NCC Camp at Annie Besant Park

It’s a permanent venue for NCC camps. I spent 11 days here with my friends and PUC I class-mates from PES College. This was an opportunity for us to learn life away from the comforts and luxury of home. We reached Doddaballapura by train and from there we were transported to the camp area by one of the military trucks.

Tents big enough to accommodate 15 grown-ups were pitched in a huge square with an open ground in the center. Every tent had a snake pit around them. The first day, we were read out the camp rules and allowed to settle in our respective tents. We explored the park out of curiosity. Found a couple of bore wells and water taps, our source for water to drink and wash. We discovered there were no bathrooms or toilets, Indian Army wanted us to be real close to nature.

This was the first time I slept in a tent, with just a mat on the earth. Wind was blowing like crazy through the night and our tent had a nice tear in a corner, right next to me. I hardly slept through the night. The next morning, we were woken up early. It was cold and we had to wash with cold water… ooohaaahah! What an experience!

We all assembled in the quadrangle, dressed in our uniforms. We went for a cross country jog and then exercised, after which we had a short break during which we had breakfast and relaxed. Then came the drill session… Attention! Baye mood! Dhaine mood! Piche mood! By the left quick march!! left-left-left-right-left... look straight, swing your arms high, left-left-left-right-left... keep your knees straight, dig your heels into the ground… Oh man! The Gurkha officers made us spend double the energy of what their food gave us. The sessions never seemed to end. Most of us were just waiting to hear 'squad-halt!', 'stand-at-ease' and 'disperse'. We were served three meals a day and we could choose between veg and non-veg. Food was no way near to home food but not bad too.

Most of the officers were friendly but strict. I remember there were three ‘Chatri’s. And in our college group, there were three Prasads. Babu Prasad, Skanda Prasad and me. The Gurkhas asked us if we were cousins and we asked them if they were brothers. My other tent mates were Gurudutt M P, Ramesh P, Bharath, Sridhar...

One morning, our officer made us jog down to the Doddaballapura Railway Station, it was a deserted little place with hardly any activity. We exercised on the tarmac road with a few local people watching us with amused expressions. On the way back to the camp, again jogging, we stopped every half kilomater and made to push ups or sit-ups or any activity to sap our energies out. Most of us were hungry and just waiting to reach the camp food area. What a morning that was! The camp was not just drills or exercising, we were given tasks to make us get used to hard work like watering plants, levelling the dirt path within the camp area for which we had to dig with spades and move dirt from a near by spot. We fetched water from a bore well and sprayed the dirt path we had repaired. The officers never ran out of ways to kep us busy... One of the nights, four of us were asked to watch the food material store room. I remember how we struggled to stay wake in the cold weather till morning.

After a week or so, one after-noon, I got a surprise. Dad, Mom and Dipi had come to see me. They stayed for few minutes, 15-20 minutes and left. Dad gave me a bundle of snacks which got over in no time.

One of the days, a day trip to the near-by Nandi Hills was organized. We were dropped off on the main road at the base of the hill, given breakfast and asked us to take the road up. A 8km trek. It was fun! We made it to the summit in about 2 hours. We explored the hill and it’s fort and ruins and assembled back at a pre-designated time and spot expecting the trucks to be there to take us down. No! We were asked to climb down the steps!! Most boys started complaining pain and few experienced cramps by the time we reached the base. That was not the end, we had to trek 4kms of rough terrain to reach the trucks. With the sun blazing down, mouths dry and stomachs growling… You are in the army now!

Our camp had a small open air theater in natural settings with granite slab benches for seating an audience of about 300. The stage area was sheltered with Bougainvilla creeper and other small trees. On the tenth evening, couple of senior army officers were present for the closing… not a ceremony, whatever you call it …who gave away prizes and gave short speeches. I revisited the place sometime 1996 with Gulli.

No beds. No electricity. No hot water. No bath for eleven days!! When I got back home, my hot water bath lasted one hour.
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Bhagawathi Tea Estate

Sometime between December 1985 and February 1986

I got permission from my Dad to go on a business (actually a service trip) with two uncles and a service engineer to rectify a nagging problem in a weighbridge supplied by our company, EFGE Load Cells to Bhagawathi Tea Estates, Wynad, Kerala. EFGE is pronounced FG, which means ‘foil gauge’, a delicate little strain sensor.

We left Bangalore in our HM Ambassador Mark III by 6 30 pm heading towards Mysore. On the outskirts my uncles picked up few beer bottles. After a while, one of my uncles, handed me an open bottle and asked me to have. What?? I was like… Anyway, I tasted the cold beer and liked it. I went real slow. I enjoyed my first bottle of beer. We broke our journey at Mysore and decided to continue the next morning.

The next morning, we had dosa for breakfast at a real tiny place in the narrow streets of old Mysore city. The dosa just melted the moment it landed on my tongue. This is the most memorable dosa I ever tasted. We got with our journey… Gundlupet, Sultan Battery… and we reached Wynad some time afternoon. The weather there was hot and humid… typical for a tea estate. I guess we did not work much, may be just a cursory check of the weighbridge. That night we had wine, and I had some and liked the taste. The color was wonderful and taste was excellent. As it is, grape juice was one of my favorite. We had a good dinner and peaceful sleep in the silent hills.

We started the new day with typical Kerala style tea served in glasses and after a while was Kerala breakfast. I think it was ‘Pattu’ with Bengal gram and 'Appam'. Every morning our guest house cooks served us different dishes of Kerala. Real expert cooks they were. For me it was more of a holiday… while my uncles were trying to sort out the weigh bridge problem. I walked around the estate through the tea shrubs, up and down the slopes. From one point I looked down towards our guest house and then to its left further down the hill, a little stream flowed in the valley with little houses next to it, children played around while the women washed clothes in the stream. Typical story book scene it was.

This is where I first saw tea leaf picking. It was a women’s job, they carried huge woven cane baskets on their backs and dropped leaves into them as they chose and picked the leaves from the shrubs. Once the baskets were filled, they carried them down to the factory area where the leaves and weighed and wages paid accordingly. One of the days, the factory manager showed us around the plant. It was interesting to see how raw leaves were washed, dried, dehumidified and turned into dust and then graded and packed. The place was full of managers… AM, DM, EM, FM, GM, etc. I can recall few; Accounts, Deputy, Estate, Factory and General.

Not sure if it was the second or third evening at the estate; we were invited to the GM’s bungalow for drinks. Whisky was offered and I declined it, I was not sure if I could handle it. The GM was an ex-army person and cordial to us. I think, the same evening, my uncles decided to go to a nearby town to fetch drinks and on the way back a big stone hit the underside of our Ambassador damaging the oil sump. Back at the guest house, the booze session was little wild with one of the uncles in real high spirits.

Work on the weigh bridge was going nowhere and the managers were getting impatient with us. After several rounds of discussions over phone with my Dad, it was decided that we head back home, leaving the job incomplete. Somehow nothing was going well… no progress on work, bad remarks from the customer and a damaged car. Our journey back home was a real drag; because of low oil pressure the engine was damaged and we drove real slow... literally limped back.

If not for anything else, this trip introduced me to the world of booze. I had the confidence to handle it while most of friends had not even touched it. Years later I gave up drinks, have remained a teetotaler.
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