Books Books and Books – IV : Regimental officers don’t read, they are soldiers first !

continued from books, books and books – III

My first place of posting was Mizoram. In field area, units usually stock up the kind of books best read when you are ‘soldiering’. We too had such a collection in our officers mess library and there were officers whose only favourite author was ‘anonymous’

We moved to Lucknow shortly where we had the Central Command Library. But it was meant for the oldies. Young officers , at least in those days were expected to be seen only in the sports fields or the training area. After all, unlike cadets, the officers did not even have an academic curriculum to worry about. Yes, the promotion exams were there, but they could be cleared through a combination of ‘kunji’ , smartness and timely support from helpful invigilators. Ostensibly to inculcate the habit of reading, the higher headquarters used to demand monthly submission of book reviews by every officer. As the report date neared, my stock value increased as I could pick up the nearest respectable looking book (can’t write about anonymous , you see) , flip through a few pages and produce an ‘ okay’ review. But, I must say, there were guys who could write a review even without a look at the book; mind you those were ‘netless’ days. When I was senior enough to groom young officers , I used to give them a long list of books to read, on their arrival in the unit and today I can say , everyone of them has benefited from that.

So by and large I read whatever was available in the regimental libraries. Sometimes when co-located with higher headquarters you had a wider choice of reading. Most of these libraries had a big chunk of collection on military science, then popular authors like, Arther Hailey, Sydney Shelden, John Gresham, Irving Wallace, Leon Uris, Robin Cook, Wilbur Smith, Robert Ludlum, Ken Follet, and Frederik Forsyth . There were certain books generally found in most regimental libraries ; biographies of military leaders, books by John Masters, Manohar Malgaonkar, and of course books on second world war. Barring the books on military science, it looks like a typical bookstore at a railway Station or Airport. Well life in Army is indeed like a palace on wheels; even the books we read conform to the idea.

http://mi59.blogspot.com/2011/05/fifth-and-last-part-of-books-books-and.html