AFVOA Newletter August 2020

Section 5 - Memoirs CV 2 No. 02 / 2020 Page 119 of 237 a popular Page 3 celebrity made some rude remarks about the sexual orientation of all military men, which was cheered on by a boisterous gang of men and women! “How strange! Aren’t you from the forces?” is a spontaneous response that I got from one of my civilian hosts when I announced that I am a pure vegetarian and a teetotaler. What is not common knowledge in the Civil Street is that the Forces tremendously respect personal dietary (including liquid) preferences and one can practice them with absolute impunity. As long as one wills it, that is! With this self adorned halo and a holy tag of a teetotaler, I entered the exalted portals of the Defence Services Staff College (DSSC) in Jun 1990. Let me now introduce my prime player in this episode, a Colonel from Afghanistan Army (Let’s call him Col K) who was my neighbor in the Officers Mess (OM) and a very good friend. The setting comes next – the Officers’ Mess (OM), DSSC, Wellington. The Dining Hall in the OMhad a structural defect in that one could enter it only from the Ante Room. If the Ante Room is booked for an official or private party, the Officers bound for the Dining Hall generally waited in the Bar outside the Ante Room till the party got over. That’s where I used to run into the Colonel frequently. While the Col’s was a planned visit to the Bar, mine was a necessity in transit. Other than forcing on myself the luxury of a mug of Beer on Holi celebrations once a year, it was a strict No-No for me for any other form of liquor, for the 14 th year running in services. The Colonel had his daily dosage regimen of pouring at least 4 x Large Whiskies down the hatch, while I watched him in awe, sipping my Mango / Orange juice. He held a firm conviction that non-drinkers are social misfits and never deserve a place in the services. Our typical conversation every time ran something like this : Colonel : “C’mon Ravi, give me a break. Have a drink and be counted one among us” Me : “No Sir. You know pretty well that I don’t drink” Colonel : Some other day perhaps? I am waiting for the day when you will clink your glass with me! I don’t know how Indian Air Force can tolerate such nonsense” This is when I always used to divert his attention with much success. Since he would have already downed his fill for the day by then, he was never in a state to notice my diverting tactics. The long and short of it was, I never made a commitment of clinking my glass with his! The tricky part however was, every time my wife visited me in Wellington, the Colonel made it a point to complain to her about my non- drinking ways! An unadulterated disaster it was, as she (my wife) was still smarting under her father’s feedback about me when I met him (her father) to ask his daughter’s hand in marriage 6 years earlier. Her father, a just-retired Maj Gen from AMC, offered me his best Scotch, which I politely declined, thinking all the while that