Here to nothingness

Kilometres away into the starkness, as the Army jonga traversed loose sand, it was indeed a wondrous surprise to see paths cutting through stretches of gram farms. Thanks to the Rasjathan Canal and Indira Gandhi Canal, the desert here is crisscrossed by water channels that have lent a spectacular green touch to the region. Maybe, someday in the near future Rajasthan will do an Israel.

As the dry, desert cold and the flying sand nipped at my face, I couldn8217;t help but feel a gratitude towards a transformed, media-friendly Indian Army, that had brought me to this wonderfully lonely land to showcase Exercise Vijay Chakra in the Ganganagar-Bikaner deserts. One positive after-effect of the Kargil ordeal, to which even the top bosses of the Army agree, was the forces 8220;coming to terms with the media brigade8221;.

Perhaps it8217;s this mindset that made the Army-IAF exercise such a rare, and welcome, experience for the press. Members of the national press were airlifted to the exercise zones in the Rajasthan deserts, from Delhi, while those from Jodhpur, Ganganagar and Chandigarh were brought in either by road or by rail. What awaited them were elaborate arrangements, to the last swig of chilled beer, which only the Army is capable of; it is a different matter that media personalities underwent a wayward three-hour-long ride in the desert to a destination that was only 25 minutes away.

Yet, it cannot be extrapolated that a chilled beer represents the happy reality of a soldier8217;s life. Not even at the Suratgarh installation. All around the settlements in the desert maw and camou nets hiding armymen and hardware, it8217;s not unusual to come across pairs of eyes with doleful looks, tails wagging. Dogs, most of them mangy, black, emaciated and woolly and timid. Most often, alert eyes unearth a friendliness with the slightest of filial gestures. The dogs here recognise fatigues as the dress of friends, whether at base camp or a post set up in the Exercise Vijay Chakra zone.

The coming of the Army to the heart of the desert seems to have given these friends an opportunity for handouts. For, the jawans are a lonely lot, and the loving gaze that a dog casts does something to their hearts. A chance to pat them is worth the morsel given away. The loneliness of a soldier seems to envelop every man in uniform in the expanse of the desert. And, perhaps this is where the stars, bars and colours that notify ranks are of little significance, a lesson in camaraderie and team spirit that we civilians could do well to learn from the Army. Management degrees be damned, both can be achieved in the most indigenous of ways. In the remoteness of the sands, it8217;s interesting to hear a brigadier referring to a jawan as quot;bacchequot; child or to a major as quot;partnerquot;. This coming from the same brigadier who would be at his curt best while speaking to his subordinates back at the headquarters.

The Army and the desert. One trying to merge into the other8217;s surroundings, to do what it is supposed to do. Camouflaged. From here to nothingness. Extremes, both. One an institution, another a tutor to survival.