker’. Long before the sport was born or the term coined, Jogi, again for a bet, streaked from his cabin to the mess, a distance of some two hundred yards. The feat was performed on a Sunday afternoon. It resulted in a minor accident (a motorist was so fascinated by the sight that he did not see the scooter approaching) and an old lady visiting her grandson swooned and fainted. Jogi won a treat in the café and fourteen days restrictions.

Jogi’s master stroke at the NDA was the affair of the truck. We were returning from Poona after a movie on a Sunday evening, when we spotted a three-ton truck (or 3-Tonner, as it is known in the Army) standing on the road side. It was one of our vehicles, so we thought we might get a lift back. The driver was missing – he had gone for a packet of cigarettes, we learned later - but had left the ignition key, dangling very temptingly. Jogi reached a quick decision, got into the driver’s seat, pulled me inside, and before I knew what was happening, we were hurtling along at 50 miles an hour. As the distance to the Academy decreased, my fears increased.  Jogi brushed aside my suggestion to by-pass the check post and enter the campus from another route. Driving right up to the check post, he stopped the truck, got out and went straight to the telephone. He asked for the Adjutant, and then I heard him saying: “Good evening, Sir. This is Cadet …….. I found one of our trucks lying unattended in the town. There was a large crowd of civilians around it, and I am not too sure there hasn’t been some pilferage also. I thought the best thing would be to bring it back. …..Thank you, Sir, I was only doing my duty. Good Night, Sir.” Next morning, the Squadron Commander called Jogi and gave him a pat on the back. As for the hapless driver, we learned later that the poor man had been given twenty eight days for negligence.

Another time, while we were on camp, I lost my jungle hat. The Commandant was to visit us next day so I was a little worried. When I expressed my fears to Jogi, he told me not to worry. Sometime during the night he slipped away, returning after fifteen minutes with a brand new jungle hat. It had an unmistakable resemblance to the one worn by one of our instructors, but Jogi refused to divulge its origin. But he did make sure that I sprinkled a fair amount of dirt on it, to make it look old and grimy enough to pass for a cadet’s jungle hat. The next morning we were surprised to find that our instructor was absent - we were told that he had reported sick.

When we were both commissioned into Signals, no one was more surprised than Jogi. He had always been mortally afraid of mathematics and we wondered how he was going to survive in a technical Arm. But Jogi soon adapted himself to his new calling and did creditably on the YO’s course at the School of Signals. It was during this time that we met a certain officer who gave us a very interesting piece of advice. He told us that if one wanted to have a good time in the unit, he should make sure that he mucked up the first important assignment that was given to him. “You will never be given any job after that”, he asserted.

Most of us shrugged it off as a joke but not Jogi. When he was posted to his first unit in Jhansi, he resolved to try out the scheme. Soon he had his chance. It was the first of the month and Jogi was detailed by the Second-in-Command (2iC) to draw the cash from the bank for payment to the men. At about eleven in the morning, Jogi drove off in Jeep, with a guard of one and two and a cheque for forty two thousand rupees (in the sixties, that was enough to pay the whole unit).  When an hour had elapsed and Jogi had not returned, the 2iC telephoned the bank manager, who told him that the money had still not been drawn. Getting worried, he sent an officer to see if Jogi’s vehicle had broken down. At about one o’clock this officer returned and reported that he could not find Jogi or his jeep.

A worried 2iC walked up to the CO, who was about to leave his office – he was due to tee off at two in the afternoon. When he was told that Jogi was missing, he was visibly annoyed. Jhansi was a dacoit infested area, and the guard with Jogi was carrying rifles, a very attractive commodity in that part of the country.  “My God,” he exclaimed. “I hope they haven’t been kidnapped”. Needless to say, he decided to skip his golf, and started giving instructions. The Military Police was informed and so was the Divisional Headquarters. Parties were despatched in all directions and the local authorities and police stations were requested to block all roads leading out of the city. In the meanwhile, all work in the unit was suspended. The CO remained in his office, fuming, and all officers missed their lunch.

At about four o‘clock, Jogi drove up in his jeep, along with the guard (he had been seeing a movie, he told me afterwards). The 2iC pounced on him like wounded tiger. “Where were you all this time? And why have you not drawn the money?” he asked. Jogi’s reply was classic. With a sheepish grin, he answered, “I could not find the bank, Sir.”

The 2iC almost had a stroke, and had to be helped out of his chair. The CO, when he was told, was so wild with rage that he could hardly talk.  Of course, Jogi was the unit orderly officer for the next one month, but thereafter he lived in sublime bliss. He was never troubled by courts of inquiry, audit boards, courts martial and such other demons that plague officers during their regimental service. Whenever someone who was not aware of Jogi’s exploits happened to suggest his name, the 2iC would groan. “Not him, for God’s sake. I want to retire, not to be cashiered.”

When we went for the degree course at the College of Military Engineering in Poona, there was wide speculation whether he would ever manage to complete it. But Jogi had no such worries. In fact he enjoyed the course, and made sure that others did too. He was an inveterate prankster and had ample opportunity to display his talents in the CME. During a function in the club, Jogi asked a couple of us to step outside. Within a matter of minutes, we had changed the panels of all the Lambretta scooters parked outside. At the end of it, each scooter had panels of a different colour on the two sides. Having done the needful, we walked inside, the pictures of innocence. After the function, everyone left, without noticing anything amiss in the darkness. Next morning, there was utter confusion, with everyone looking for someone with whom he could exchange his panel. It took a week to sort out the mess,  after all scooters were ordered to be brought to the car park in the mess, the panels removed and kept at one place, and everyone asked to pick up two that matched the rest of his scooter. The story was the talk of the town in Poona for several months, but the culprit was never identified.

After spending a year and a half at Poona, we went to Mhow for the second leg of the course at the Military College of Telecommunications (MCTE), as the School of Signals had been renamed by then. Compared to Poona, Mhow had very few attractions.  But Jogi was not deterred and joined a ‘dance school’, where he soon made many friends. He was also a shameless flatterer, and complimented every lady he met, for her looks, her dress, her complexion or her cooking. His favourite lines – “I mistook you for your  daughter”, or “You look hardly out of college” – never failed to hit the target. As a result, he got many dinner invitations and rarely dined in the mess on weekends.

Jogi had an aversion to anything compulsory, such as dinner nights and fire practices. ‘Waste of time”, he used to say, and never attended these parades. Of course, his absences fetched his extra duties, and he soon became well known to all the chowkidars and was frequent visitor to the college quarter guard. But Jogi got his own back before the course ended. One day, around midnight, he woke me up and asked me to start my motor bike. Sitting on the pillion, he made me drive around the campus, sounding a gong that sounded very much like a fire alarm. Everyone got up and fell in outside, waiting for the duty officer to turn up for a head count, which he never did. After about an hour, everyone went back to bed, cursing. The next time there was real fire practice, everyone thought it was another hoax, and very few people turned up. Jogi was one of the few – the others went on along route march on the following Sunday

After finishing his degree course, Jogi was posted to Gangtok, in Sikkim. At that time, Gangtok was a small town, with just a few dozen odd motor cars, which belonged either to the Chogyal (Maharaja) or the Politcal Officer, an important personage akin to an ambassador. Of course, the Army had its own transport. There was one cinema hall and one hotel – the Norkhill. The Gylamo (Maharani) was Hope Cooke, an American by birth, who tried her best dress and talk like a Tibetan noblewoman. Many people said that she worked for the CIA and her marriage was ‘arranged’ by the American intelligence agency. The Chogyal was in the habit of making a couple of trips each year to North Sikkim, where custom decreed that a local damsel be offered to him every night. There was fierce competition for the honour, as having shared the Chogyal’s bed increased the girl’s stock in the marriage market. Sadly, the new Gyalmo put a stop to it when she came to know about it.  

One of the brigade headquarters was near Changgu lake, short of Nathu La. It abounded in trout, but there were strict orders banning fishing in the lake, except with the permission of the Chogyal. An enterprising brigade commander who was a keen angler obtained permission to catch two fish every week. However, since no body could actually keep watch, the brigade officers’ mess had trout almost every day.

A couple of miles down the road to North Sikkim, there was a small palace where the dowager Maharani (the Chogyal’s mother) lived. It was said that she had been banished from the palace by her husband, the previous Chogyal, after she returned from a pilgrimage to Tibet and gave birth to a girl. The nobleman who accompanied her was suitably punished, and the Maharani was sent in exile. It was only after the arrival of Hope Cooke that she was allowed to enter Gangtok again.

Jogi’s reputation had preceded him in Gangtok, and he was under close watch for a few months. But Jogi was on his best behavior, and did whatever he was asked to do. The CO and 2iC began to think that the people had been unfair to the poor lad and soon let their guard down. One day, information was received that a senior officer was coming for a visit. The 2iC recommended that Jogi should be the liaison officer (LO). The CO was hesitant, but later agreed. Jogi tied up all arrangements, even finding out what the visitor liked to eat and drink. Just a day before, he told the 2iC that one of his good friends who had been his ADC had informed him that the general – he was a former Commandant of the Staff College – liked to smoke a particular brand of cigars that were made especially for that institution. There was a flurry of telephone calls, as far afield as Delhi, but the cigars could not be procured. However, Jogi told the 2iC not to worry.

When the visiting general officer arrived, he was pleasantly surprised to find a framed photograph of his wife on the table next to his bed. “Where did you get this from,” he asked. “It is nothing, Sir”, replied Jogi. When the general went to the mess for dinner, and sipped his drink, there was a frown on his face. “What whiskey is this, he asked.” When he was told that it was Glenfiddich, he broke into a smile. “I never thought you will have this here,” he said. “The canteen does not stock it, and I have to get my quota from my friends in the Foreign Service.” However, the piece de resistance was yet to come. After dinner, brandy and cigars were served. When he picked up a cigar and saw the Staff College label on the wrapper, he broke into a wide grin. ‘Where in the world did you get this? If you don’t mind I’ll take two,” he said. When he was told that the whiskey and cigar had both been procured by Jogi, the general was effusive in praise, saying that he must be a wizard. 

After the general had said good night, the 2iC cornered Jogi and asked him how he had managed the photograph of the general’s wife, the whiskey and the cigars.  Shrugging nonchalantly, Jogi told him that he had heard that the lady had once won a beauty contest in Mhow, and asked one of his friends to get the photograph from the Guerra, the official photographer at that time. As to the whiskey, Jogi’s friend (the former ADC) had told him of the general’s fondness for the single malt, and Jogi had managed to borrow a bottle from the Palace cellar.

“And what about the cigars? Where did you get those?”

“Oh, the cigars. Actually I pinched them from the general’s suitcase, while he was having a bath. Don’t worry, Sir, I am sure he will not miss them.’

            With each passing year, Jogi matured and so did his technique. Many old matrons in Poona, Dehradun, Mhow and Wellington where Jogi did his training courses still get a glow in the eyes when they talk about him. His exploits in the several units he served in would fill a whole book. Perhaps, some day someone will come out with his biography – he is too modest to write his own story. Among the Dam Busters, and his circle of friends and admirers, he is already a legend and there is a view that sharing his accomplishments with others may not exactly please him.

11 Nov 2009