55 YEARS OF GOLF

Five years ago while enjoying a round at the Dhaula Kuan Army Golf Course, it suddenly struck me that I had been playing golf for 50 years. Well, make it 55 now!

It all started in 1964-65 while I was a Divisional Officer at NDA Kharakvasla. I was fond of Tennis and Squash and considered Golf to be an old man's game. My knowledge of golf was confined to my reading of PG Wodehouse stories generally recounted in his books by the 'oldest member' of a club! Then one fine day, two of my bachelor mates,  Tiger Talwar and Subodh Gupta literally dragged me to the golf course. My first coach was  ‘Dimmy’ Jouralov about whom I have written in detail elsewhere. Briefly, he claimed to be from the ‘blue-blooded’ czar family and escaped from Russia at the time of the Bolshevik Revolution. After travelling through Central Asia, he made his way to India and became the leader of Maharaja of Patialas's band. He then came to JSW Dehradun and finally to NDA Kharakvasla. He taught Russian for a number of years till he was relieved of academic activities and retained as officer-in-charge of the NDA golf course. He was a good coach and player and while in his 60s he could not drive more than 150 yards and played only irons, he was straight as an arrow and unfamiliar with the roughs! The NDA course was raw, the greens were actually 'browns' of hardened sand and the fairways had little grass which made it necessary to play off a mat. Thanks to us hackers, most of the mats were hole-ridden and it was a race to be early on the course so that one could get a decent mat. Fortunately, there were not too many golfers those days.

I was then transferred to Delhi as Flag Lt to Commandant National Defence College and continued my golf at the Air Force Race Course which then was the only golf course in Delhi apart from the Delhi Golf Club. It was a 9-hole course confined to the front of the clubhouse. My mentor and coach was Mohinder who is still seen on the course occasionally and it was a nostalgic moment meeting him again recently. One of my memories of the Course dates back to 1966 when we were told to clear away for the landing of a Caribou plane for trials! Fascinated, we watched it land and resumed our game after it took off.

Meanwhile Tiger Talwar, who had also fetched up in Delhi, and I applied for membership of the Delhi Golf Club which we got within a month. At the DGC, one got to rub shoulders with famous players of the time like Billoo Sethi and Ashok Malik. The latter’s father, HS Malik, was still frequenting the club. Youngsters like Vikramjit Singh and Manmohan Singh were snapping at the heels of Sethi and Malik. My favourite  player of those days, Rajkumar ‘Pit’ Pitamber, a Bombayite, was a frequent visitor for major tournaments like the India Open. At the 1966 tournament, the holder Billoo Sethi was leading the famous Australian 5-time British Open champion Peter Thomson by a stroke after the 9th hole on the final day. On the 10th, Billoo was sitting pretty with his second close to the pin whereas Thomson was barely on the green. That’s when fortunes turned. Thomson made a monster putt while Billoo missed his. Thomson then slotted in birdies after birdies to overwhelm Billoo by, if I recall correctly, four strokes!

Back to the Navy end-1966 and my home course was US Club, Colaba, Bombay.  The feature there was the famous crows which would pick up a ball in one fell swoop and deposit it in the ventilators of the nearby Nursing Officers’ Mess! I believe this still happens though caddies rush to cover the balls with pieces of red cloth.

A lot of forecaddies or 'Agewalas' went around the course bare-footed. A major reason was that after a drive, the well-paid agewala would walk over your ball, deftly pick it up with his toes unseen and leave it 20-30 yards ahead in a nice lie all without stopping. In one tournament, Admiral Ronnie Pereira, honest to the core, saw his agewala do that. The Admiral screamed at him and decided to give him a knock on the head. Unfortunately, the Admiral hit the defending agewala at a peculiar angle resulting in the former fracturing his thumb which kept him out of golf for a few weeks.

Navy had very few golfers then and the Secretary Indian Naval Sports Control Board was hard put to find golfers to form a team for the Inter-Services tournament. In 1968, the then Secretary LCDR Rusi Mehta saw me on the golf course. He asked me if I possessed a set. On my saying yes, he informed me that I was duly selected to be on the Navy team!

The next few years saw me representing the Navy in the august company of later admirals Ronnie Pereira, Tony Jain, Subhash Chopra and Krishen Batta. But our star golfer was Kulbhushan ‘Ustad’ Sood who was the Navy Champion for many years. He was always cool as a cucumber and nothing would faze him. Once when I was playing with him at the Army Course in Dhaula Kuan, he put his second shot in the deep front bunker guarding the 1st hole in those days. On my commiserating with him, he said, “Doesn’t matter. I’ll put it close to the hole and get my par”- and he did just that, not only then but every time his ball went into that bunker which was quite often.

In Cochin in 1970-71, Bolghatti was the only course to play on. 9 short holes around the island navigating through palm trees formed the fare. I was perhaps the only Navy regular with a bunch of tea estate managers and brokers for company. Then came Admiral Vasu Kamath as FOCSOUTH. He was a keen golfer and my weekends were reserved for golf with him. A ride to and from Bolghatti in the Admiral’s barge was a bonus!

Because of the tall trees, Bolghatti was the centre of many peculiar incidents. The one I remember vividly was when on the short 3rd hole I hit a tree high up. The ball remained stuck on the tree and I had to play another. The next day I hit a similar shot and to my delight, two balls dropped including the one of the previous day!

Transferred to Vizag as the first FCO of the newly-formed Eastern Fleet, the golf scene shifted to East Point Golf Course in Waltair Uplands, about 20 kms. from the naval base. When Admiral Ronnie Pereira took over as FOCEF, it was standard practice for him to personally drive up to my flat in Naval Park and pick me up for golf. He would not spoil his staff car driver’s weekend!

The Vizag Course was pretty rocky somewhat like Kharakvasla. Once I topped the ball which travelled close to the ground and suddenly I lost sight of it. After a few moments, I heard a sound from the back. Turning around, I saw that it was my ball which had apparently hit a stone, ballooned up, altered course by 180* and fell about 30 metres behind me. Here too we had 'browns' of sand matted together by oil. An interesting feature was that the ball left prints of the putts on the browns so you could analyse the path your ball took to the hole.

In 1978-80 I was on the Directing Staff in the Defence Services Staff College, Wellington. Those were excellent golfing days. Kailash Kohli was my regular partner and we were an unbeaten combination. In ’79, I was made the Golf Captain of the DSSC team and with excellent players including the Commandant, Maj Gen Mohinder Singh, our team won almost every tournament we participated in.

1985-88, I was in Singapore as the Defence Adviser in the Indian High Commission. As military attaches, we were given membership of the hilly Sembawang Country Club. We had to pull our own carts and if you could last 18 holes in that hilly terrain and warm and humid climate, you could consider yourself to be in the top naval medical category of S1A1! In 1987, I won the Military Attaches golf tournament and was presented a voucher of 200 Singapore dollars to be redeemed at a crocodile leather shop on Orchard Road. My dear wife promptly went and bought herself a fancy handbag leaving some paltry balance plus out-of-pocket money for a belt for me!

Singapore is an ideal place for golf with around 16-17 lush courses in the island state including the Singapore Country Club and the scenic Sentosa. Towards the end of my stay, the new Raffles Country Club at Jurong started functioning. That course was designed by a sadist with more water hazards then I have seen on any course. A golf get-together was organized there to bid farewell to the departing Malaysian High Commissioner to which all Ambassadors and High Commissioners including our own Sankaran Nair, an avid golfer, and military attaches were invited. All of us sank 4-5 balls in the water hazards but the worst hit was the chief guest who lost a dozen and walked away after 13 holes fortunately without throwing his set in the water!

Once on a visit to Delhi from Singapore, I called on the then CNS, Admiral Tahiliani. Earlier, when he was CinC West and I was commanding Trishul, the Admiral saw me playing golf at the US Club and chided me wondering how naval officers found time to play golf. But now I learnt that he had been bitten by the bug. I asked him how his game was progressing and he said he had shot a 67 at the DGC that morning. I wowed and said that was excellent. His wry reply, “Yeah, for 9 holes?”.

Shortly after my return to India, I left the Navy in 1989 and have settled down in Delhi. For over 30 years now, my home course has been the Army Dhaula Kuan course which over the years has expanded from 12-holes to a full-fledged 18. After 40 years of golf, this course presented me with my first hole-in-one on the 9th in 2005. A couple of years later, I got a second and then a third one on, no April fool, 01 April 2015! Lightning strikes many times and I have added two more and on the fifth occasion, I just shrugged it off with 'oh, another one'!

Dhaula Kuan has provided many curious incidents but a truly rare one happened some years ago. Parts of 11th and 14th fairways are in opposite  directions. Playing the 14th, I hit a fairway wood and started walking. A very excited golfer playing the 11th came running to me and announced breathlessly that his ball had collided with mine in mid-air! On another occasion, my friend Rocky Mehta was walking towards his ball on the 17th fairway unmindful of eggs that a quail had laid on the ground. The mother bird started shrieking and chasing him and it was quite a sight seeing Rocky waving his club and running for his life reminding one of the Hitchcock movie “The Birds”.

For a few years in late 90s and early 2000s when we lived in Noida, Premvir Das, DS Kanwar, DK Sharma and I played regularly on the Noida Golf Course. Late VK Sabhiki also used to join in at times. One game I remember vividly was on 9/11 when I shot a very satisfying 9 over and came home with a 56" chest, switched on the TV and watched awestruck the happenings in New York.

Of all sports, the popularity of golf has really soared exponentially. In the 60s, membership of Delhi GC was just an application away although it was the only proper course in Delhi. Today it will take a lifetime!

As the cliché goes, ‘Golf is a way of life' and I hope I can continue this way as long as I can. Amen!



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NDA 1964-65

On board Khukri, I received my letter of appointment transferring me to National Defence Academy, Kharakvasla, end-December 1963.

On arrival at NDA, I was told to proceed to ‘J’ (Juliet)  Squadron where I reported to the Squadron Commander, Maj Shyam Rattan.  We found a common link as he was the brother of CDR Anmol Rattan who was the Engineer Officer on board Ranjit where I did my small ship time as a Midshipman in 1959.  My colleague Div Offrs were Flt Lt RS Rana who being a fighter pilot always introduced himself as 'Speedy', and Capt Surjit Kumar of J&K Rifles. Our Battalion Cdr was Wing Cdr ‘Barney’ Fernandes, a  fine officer and gentleman.

One term later, Maj Shyam Rattan was replaced by Maj John Verghese, brother of the well-known journalist BG Verghese.

I was a bachelor and staying at the Officer’s Mess. Life for bachelors at the NDA was very peculiar. A typical day started at about 0630 when one watched cadets at their outdoor training like PT, Drill or Horse Riding. During the day, one was fully occupied with paperwork, cadets’ reports, an odd lecture, interviews with cadets, watching cadets at games, etc., till about 1800 when a total hush descended on the one horse town! The married folks went home happily but the bachelors, before the advent of TV and with entertainment spots far off in Poona, were at a loose end. Inevitably, we fetched up at the bar where drinks and singsong sessions took us well into the night. My bar mates included Mel Kendall, Subodh Gupta, Lalit 'Tiger' Talwar, 'Bogey' Borgonah, 'Laddu' Malik, Sudhir 'Ike' Isaacs and 'Honky' Mukuti among others. While the songs we sang followed a wide range from Pankaj Mullick and KL Saigal to Jim Reeves, Cliff Richards and Beatles, the one I remember the most was the last named's "I Saw Her Standing There" where Bogey Borgonah and I would try to outdo each other on the 'My-eeeeeen' part!

We had many colourful personalities to keep us amused. There was Maj Shyam Rattan who was actually a very senior officer being a colleague of the Commandant, Maj Gen Ranbir Bakshi. He had an enormous number of yarns to tell. My favourite was the one about his time at Monaco where he was posted during WW II. He said the Principality was so small that when he slept at night, his head was in Monaco and his feet in France! He would often come up with some self-made ones like the time he took a lift with someone on a scooter. When it started raining, the driver coolly switched on wipers on his sunglasses and carried on driving fast unaffected by rain.

When Maj Shyam Rattan was blessed with a third daughter in a row, all of us congratulated him but were aghast when Speedy went up to him and smilingly offered his ‘heartfelt condolences’. When we tried to shush him, he laughed us off and said that was how ‘we Punjabis’ view the occasion! To his utter credit, Maj Shyam Rattan took it all very sportingly and thanked Speedy with a smile.

An interview Maj Shyam Rattan conducted in the Divisional Officers' office with the three of us present was the funniest I have witnessed. The interviewee was his nephew, Rajeev Rattan, son of his brother Maj Prem Rattan. The interview was strictly formal following the prescribed format like asking Rajeev's name, father's name, home address and details of relations in the Services' where Rajeev named his father and Maj Shyam Rattan. Maj Shyam asked where the uncle was posted to which the straightfaced reply was, "He is the Sqn Cdr in Juliet sqn." The three DOs were dumbstruck watching this remarkable act of uncle and nephew where not even a trace of smile or familiarity could be seen on the faces of the two. Once Rajeev was dismissed, the four of us laughed our hearts out.

Then there was this lovable person, Dmitri ‘Dimmy’ Jouralov, who used to teach Russian when I was a cadet. He was now too old to teach but fit enough to look after the NDA Golf Club. He along with my friends Subodh Gupta and Tiger Talwar insisted on my taking up golf which I had dismissed till then as an old man’s game. I am indeed grateful to them as I continue to play and enjoy the game till today. One day I said to Dimmy that I got a stiff neck while playing golf. He strongly chided me and said, “Never! You cannot get a crick in the neck if you play proper golf! ”

Dimmy’s other interest was the bar. Those were days of prohibition in Maharashtra. So invariably we used to see Dimmy in the evening searching for someone to stand him a drink with his favourite line, “Water is the best drink in life but I can’t afford the best. So give me the second best, a rum!”

A very likeable Social Studies teacher who shall remain unnamed, was also a proficient tennis player. That probably gave him a good appetite. Once when he was staying in the Mess, he kept asking the waiter for chapatis after chapatis. The waiter got fed up and when the teacher landed up for his next meal, the waiter brought 50 chapatis and plonked them in front of him. The teacher went red in the face and screamed at the waiter inquiring if he thought the former was a pig. He finally dismissed the waiter saying, “Now take one away”.

One of the Battalion Cdrs was Lt Col BD Malhoutra, a proper ‘Saheb’ complete with a fine moustache and a British accent. Once he was in charge of a cadets’ camp for which a route march was to start at 0300. All of us were lined up when Col Malhoutra started inspecting the cadets in total darkness. He stopped in front of one and asked his name. The reply, “Cadet Bewtra, sir”.

“Spell it” said the Colonel.

“B-E-W-T-R-A.”

The Colonel shouted at the top of his voice with some choice abuses in Punjabi ending up with “You Angrez de puttar, can’t you spell your name simply as BATRA instead of  anglicising it as Bewtra?” All of us quietly sniggered wondering why the Colonel had a ‘U’ in his Malhoutra!

The loneliness of bachelors resulted in a few love affairs in the NDA. My colleague Surjit got hitched to a lady doctor posted in K’vasla MH and another Div Off and coursemate Rameshwar ‘Billoo’ Ratra married Roop, daughter of Maj K Rai Singh, the famous test cricketer who was then in the Army Training Team in the NDA. The rest of us had to be content with the  occasional ‘Socials’ where we were lucky if we could find a lady willing to give us the pleasure of a dance. Maggie Fernandes, the pretty wife of our Battalion commander, often obliged us sportingly.

Which brings me back to Wg Cdr Fernandes. I shall always remember a lecture given by him on ‘Leadership’ to the cadets with the unforgettable quote from “Hamlet”:

“This above all: to thine own self be true,

And it must follow, as the night the day’,

Thou canst not then be false to any man.”

Well into my third term, life was getting a bit monotonous at K’vasla. Providentially, I was called up to Delhi for an interview with the Commandant NDC, VADM AK Chatterji, later Chief of the Naval Staff, who wondered if I would be his Flag Lt! Would I?! I said yes before he changed his mind and left NDA end-May 65 for New Delhi.

A most rewarding moment these days is when I run into an ex-cadet of mine who recognises me and comes up to greet me.