Ikki dope!

  Loud shouts of “Savdhan Chall ” from CTW (pune) cadets in a bicycle squad to every passing officer has made me confess to an ‘Ikki Dope’. I’m not being cynical but the peculiar salutation really sounded like “Sudan Chall “ to me when I had spent only a couple of days at NDA.

I clearly remember the first ‘D1’ of my first term at NDA when I was riding my ‘India-24’ bike to class in a squad of four, the other three being seniors of severe consequence in what was to happen only moments from now. My thoughts of home in an open-eyed reverie was brought to sudden alertness by loud successive shouts of “savdhan chall” from the squads leading my own, intermittent with the ominous roar of a bullet driven by a DS approaching from the opposite direction.

  “Oye ikki, say savdhan chall” warned the squad senior from behind; but here I was stuck between the grave tussle of the gospel truth and the customary trend being followed by cadets all around me.

With every passing nanosecond the DS was adventing nearer, the dug-dugging of his bullet was becoming louder and as he approached the squad just in front of ours, it was a moment of reckoning, of decission, of…cold sweat!

“Oye ikki,say it NOW!” threatened the senior from between his gritting teeth.

I knew it was now or too late and I took the side of the truth. Since I was not going to the Sudan block, I shouted “SCIENCE BLOCK CHALL”!!