BENGALURU: “When you’re in the army, there comes a moment in every soldier's life when he feels he will not live to see another day. Mine came in 1971 in Pakistan, when we heard that their tanks were going to surround us. We knew that if that happened, there would be no escape,” said Brigadier Suryanarayan who has just finished his book Many Laughs and a Few Tears. Part fiction and part memoir, the stories deal with his own life experiences, the 35 years he spent in the army, the places he has seen and the people he met.
On that fateful day in December, however the Brigadier, panic-stricken, dashed off a letter to his wife of two years, leaving her what little he had and asking her to take care of their baby daughter. “An aircraft had landed to deliver something and I put the letter on it,” he said. As it happened, nothing of the sort happened and his wife received it, much to her surprise, a month later. “I was sitting with her at the time and she started crying,” he said.
The book is full of stories like this, some humorous, others poignant. “I'm having it self published,” Suryanarayan remarked. “My first book, which went to publishers, was so overpriced that nobody could afford it.” This time around, he has a couple of reasons for doing the thing himself. The cost of printing each book, artwork, sketches and all, is about Rs 360, but Suryanarayan is pricing them at Rs 250, inclusive of delivery charges. “All the money that comes in will go towards educating children,” he said.
Loss appears to be one more recurring theme in his stories, for as he says, when someone is in the army, there is no guarantee of safety. “In 1965, also in Pakistan, I was an observation post officer. A close friend took on a task that should rightfully have been mine, as the senior most officer. Still, nobody could fill my post and he went out at midnight. By 3 am, we got his body back, he had taken a bullet through the head.”
The stories contain there share of humour too, Suryanarayan laughs as he recalls the mortar and pestle incident, saying, “It had been sent to me by train, wrapped in a cloth. It so happened that a part of pestle was sticking out. When I arrived at the station, I found a group of people standing around it. They had put some holy ash on what they could see of the pestle and were praying! I joined in too and did a quick namaste before I took my mortar and pestle home!”
He speaks fondly of the legendary Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw, with whom he worked at several stages during his time as an officer. “He was a fine person. I met him when I was second lieutenant, a low ranking officer. Still, he never dismissed anyone, no matter what their rank,” Suryanarayan said.
Retirement provided inspiration for a story too. “When you’re in the army and you retire, you wake up one morning and there’s nobody in your house. For the first time in a long time, you have to make your own tea,” said Suryanarayan, who will turn 74 next year. “You head back to the unit, where people have seen you everyday for years, but you're turned away with the remark, ‘Civilians not allowed’,” he said. “It’s sudden and it’s sad, but that’s how life is. It carries on.”
