“Oh, Shikha’s been transferred to Vizag a month
ago”, replied my teenage daughter in response to my query on the whereabouts of
her friend. It didn’t matter to her that it was her friend’s father who had
been transferred, and that his daughter was merely accompanying him. As far as
she was concerned, Shikha had been transferred and that was that, while she
returned to the animated conversation with her mobile phone, clearly
demonstrating an early capability of multitasking.
To a dyed in wool fauji like me who has spent a lifetime in and around the service,
as a child transfers offered great excitement – something to brag about to the
boy who was always first in class and who knew just about everything that
existed in the universe of small boys. Then there was the excitement of
watching a house being slowly dismantled and put away into black boxes,
farewell parties with plenty of attention lavished on me, and finally, the
pinnacle of fun, the train journey.
I recall the very first posting, when as a four
year old, I accompanied my parents from Balasore to Delhi. In my four year old
mind, the words ‘posting’ and ‘Delhi’ were synonymous and I assumed that all
postings were to Delhi, and Delhi was just another name for posting. On that
last day, as usual I hopped into the jeep onto my usual perch and was a little
puzzled when someone asked me to sit at the back while a few more than the
usual people accompanied us. In the early sixties, Balasore was a sleepy little
town and the departure of the army’s station commander was a major event, for
the entire population of the town along with their cousins appeared to have
turned out, and there were crowds lining the road all the way from the house to
the station. Of course I had no idea how the luggage and our dog reached Delhi.
A few years later, we were ready for another
transfer, this time to Pune, or Poona, as it was called then. Once again the
excitement mounted, though this time it originated from the fact that I would
be leaving that horrid school, where I had found myself to be the focused
object of scolding by teachers and bullying by other boys. Besides, this time I
was determined to be part of the action during the packing process, and
demanded my share of responsibilities. My older siblings instead sent me
packing, with “Buzz off” and “Go do your homework” being some of their more
polite remarks.
Eventually, to get me out of the way, I was
given an old trunk and told to pack my toys and books. I went about it in due
earnest and having carefully put away all my worldly treasures, I labeled it TOYS
with my name scrawled on a page torn from a school-book that I hoped I would no
longer need. For good measure, I added my class, name of the school and age.
Lest someone hadn’t got the point, I added “Handle With Care” and “This Side
Up”. Having duly considered the possible threat posed to the household by the
presence of my air-gun pellets inside the trunk, I further added “Explosives”. With
that, I was ready to move.
In those days, for long journeys, officers
usually hired special railway wagons called EVKs to transport their household
effects. I stood in open-mouthed fascination in the railway yard as I watched our
boxes being loaded into the wagon and expertly tied into place behind a net of
ropes. I didn’t quite understand why the car was also driven in, till the doors
of the wagon closed and my father explained that it was also being transported
to Pune by train. The older siblings didn’t deem it fit to explain why we
couldn’t just drive down to Pune.
However the biggest surprise of the transfer was
yet to come and I was secretly glad that both my older brother and sister would
be coming separately. This time we travelled not by train, but by air. It was
immensely exciting as we boarded the Caravelle and I accompanied the stewardess
to the cockpit for a visit. In those days there were no direct flights from
Delhi to Poona and one had to change at Bombay into a four-engine prop driven Viscount
for the shorter leg of the journey. Those two flights remained my first ever
air journey for many years, till I joined service and hesitantly took my next
flight.
Having donned the uniform, transfers soon became
a by-word and the process began to fall into a routine. However as I had
probably slept through or skipped the class on transfer allowances and
procedures, I remained blissfully unaware of the nuances of baggage allowance,
railway warrants and other such mysteries till I learned the hard way. Like all
young officers, for many years my most important piece of luggage remained my
steed, my trusty bike, and I spared absolutely no effort to ensure that it was
properly packed, so that it received not one scratch during the various journeys
between stations. My uniforms and personal effects packed into suitcases were a
different matter and I usually ended up paying extra as my warrant and ticket
was always missing that one crucial entry that entitled me to carry my luggage
at the government’s expense.
With time the dawn of wisdom began to break over
me as my wife and I gradually began to put our own nest together, and we
learned to carefully preserve the cartons of the items that we so painstakingly
collected. The mixer, the toaster, the crystal animal farm that adorned our
drawing room, all had their original cartons, which were indispensible when it
was time to pack again for the next move.
When I was younger, I found myself moving every
eighteen months. The exercise of transfer began a couple of months in advance
of D-day, usually with a muster of locks and keys. Locks were oiled and matched
with keys, invariably there were locks that remained locked forever, that were
inevitably consigned to the dustbin as neither of us had the patience to find a
locksmith. Not long ago, while shopping at the market in Vasco, Goa, the
shopkeeper asked me if I was under transfer. When I looked up surprised and
asked him how he knew, he replied with a smile that since I was buying a number
of identical locks, I was obviously moving, as this was standard practice
before a transfer.
Next came box inspection. Boxes and trunks would
be aired in bright sunlight and the resident roaches and other wildlife
evicted. It helped to have a fully loaded can of potent insect spray at hand
with the memsahib at a safe distance, when opening boxes, as the resident
insect population was likely to get agitated at the untimely disturbance. It
was also quite normal to discover some long lost teapot or that missing china
plate when boxes were reopened towards the end of a tenure. Boxes laid out open
in the sun were another giveaway of an impending transfer. So much for
confidentiality of transfers.
Boxes and trunks would then be given a fresh
coat of paint, usually black, but any available color would do. At one stage, I
had a virtual palette of colors as among the blacks there were a few boxes in
ship-side grey, pale-cream yellow, olive green, metallic silver trunks and even
oxide brown depending on where I had been posted when the box was acquired.
Stencils would be cut with the latest rank and destination duly dabbed on with
white paint.
Boxes would be assigned duties to the drawing
room, the dining room, kitchen and so on depending on their capabilities in the
same manner as assigning guard duties to troops. Experience is a great teacher
and I learned that it were best if one immediately replaced the empty cartons
into the boxes after unpacking, so that before the next transfer, the items
could go back into the same box. My skill at jigsaw puzzles improved as I
juggled cartons into various boxes in different combinations. By then I was a
seasoned packer capable of offering my services to any logistics company.
Invariably, after each tenure the number of boxes
fell short and one had to acquire a few more, which meant it was time to go
shopping for boxes and trunks. Long before packers and movers introduced the
delights of foldable cardboard cartons to the nomadic fauji population, we had discovered the virtues of empty cartons of
555 cigarettes for packing miscellaneous items. Those sturdy cartons, having
discharged their consignments found their way to households on the brink of a
move. One had to reserve these indispensible cartons with the canteen manager
well in advance, and keep the canteen officer in good humour till he handed
over those precious items. Such was the demand, that I found myself receiving
requests from army and air force coursemates posted as far afield as Siliguri,
for a half dozen of those versatile containers, to be sent through someone
moving in that direction. At one stage I even mulled setting up a black market
of cartons, much like the character Milo Minderbinder, in the book Catch 22,
wherein I imagined myself supplying cartons even to the Pakis using PAF planes
that had my initials emblazoned on their tails. While Milo in the book had a
few generals on his payrolls, I on the other hand, would have been content to
have a couple of nasty Commanders working under me.
There were boxes that had been with us so long
that they were practically family, some even had names – there was ‘Big
Russian’, a box that had once contained spares from that country, while one
that had accompanied my better half as a new bride was simply named ‘Square
Ambala’, and a longish trunk that had never been painted became ‘Long John
Silver’. Quite easily the box with a mind of its own was one simply named
‘Idiot Box’. This was a large and sturdy wooden box that had seen service on
both fronts and had accompanied its previous owner to high altitude areas as
well. One look at the box would have been enough to convince anyone of the
aptness of its name. It was probably built by a carpenter with more than his
share of ‘desi’ inside him. The wood
used was of varying thicknesses and types much like a street dog of doubtful
ancestry. It’s handles were improperly fitted which made it difficult for
loaders to heft. Its lid would not close completely and its two latches were
both different. The latches had a tendency to fly apart, as happened when it
was being loaded into a truck. Fortunately the quick thinking truck driver
nailed it shut. It had been passed on to us by a friend of my father-in-law, a
senior army officer, before our first transfer. He gave it to us feeling sorry
for my better half, who was his daughter’s age, as he sadly asked, “Who asked
you to get married into the Navy, when there are so many fine boys in the army?”
There were boxes of all types, shapes and sizes.
Those who had access to wood and carpenters proudly got a box made for the fridge.
This was no ordinary box. In fact, as it guaranteed the safety and security of
the family’s bread and butter, a great deal of technical thought and design
effort was devoted to it. The wood and ply would be personally chosen by the
owner, who would also approve the dimensions, keeping in mind not only the outer
dimensions of the fridge carton, but also those of the next fridge, the
memsahib had set her sights on. Then there was a box to transport that pride
and joy of all middle class families, the television. However opinions were
divided into two camps – those who sent their TV along with the rest of the
luggage by road, and, those who preferred to personally carry their precious
cargo by car or train. The pros and cons of both methods were the topic of
fiery debates in parties, particularly after a couple of drinks, with both
sides including the ladies ready to do battle on a matter of principle.
Closer to D Day, a search would be conducted for
a suitable transporter. During the transfer season in March - May every year,
one would be deluged by flyers, calendars, stickers, posters, business cards
and personal house visits of reps of transport companies. Quotations would be
obtained, reps interviewed, telephone numbers verified and references checked.
One had to be careful as nearly everyone had a horror story to relate of
missing luggage, of trucks stalled in the middle of nowhere or other damage
with the truck agency untraceable at that crucial time.
In those days, truckers were a tough macho
breed, with fierce upturned moustaches and intimidating stares. The rep usually
a grey haired, grizzled old man, dressed in regulation kurta pyjama with a
towel over his left shoulder, would saunter through the house inspecting your
worldly possessions, much to the disapproval of the maid servant. He would then
do a set of mental gymnastics to arrive at a price for transporting the
luggage. The quoted price depended upon the amount of crystal in your drawing
room, the size and make of your fridge, whether you had a color or black &
white TV, and whether you had furniture. Thereafter would follow some fervent
haggling over the price. If you negotiated too low, the veteran roadie would stubbornly
demand that the amount be paid upfront. On the other hand, if you allowed him
to have his way, you were in for a shocker from the CDA later. The price having
been fixed, the trucker would conspiratorially call you aside and indicate the
sign of a bottle with a huge gnarled fist and thumb. This was the signal when
you were then expected to part with a bottle of rum to seal the deal.
In the old days, when one didn’t have enough
luggage to fill an entire truck, one looked for someone to share a truck with,
not so much to save on costs, but because it was a given fact that the trucker
would use the vacant space to load additional cargo. While moving from Jamnagar
to Bombay, I had no option but to ask the trucker to give me half a truck space
as there was no one to share with. He agreed to my request to load the other
cargo first. When it arrived, I expected to see a truck with boxes of the other
load piled in the forward portion of the truck, but I was in for a surprise as
I was sharing a truck with a consignment of salt that occupied the entire cargo
space to a depth of two or three feet. He cheerfully explained that my luggage
would be loaded over the salt and that it would in fact cushion my things. As
we were to leave by train the next day and there seemed no option, I agreed.
The truck having been loaded, I crossed my toes as well as my fingers while the
memsahib glowered crossly at me. Early the next morning, the phone rang. It was
the helper I had sent with the truck, calling to say that the truck had
stalled. I froze, with visions of my things lying scattered on some desolate
stretch of road. When he explained that the truck hadn’t left Jamnagar at all
and had actually not gone beyond the trucker’s office, I felt somewhat relieved
but quickly got on my scooter to reach his premises. There I found all my
worldly possessions stacked nearby, while workmen were busy transferring the
salt to the next truck. Eventually, everything was safely loaded onto the new
truck and made it to Bombay without further adventures. But that was one heart
stopping moment.
Packing in remote stations, was done by a
combination of sahib, memsahib, maid and anyone else who could be drafted in,
with yours truly being the chief packer. The trucking companies were far too
masculine to do effeminate jobs like packing. That was for the wimps. Luckily,
all those days of staring open mouthed at the packers in my parents’ home in
Balasore were now beginning to pay off. I became something of an expert in
winding hessian cloth around my things, having cut my teeth as a young officer
on packing my beloved bike. I could wield the large needle called a sooa with jute string, like a sword. In
the larger cities like Bombay, we had the benefit of the ‘bajrang dal’, an epithet given to a group of maids’ husbands who
had been trained by an enterprising man to pack officers’ luggage. Since this
gentleman usually wore a traditional outfit complete with Gandhi topi, the name of the group stuck. I
believe he still operates in Mumbai.
As one grew older and the number of pieces
increased with a sofa set and other furniture added in the course of our
nomadic life, the weight slowly began to shift to the other foot. It was the
trucker’s turn to get intimidated under the confident, steely eyed gaze of the
memsahib seated comfortably on the sofa while he shuffled around uncertainly.
Needless to say, he wouldn’t dare to mention the word ‘rum’. In due course, the
‘trucking only’ companies began to give way to packers and movers and hessian
cloth was replaced by corrugated cardboard sheet, bubble wrap and cling film.
My favored weapon, the sooa has was
rendered obsolete by ducting tape. Moreover, I don’t think anyone makes fridge
crates anymore, reams of corrugated sheet and thermocol are just as good. Above
all, the macho truckers’ reps with their earthy and big-hearted ways and names
like Om Pal and Dharam Singh have given way to smooth faced, English speaking,
tie clad youngsters with business cards that read names like Nitin and Sachin.
However, the ethos and excitement of transfers remains the same.
