THROUGH PURPLE LENSES

I AM 40 years old... and have been part of the Indian armed forces for 40 years. I am a retired fauji, with an active life but nevertheless, retired. I am married to the quintessential naval officer, and I am part of the Indian Navy now, but it has not always been so. The colour purple represents “integration” of the army, navy and air force, wherever they operate together. But my purple lenses have been acquired out of amalgamation of the three major stages of my life.

I was born ‘somewhere in the Eastern theatre’, during the closing stages of the 1971 Indo-Pak War, when my father, an air force officer, was still conducting missions over (then) East Pakistan. After graduating from Scottish Church College, Calcutta, due consideration was given to career options. However, coinciding with the beginning of the IT boom of the early 1990s was another less-publicised ‘start-up’ — the induction of women officers into the armed forces. Before I could say “Jai Jawan”, I found myself in camouflage fatigues at the Officers’ Training Academy, Chennai. Training completed, I was commissioned into the army as a second lieutenant. It was during my early army days that my family took on an even deeper hue of air force blue, with my only brother joining the air force, and then getting married to an air force officer. The Olive Green versus Sky Blue tussle was on in real earnest, and I was hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned.

And then into my life, came the knight in white. I quit the army as a major. As I write this, I have been a naval wife for almost 11 years now and can view the nuances of life in the Indian armed forces, through the purple lenses I acquired as an air force daughter, an Army officer and a navy wife.

Life in the Indian armed forces has its inherent contrasts with civil life, but typically army and air force communities are largely insulated from the vagaries of civil society. Major naval settlements, however, are usually integrated into their host cities. The navy is still the “silent service” because of its role far away from home shores, and usually out of sight. However, in the recent past, it has increasingly come into the limelight, with its humanitarian missions. But it is the unique customs and traditions of the seafarers which by far are most impressive. Possibly, the most elaborate and organisationally challenging of these ceremonies is the Fleet Review by the President of India once every five years. I was privileged to have a ringside view of the International Fleet Review in Mumbai in 2001, and here I am, a decade and a few wrinkles and sprinkles of grey hair later, once again “in station” for the Presidential Fleet Review 2011 at Mumbai. The sheer magnitude of the event for which both the fleets and other naval assets such as aircraft and submarines are synchronised and orchestrated is simply mind-boggling. The gentility and sophistication of the event is like watching a beautiful ballet.

(This article appeared in the supplementary edition, The Indian Navy, of the Indian Express on December 4, 2011)