The essential ingredient

Lt Gen Raj Kadyan (Retd)

RAISING a new entity is a rewarding experience. On commissioning, I was posted to a battalion that was to be raised some three months hence. Being first on their rolls was a unique privilege. In later years, I was also involved in raising a division headquarters and the famed Black Cats. There were many eventful happenings during the first raising. But this narrative is about one individual. Our Commanding Officer was side-stepped from another battalion and brought mess cook Ramakrishna along on posting.

No amount of superlatives would suffice to describe Ramakrishna’s extraordinary culinary skills. He could produce the most exquisite mouth-watering dishes of any and every kind. But genius has its oddity. For one, Ramakrishna fiercely guarded his trade secrets. We tried attaching rookie cooks with the officers’ mess. Ramakrishna would make them chop firewood outside and would not allow them in. He was a despot in the cookhouse.

Ramakrishna was also addicted to the bottle. Barbeque was one of his specialities where he would pour a bottle of rum in the beast to give that unique taste. Whenever barbeque was prepared, we had to place a guard in the kitchen to ensure that the beverage went to the right destination; we learnt it from bitter experience.

Holi is our troops’ favourite festival. Keeping essential personnel on guard duty, others are left free to indulge. We had closed the officers’ mess after breakfast. In the afternoon, when I returned after playing Holi with the men, I noticed Ramakrishna slumped against a barrack wall, a half-empty bottle dangling from his hand. When I asked if he had eaten his food, his slurred reply was, “If my stomach had any spare capacity, I would have filled it with rum.”

As young officers, we exercised hard and had a horse’s appetite. Ramakrishna specialised in his hybrid egg-halwa. It was irresistible and we would consume three-four eggs in one sitting. Just before leaving the table, one of us would ask the barman to give Ramakrishna a large peg from his side. When we went to the cookhouse to give him the good news, he would say, “Pee liya Sahib.”

He always kept his ears glued to the dining hall door in anticipation, mug in hand.

In the mid-1960s, we were deployed along the ceasefire line in the Rajouri sector. One day, Ramakrishna misbehaved with the mess Havildar and the Commanding Officer ordered his imprisonment in the quarter-guard for seven days. I was Adjutant and the path from my bunkered office to the mess passed by his cell. He would wait near the grill and ask me how his replacement was working. To my (false) response that he was doing fine, Ramakrishna would grumble, “That nikamma knows nothing about cooking. I can see you are already losing weight.”

His concern was genuine and touching.

On the fourth day, the brigade commander announced a sudden visit and was to have lunch with us. He always relished our food. There was real dilemma. The CO was a known stickler. But in the interest of the battalion, some bending of rules was required. I furtively had him brought to the cookhouse where qaidi Ramakrishna cooked lunch under an armed guard. The lunch went tickety-boo. Unfortunately, that day. Ramakrishna had to forgo his liquid inaam; prisoners are not allowed to drink.

Ramakrishna was indispensable. After retirement. he was re-employed as a civilian cook and continued working in the battalion till liver cirrhosis did him in.

Every battalion has ‘Ramakrishnas’. They are organisational rivets; unsung heroes. Their contribution deserves due recognition.