A decade and a half ago, Veteran Major General Jambusarwalla and Mrs. Hufreez Jambusarwalla visited Niagara Falls, US side.  We all decided to meet them there as they did not have a Canadian Visa. Our children were very excited to meet the General as they had heard from their dad a great deal about the wonderful human being and adorable military leader worthy of emulation. It is believed that on the first day of raising the Artillery Division, the General called his two principal staff officers and said to them, “To be efficient the formation must first be happy. You look after the happiness part and I the efficiency part.”

 Much as the General requested us not to bother, I wasn’t going to miss this opportunity to meet someone whom I so admired and more so I wanted the children to meet him. On the appointed day, we set out from home, crossed the international border and reached the hotel where the couple were to check-in. We received them there, and on meeting us, the General quipped with characteristic humour, “What better can a retired General from the Indian Army ask for at the Niagara Falls than a General Salute from a Colonel and family.” We then had dinner and shared a couple of wonderful hours together. The children were overwhelmed by the couple’s warmth and love.

One anecdote that he narrated particularly warmed the cockles of my heart. Interacting with Nikhil the General said, “Your Dad was arrogant and a bit of it did rub on his soldiers.”

“You can’t be serious Sir!” I interjected.

“In a positive way, I must add,” said the General and he narrated an incident that occurred while he was the Commandant at the School of Artillery and our Regiment – 125 SATA Regiment – a cooperating unit with the School.

“Most evenings Hufreez and I went on a long walk in the cantonment.  Generally, the soldiers walking in the opposite direction conveniently turned left or right as they understandably preferred not to confront a General.   Few soldiers with a bit of instilled confidence walked past us smartly with a greeting. One evening, when two soldiers crossed us with a smart greeting, I said to Hufreez, ‘They are from 125 SATA.’ She wasn’t convinced and said that possibly I was needlessly over-impressed with the Commanding Oficer. The next evening a similar event occurred. When two soldiers crossed us, I summoned them after they greeted us and I asked them, ‘Which Regiment are you from?’

Both said in unison ‘Sir, 125 SATA Regiment,’ visibly proud and confident.”

While driving back, our son Nikhil said that the General was so down-to-earth and that he did not fit into the frame of a General that he had in mind. He was expecting a rigid, tall and a perfect military figure from what he had heard about him, but what he experienced was a simple human being full of energy, warmth and lots of humour, who came down to a kid’s level to enable a smooth and easy interaction. Nikhil summed up his final opinion with a statement – He is very Napoleonic.

“Great things in your life will mostly come in short packets. One’s got to look for them, identify them, explore them, imbibe them and learn from them,” was my reply.

As I continued to drive homeward, I reminisced about the unit I commanded and my effort to transform the outlook of the boys. On assuming command of the Regiment while we were deployed in Rajasthan in 2002, my first command order was a somewhat quixotic one about dress code for soldiers.  Please click here to read.

On returning to Devlali after the operational deployment, I was irked by the number of worthless documents/registers that the unit maintained. The first to be thrown out the window was the Out Pass Register. To my mind, Out Pass is the vestige of the British Indian Army where the officers – mostly British – did not have the requisite faith in the Indian soldiers. They had to instill checks and procedures to reduce their movements in civil areas, particularly with a view to minimise the effect of any possible subversive influence.

We did away with the Out Pass Register as I had complete trust in our soldiers that they will abide by orders and instructions and will conduct themselves in a soldierly manner when outside the Regiment, more so under the pressure of such a trust. The need to treat them as soldiers worthy of trust rather than as jail inmates was foremost in my thoughts. The soldiers’ trust in the command echelons too increased manifold by this action that they realised their actions should not bring any blot on the Regiment. Instructions were passed that any soldier leaving the Regimental area only needed to inform his Section/ Platoon Commander about his going out and the likely time of return. It was a little thing with a big impact.

The only covenant was that they should all be smartly turned out in their Sunday best – pants, full-sleeved shirt tucked in, belt and leather shoes, well groomed hair, aptly perfumed.

One morning when I complimented the Stick Orderly – Gunner Deepak Pathak on his turnout, he replied, “Sir your orders on out-pass and soldiers’ turnout have gone down well with everyone. Even  Havildar Dharambir (Kabaddi Team Captain and Soccer Team Vice Captain – Please click here to read more about Havildar Dharambir) has shed his favourite Kurta-Pyjamas and now wears full-sleeved shirts and pants.”

Are the Indian Navy’s sonars and radars switched On?

For more about Gen Jambusarwalla, please click here.