Daily Times

It was 1969 and President Ayub Khan had been shown the door at the presidency by his friend General Yahya Khan after popular demonstrations. Air-conditioners, fridges or freezers were rare in the cantonments and normally seen only in the ‘American colony’ of Mangla Dam. During the vacation season, an army officer would take over this colony and what a luxury it was. Big fridges, room air-conditioners, American furniture, crockery, cutlery, electrical fittings and even bed linen were provided. One just had to walk in with one’s suitcases. Mangla became a sought after posting station in the army.

Elsewhere in the army, most households braved the summers with the help of desert coolers or simple ceiling fans. In 1970, the shah of Iran was to visit Lahore during the summers and the army chief had decided to host a lunch for the royal guest in our mess. Our mess had just been constructed and it was considered fit for the privilege. The only problem was that the dining hall and sitting room were too hot as there were no air-conditioners. Therefore, for the comfort of the shah of Iran, a number of desert coolers were procured through a special grant. Ours was perhaps the only officers’ mess in Lahore Cantonment that had this luxury as well as a single air-conditioner in the bar room for a long time afterwards.

Most mess halls and officers clubs used to have regular wet bars where even in those carefree days only a few used to indulge themselves. A small peg was called chhota and a large one patiala. Many years later, liquor was banned and with that certain familiar sights and social occasions also disappeared from officers’ mess halls and army clubs. Officially, liquor, abdaars (barmen) and bars ceased to exist. However, licence holding unit sweepers seemingly became well known as a consequence. An abdaar was required to serve at the bar, but not permitted traditionally to speak about it. As a measure of good grace, he could consume an odd peg gratis and if he was sufficiently experienced, he could decline to serve more drinks depending upon the officers’ state of absorption and the time of the night. On the weekends, mess card rooms would fill up with players and heavy cigar smoke. Tables were booked in advance. Playing buddies would gather early in the day and the card playing sessions would invariably last for two nights and a day, with officers barely managing to trundle into the unit’s physical training ground in the morning on the first working day. It was a rule strictly followed and enforced that no matter when you sleep at night, an officer is never late on parade in the morning.

Dress code and table etiquettes were religiously enforced in the mess. Mess waiters were not called by name; koi hai — anyone there — was the standard call for service. Mess radio or television could only be switched off or on with the permission of the senior most officer present in the anteroom. Loud guffaws and talk about politics, religion, women and the family affairs of others were strictly forbidden. You were expected to maintain a straight face even if you knew some juicy details.

Like any other garrison, Lahore too was a social mixture of self-conscious Pathan, easygoing Punjabi and slick, Urdu speaking Karachiite officers. There was a sprinkling of live wire East Pakistani officers but very few native Sindhi or Baloch officers and men. Sindhis appeared too earthbound to join the army and the Baloch were too unwilling to give up their personal freedom. Besides, it was possible that a serious recruitment effort was still to be undertaken in these non-traditional recruitment provinces. None seemed to notice this difference as acutely as it was felt many years later, more under political compulsions. We had units with a mixed composition of men from all the provinces. However, ethnic composition of the units was never a cause for worry because by and large a fair system of effort and reward prevailed.

East Pakistani officers were a special lot in many ways. They shared all the pleasures and pains in the unit like equal comrades in arms, yet there was a strange floating impression that they were different. They were good in studies, generally very sharp and on a short fuse. This impression of disparateness led to a kind of mental distance between our Bengali compatriots and us with no apparent and immediate ill effects. Sometimes we felt that they would suddenly go quiet on seeing us approaching. By the time it was 1971, they had become more and more reclusive. They used to look for a separate place to sit and engage in heated but low toned discussions. We did not have any idea about their gradual restlessness or prickliness, nor was it considered good manners to overhear others with an effort. Those who knew what the matter was kept quiet about it or maybe nobody in a position of authority listened to them. A great storm was brewing up, which eventually broke upon the likes of us suddenly and with great fury. I was posted to East Pakistan as a young staff officer in an infantry brigade in Jessore and reported there on November 17, 1971, only to be hit by the full force of this hurricane in the face. Racial hubris, political expediency and lust for the control of state power had blinded our national leadership utterly. We were about to pay a horrible price.

The writer is a retired brigadier of the Pakistan Army. He can be reached at clay.potter@hotmail.com