on not being so TALL at all

THE CRUCIAL FEW INCHES


“One hundred and sixty eight centimetres” was the declaration by the nursing assistant at the Service Selection Board ( SSB ) medical examination centre and I for the first time was made aware that I was on the wrong side of ‘FIVE -TEN’, the height of AIM ( Average Indian Male). Though I was eligible to join Army as an officer however I did lack the ‘crucial few inches’ to form part of the crowd. Being a Sikh, I should have formed part of the elite ‘SIXERS”, but unlike my brother ( who is six feet plus) , the genes controlling my height had my mothers influence ( who is on the wrong side of FIVE- FIVE ).

Never in my school days I had been conscious about the height but as soon as I joined the National Defence Academy ( NDA ), I was part of medium built cadets group. There were ‘shorties’ too but their number was too small to be of any consolation and all of them seem to have accepted their ‘shortcoming’.

In the physical training the ‘mediums’ found themselves working harder. In games we were declared outstanding ( standing outside ) members and in drill we were dangerously near the ‘short’ end. Basketball and Volleyball had no place for the likes of us. We grew with a constant complex of neither being a ‘shortie’ nor a ‘tall-y’. the same story continued in the Indian Military Academy ( IMA ) too. By sheer luck I was commissioned into a regiment where the average height of the troops is medium. It was indeed a relief but still in each company there were enough boys who were FIVE-TEN plus.

The army life involves a lot of traveling and now I realised that I had some advantages too, being of medium built. In buses , trains and aircrafts, the taller one shad great difficulty in adjusting their bulks into the ‘economy’ seats and berths. Low frame door panels left their marks on foreheads ‘higher’ than mine. The tall guys could easily be spotted both when present on parades or when absent. In all games and other soldierly activities, there was too much pressure on the tall guys to perform better. On long reconnaissance missions with the Commanding Officer, I could easily fit in the rear seat of the VIP Jonga while my senior ( who was a tall-y )had great difficulty in getting inside the vehicle. His head banged against the metal roof every time the vehicle entered ‘ a rough patch’ and most of these missions were in rough patches only. Never in a cinema hall anybody told me to keep my head to one side only or to adjust my posture. However the complex of not being too tall was always there and me buying a concave mirror also could not get it out.

But very soon my complex(es) about the height were put to permanent rest once for all. We were operating in the counter insurgency environment in Kashmir valley and encounters with foreign terrorists were a regular affair. It was in one such operation that I was standing behind a small bush when all of sudden a ‘Six Plus’ terrorist appeared form nowhere from the dense forest. Both of us fired un-aimed bursts from our AK -47 rifles almost simultaneously, as we were hardly few metres apart. It was the burst from my rifle that caught him and his burst went just centimetres above my head. I thanked God for not answering my prayers for increasing my height and to all those pharma companies whose medicines had no affect on me ( despite their assured tall claims ). It was thus because of the crucial few inches ( or lack of them ) that I lived to write this story without any complexes.