From Ocean to Sky - Part I

“You have to go for this camp. You cannot pass the NCC without attending any camps,” our furious NCC officer told me.

“Yes Sir. I will go,” I said staring at the black tiles on the floor.

I never really liked NCC. Going for the NCC parade every Saturday afternoon while the others played cricket or just lazed around was so “not cool”. Then, why did I join. Must have been the NCC perks. “It helps in admissions to degree courses.” “You get free snacks after every parade.” These were some of the reasons. No one talked about “it instills discipline”, “gives you an insight of the armed forces” or “it helps in getting admissions to the defense colleges”.

Nevertheless, I joined NCC and went to the parades once in a while. Many camps were organized throughout the year but I did not go to any. It was November 1998.The year was about to end and the Goa camp was going to be the last camp for the year. Many boys wanted to attend the Goa camp. The word Goa would conjure images of - beautiful beaches, alcohol and semi-nude girls and there was always a prospect of finding one of the fabled nude beaches of Goa. It was synonymous with fun then. Not that it is not fun now. How many parents would allow their kids to go to Goa on their own ?

It was going to be a 14 day camp in South Goa. It was called “Ocean to Sky”. I had no idea what the name meant then. I was going to be accompanied by two more guys from my school. One of them was a very good friend of mine. His name was Arjun. He had lent me his Moral Science textbook and we had become friends since then. Our parents had come to see us off at the bus stop. Arjun was crying as the bus started to move. He was going so far without his family for the first time. I consoled him for a while until he felt better.

We reached Goa in the evening and a army jawan had come to pick us up in an army van. We were put up in the corridors of the Madgaon Cricket Stadium. Thousand guys from all over India had settled in the corridor which ran around the stadium. Guys from Kashmir, Tamil Nadu, Assam – I had never seen people from all over India together and that too “live”. It was a little scary. There were no rooms to sleep and the bathrooms were too filthy to be described here. The next morning we were divided into groups of 50. We were put together with some seniors from the Belgaum Military School. I was happy to know that we were going to be with guys from our hometown.

“Hi, I am Rohan,” a very friendly me said putting my hand forward expecting a handshake.
“B**** C*** Maine naam pucha tere ko?” said one of those guys. My smile vanished and to say that I was shocked will be an understatement. The only apt way to describe my feeling is “Meri to phat gayi thi”.

“We are going to be the leaders of this group and you all will do as we say. Nahi karoge to nanga kar denge. Samjhe !”