Your Statistic Is My Santa

An Ex-Army-brat About An Ex-Army-man

Papa served in the Indian Armed Forces. As a post-graduate student of AFMC, Pune and then an officer with the Army for 16 years, he is the reason I was once an Army brat.

My pre-school years were spent in and around the Army, predominantly in Ambala Cantt. I’m talking 1991 and thereon, when “pre-school” simply meant before school, not a bastardised version of Kindergarten. I was brought up amidst families of other servicemen, dignified Army mess workers and staff at cantonment hospitals, where Papa served as Gynaecologist.

In case you’re wondering what a Gynaec was doing in the Army – women serve in the Forces too. Male officers have families and wives who bear children. Doctors serve as part of the “fighting units” too, for a few compulsory years and also as backup forces. That’s what took Papa to Siachen and to the border by the Indus river. The former is how he knows everything about frostbitten, amputated limbs. The latter is how he has zoomed in photographs of Pakistan’s armymen holding rifles and looking out at the Indian camp from across the border.

As an Army brat, I’ve had my share of “top secret” bike rides from uniformed officers when Papa was busy elsewhere. I’ve had military hospitals’ nurses fawn over the awkward fountain ponytail he’d tie atop my head every morning when it was just the two of us.

I’ve been included in jokes about a rotund officer who was allegedly always forced to rest his huge belly on tabletops and I’ve had a very friendly Brigadier take me on a tour of defunct canons and rifles arranged in the cantonment garden.

I’ve been entertained by “Santa Claus” on the phone for precisely 15 minutes every night for a week I spent with Papa at the Alwar cantt; I’d share my Christmas wishlist with Santa and justify my requests with “But I’m shining Papa’s medals, buttons and buckles with Brasso, Santa!” We once discussed what was wrong with the porridge Papa cooked for me at breakfast and I never could tell how my bowl of porridge suddenly tasted better the next morning. I was 11 when I discovered my gift-bearing Santa lived down the corridor and was usually called Captain by others and “scary uncle” by me. You cannot begin to imagine how betrayed I felt.

This may evoke a smile for the child that I was and the memories I cherish. This may have you believe I’m boasting about the perks of being an army brat, particularly one pampered by a whole bunch of dapper Army personnel. This may have you believe that Army-folk and their work is overrated. “They even have the time to play with random officers’ kids at work, beat that!”

But I’ll tell you one thing – this is why my heart breaks every time I read of casualties in the Indian Army. I've had my internal debates about patriotism and nationalism and all of that, but amongst those casualties could be people I have known, people who have given me some of my best memories. Perhaps this is why I cry like a baby when Border plays on television twice a year and this is why I’d wake up with nightmares as an 8 year old who kept hearing about an ugly Kargil War in the news.

As I write today, it amazes me that I’ve never brought this up before. Perhaps that’s because I no longer see him as Lt. Col. Dr. Rakesh Kumar Sharma. Somewhere, I no longer see him as Papa. Today, he’s Lt. Col. Dr. Rakesh Kumar Sharma (Retd.), a practising Professor. Today, he’s Dad. And that is my loss as much as his.