I ran into an NDA senior of mine at the New Year’s function. I had always admired and respected him. In fact, he was two courses ahead of me and used to be our Cadet Sergeant Major when I was a fourth-termer. He said: ‘You were always a doubtful case.’In school, there was a South Indian boy who was in the senior section. My father had put me in Army Public School, Dhaula Kuan. I, with my thick as a hick Haryanvi accent, was the butt of jokes and snide put-downs from better-accepted boys and girls. This boy was a tough bloke. He could beat the crap out of any superficial swaggering schoolmate.I gravitated towards the group of puppies who followed this paladin of manliness.The National Security Guard had just been raised after Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s assassination. We boys were thrilled by the news that India now had its own Black Cat Commandos. We used to read Commando Comics by the dozen every week. We puppies gave our paladin the highest honour: the moniker of ‘Black Ass Commando bhaiya’.He was tall, lithe, and strongly built, like a panther. One day, he took us to the Rajputana Rifles training area and said, ‘I will make commandos out of you snotty-nosed little nothings. I know what you call me behind my back.’He gave us the table No. 13 treatment — rolling, haunching, side rolling, helicopter, whisky, maharaja, murga murgi, you name it. God knows from where he knew all the special tortures that are standard fare in NDA.By and by, we the acolytes learnt how to climb a rope, run on zig-zag wooden ramps, jump ditches, and cross the 10-foot wall. One day, he called us to a special meeting and said: ‘I have cleared the NDA exams and SSB. Study hard and let me see how many of you qualify for NDA.’He joined the NDA, and we, his followers, did our best to make it there. Notwithstanding the benign and kind fatherly advice from my Army officer father: ‘Once you are 18, I will kick you out of the house, and you make your own living. Whether you become an officer or a janitor or a pickpocket, that’s your outlook.’The gods that hold the cards of incoherent fate for boys like me, and propel them ahead with a zest for life, were kind to me. I did join the National Defence Academy.The ground in which my habits and inclinations had already taken root found fertile soil there. I loved two things beyond everything else. Physical exercise and challenging my limits to the extreme, and second was the love of learning new things, either through activities or books.NDA was extremely generous to me. Soon, I started notching up the afternoon punishment runs and restrictions.The crop of minor infringements never dried up. Whenever I found time, I would sneak away to the magnificent library of NDA, and my satchel had more wayward books than my syllabus requirements.I didn’t pass out with any medallions of glittering excellence from NDA. I just had meagre pickings to show for my three years there. I had learnt a bit of swimming, a bit of horse riding, and did some boat pulling in the Peacock Bay. I read glorious and impressionable books that sparked my desire to write.The biggest takeaway without doubt — friends and coursemates.Now retracing the journey, I feel the most precious gift is the one you take years to acquire for yourself. This is the love for things that elevate life. As the seniors used to exhort in the academy when we were in odd, physically straining postures: ‘You bloody chap, last it out. It’s all bloody mental.’If you have come out mentally and physically stronger, with a few good habits and a few good desires from the National Defence Academy, these gifts will carry you through handsomely in life.— Excerpted from ‘The Cantonment Ghosts and Other Stories’, with permission from The Browser