Life in cantonment

Those of us who reside on civvy street have flawed notions about life in the country’s cantonments. Once upon a time this was defined by an envy for the “facilities” enjoyed by the defence forces — subsidised canteen services, for instance, and the availability of liquor at rates no bootlegger could match. This counts for less now as hypermarkets have helped the price-sensitive housewife pick out bargains in her neighbourhood, or online, and the availability of alcohol is no longer an issue, unless you live in prohibition-bound Gujarat, Bihar, or Nagaland, in which case “connections” with faujis can help you score the occasional tipple. There are some more myths about frequent partying, or access to cars with drivers for the memsahibs, but as is often the case, the taint of a few merely misrepresents the rest.

Growing up in cantonments was a privilege and vastly different from these perceived distortions. Most cantonments, even in the midst of rapidly expanding cities, tend to be oases amidst the squalor that is urban India. Public areas are as well tended as homes and embody the spirit that we can live cohesively, and well, should we choose to. For a youngster, cantonments offer what crowded city colonies fail to provide — affordable sports facilities, libraries, clubs where you learn to socialise without being an embarrassment, tolerance and understanding of the other, and the ability to cope with life’s googlies. 

If that is the upside of cantonment life, there are downers too. Accommodation is not always a given with a queue for family quarters that can take up to half of one’s posting with life lived in a cramped mess room. Allotted homes are often too old to cope with modern amenities. Frequent postings imply constant adjusting to newer environments, and friends, schools, teachers and uneven teaching standards. My own growing up as an army brat led me to 13 schools across the country’s length and breadth in places as far apart as Deolali and Wellington, Coonoor and Kolkata, Kasauli and Pathankot. 

My father wasn’t the only fauji in a family that has had strong martial roots. Both grandfathers served in the Army — one travelling to London before the start of the second World War to pick up a medal and a pension guaranteed to three generations, the other participating in the same war and doing time as a prisoner of war in Italy. Expectedly, several members of the tribe chose the Army as careers, taking hardship, non-family postings in their stride while helping their own children compete with their civilian peers whose continuity in education served them better when it came to studying for higher education and alternative professions.

But the lure of the Army remains strong among children of defence personnel. The new generation in the family is spread all the way from Congo as part of a UN peacekeeping force to those who have qualified as pilots in the Army’s aviation wing, while others remain in the infantry, artillery and armoured corps. As a grateful nation pays lip-service to our soldiers keeping vigil in these ratcheting times, we might do well to remember that life in the cantonments isn’t just about pruned trees and starched linen. And that soldiers are being lost every day on the borders while we pursue our own, less altruistic, aims.