Undeterred by the language barrier, Indian and Russian soldiers carried out their recent counter terrorism drills by devising a mutual communication plan that at times helped them to interact without any interpreter.
Exercise Indra, the joint war games which concluded at the Mahajan Field Firing range here on October 25, witnessed around 250 troops of both forces jointly capturing notional rebel strong point by fire assault of attack helicopters and tanks and were also engaged in combat shooting and clearing villages.
"On the first day, the training was very difficult as we did not understand each other. But on the second day, we found a mutual language. As far as our private speeches were concerned, we could interact without any interpreters," said Chief of Staff 36th Russian Army Maj Gen Alexey Zavizion.
Similar were the reactions by his Indian counterpart.
"On a lighter note, we started with 'dumb charades' and we got used to it. Within the next two days, although not understanding the word, I started understanding what they were meaning," said 6 Independent Armed Brigade commander Brig V M Chandran.
He said it was a herculean task for the joint planning exercise on the first day because of the language barrier.
He maintained that there was a little difference in the way the Russians operate in comparison to the Indian Army which is why it generated the excitement and interest of getting this planning together.
"We found that after the first day, we could come up with a solution as far as carrying out this exercise is concerned. We actually got together to plan out an exercise which had semblance of the Russian and our way of tactics. Language might be a barrier but tactically we understood each other very well," he added.
