Singh is king!

This afternoon I’d the privilege of catching up with a dear old friend of mine from the Academy, Surinder Singh Bal. He continues to be naïve, laughs so easily and his zest for life is as infectious as ever, as it had been since I met him first in Jan ’73, as a first termer. Extremely good at outdoors, especially horse riding, he, however found academics to be his waterloo. And the sardar just couldn’t tell a lie because his face was so very transparent with emotions, that, one could spot it the moment it came out, which gave him and his course mates, tumultuous times because we’d to take collective responsibility for a course mate’s peccadilloes!
He’d joined the Army but decided to hang his uniform last year in pursuit of his heart’s calling. His latest quip is that the women’s reservation bill is going to plummet his fortunes further, as he is a minority in his family consisting of his wife, Happy and two lovely daughters!
His escapades at the Academy are legendary and I shall just cite two of them to underscore his personality. The first incident was at the glider drome during equestrian classes, sometime during our first term. His horse was the grumpy ‘Shehanai’ who just wouldn’t let any guy ride him smoothly and he used to grin whenever he put his rider into discomfort. Now, on this particular morning wonder why Shehanai was not at all inclined to go with Bal’s ‘cootchicooing’ and no sooner was he astride on him, he darted off like a bolt of lightning towards the stables, throwing off his rider enroute. Much later, as the class was winding to a close did we see Bal walking the horse towards us, the rein in one hand and a clutch of green grass in the other. Such was his indomitable spirit! And within a couple of outings, Shehanai and he were the best of pals.
The second incident was while we were on a night march during ‘Camp Greenhorn’ in our second term. I was the guide for my squadron guys who were in single line formation and he followed me quite closely, in the literal sense – he was very protective and rather fond of me. It was pitched dark and we were passing through a terrain of short grass and shrubs and before we realized as to what was happening, I fell into a deep ditch. I could hear a very concerned Bal shouting out, ‘hey chhotu, where are you’ and followed me into the very same ditch, landing plump on a woeful me – that was one time I’d hated his company, albeit for a fraction of a second!! All’s well that ends well and we were retrieved by the team and got to be first in the event, eventually.
There are many more stories of Bal and we’d a blast, reliving some of those incidents. We’ve promised ourselves to keep in touch with each other regularly, from now on. Thanks, Bal for making my day and may life continue to give you whatever you wish for!!!