The 100-year history of the Rashtriya Indian Military College is replete with great men, stories of their achievements and playful mischiefs
At my age, memory is fading more gracefully than are my Rashtriya Indian Military College (RIMC) and Gorkha silk ties. The RIMC, when I joined in 1950, was called Prince of Wales Royal Indian Military College and had English masters including Hugh Catchpole, the principal. He would ferry some of us to Mussoorie on Sundays to share toll tax and, more importantly, push his aging Austin up steep gradients. He employed the same strategy inside the squash court, luring you with a squash ball if you took three points in three games playing him. Similar inducements were offered when he tested you with a new ball on the cricket pitch. Remarkable were those inscrutable souls, giving so much of themselves to cadets so that they proved the best in whatever they did. While PC Syam’s curly hair swung starboard, the cricket ball moved both ways. Or Raj Manchanda, rising to become the national squash champion, and your author winning the western India junior championship in 1956 — that was the Catchpole magic which simultaneously ensured your English grammar achieved the same excellence. The diminutive EJ Watson, who got married at the ripe young age of 94 in England, was his barking buddy.
Today, RIMC that the likes of Catchpole, Watson, Shingal and Sharma helped make a world-class institution, is celebrating its centenary. It is truly the cradle for valour and excellence. The first Indian officer to win the Victoria Cross was Prem Bhagat who rose to become an Army Commander, combining style with substance. Bhagat would have made a great Army chief had Indira Gandhi kept her promise. The first PVC was also bagged by a Rimcollian, Somnath Sharma, the savior of Kashmir. The college bequeathed on the nation four Army chiefs, Generals KS Thimayya, GG Bewoor, VN (Titch) Sharma and S Padmanabhan, and two Air chiefs, Nimmi Suri and Birendra Dhanoa who bombed the hell out of Pak jihadists at Balakot. The list of Army, Air Force and Navy Cs-in-C and flag officers will fill a book.
Titch Sharma helped jog my memory about our Pakistani Old Boys and visit to what has now become an enemy country. But in better times, things were very different. Recalling exploits of Gul Hassan who became Army chief, two Air chiefs, Asghar Khan and Nur Khan, and Navy chief Mohammad Sharif was enthralling. There is also Col Inayatullah Hassan who fought in the Anglo-Indonesia war as a pilot while Maj Taj Mohammad Khanzada DSO, MC who joined the INA and numerous others who imbibed grit from the boxing ring at RIMC.
As a greening cadet, we got to sneak peak at RIMC reunions. Take the one in 1952. Old Boys having fun on gravel and tarmac outside what is today the Bhagat Hall. Army Ambassador cars parked disorderly outside while Air Commodore Subiah performed somersaults, Rajwade cartwheels and Bhalu Kochhar’s hand springs, while Prem Bhagat perched on the bonnet of the Ambassador balancing his glass on his head and dancing to Gore gore banke chhore…the RIMC signature song. Sweating and sizzled, they would roll into the Mess for dinner as their better three-fourths continued jiving in the junior anteroom.
In 1956, along with Rimcollian Gentleman Cadets invited from the IMA, we were feasting on Scotch eggs when in strode sans fanfare, Army chief Thimayya. Instead of sitting at the Cadet Captain’s table, he joined us on the benches opposite it. He ate his breakfast with us, speaking to all. His tall figure and deep voice were spell-binding.
All the waiters at RIMC were from Goa — D’Souza, Rodrigues, Noronha… and head butler Thople. These great men took care of our culinary preferences and calories, never hesitating to serve extras. When college closed for holidays, they would migrate to join five star hotels in Mussoorie. As a young Captain, along with other Rimcollians, I landed up at the Savoy for the unmissable Miss Mussoorie contest. Hip flasks depleted, we eyed the bars manned by our Goan friends. A wink and a handshake were the password for drinks on the Savoy with choicest of Scotches and delectable snacks. This was the true double-engine friendship. Later in life, we reciprocated with bottles of Triple X Rum, the Goan elixir. At another reunion, the ageing Catchpole was the chief guest visiting from Pakistan. I brought Aditi whom I had not married. He confided in her the reason why he never married: “I feared she would poison me.” Just how many Rimcollians have been poisoned by their spouses, RIMC keeps no record. But wine merchant Bikram Singh treated us with the best of blended Scotches in his time. Gen Virendra Singh, who would not touch the stuff being a teetotaler and strict vegetarian, was an extravagant entertainer of booze. Even in London where he would rent a flat in the summer, he would introduce Rimcollians doing courses there to the high and mighty, including Field Marshal Edwin Brammal. Viru was once G3 to DQ Brammal.
Today, 100 years on, the youngest cadet, Nihar Reddy, all of 12 years seven months, will meet Gen Sharma, incredibly sprightly at 92. Rimcollians will be riotously happy, enjoying the centenary reunion guzzling RIMC spirits.
(The writer, a retired Lt Gen and a Rimcollian, was Commander, IPKF South, Sri Lanka, and founder member of the Defence Planning Staff, currently the Integrated Defence Staff. The views expressed are personal.)
