A Field-Marshal Remembers : “A chit of a girl……..:

 

The year : 1996 . The month : December. The occasion : 16^th December, the 25^th Anniversary of the 1971 Indo-Pak War. The War in which India liberated East Pakistan, leading to the creation of Bangladesh, and the surrender of over 90,000 Pakistan soldiers.

The main participants of the war were still alive, and had gathered in Delhi to mark the silver jubilee of that memorable victory. Amongst them were Field Marshal Sam Maneckshaw, Gen JFR Jacob, Gen Jagjit Singh Aurora and many more legendary figures from the Army, Air Force and the Navy.

Ail India Radio was mounting a host of programmes to mark the occasion, and the presence of these actors of the war was seen to be an opportunity to interview them before they passed on the baton and retired from the world itself. My role was to stitch together a 30-minute documentary, along with veterans NB Nair and Jaswant Singh, using the soundbites from the interviews, which were being conducted by AIR News Services Talks Unit, and by the Delhi Station too.

Our Director General, Sahib Singh, was himself an army veteran, who had been recruited before the 1971 war, and had joined the Indian Information Service after retirement.

Our team, led by Mr. Sahib Singh reached the suite at the Oberoi where the Field Marshal was staying to interview him. When we rang the bell,  he opened the door himself, and beamingly shook hands with each one of us. He was tall, lean, very fair, with the famous handle-bar mustache, and dressed in a dark blue blazer.

While the equipment was being set up, he told us a story, the story of another interview, 25 years before, with the air of a skilled raconteur, to put us at ease.

“I am very nervous when I do interviews. I need to prepare myself”, said the man who had been the main architect of  the most convincing victory that India had won since Independence.

‘I learnt not to take the media lightly, in a very hard way. You see, a few weeks after the war ended, Times of India wanted to interview me. I agreed. “

“One fine morning, as I was shaving in my hotel room, the bell rang. I opened the door, still half-shaved, and there was this chit of a girl, very young really, who introduced herself as the Times reporter who’d interview me. I let her in, along with the photographer.”

“I requested her to wait on the sofa in my room, while I went back to complete my shave.”

“When I was in the bathroom, the girl called out to me, through the half-open door of the bathroom : General, after Independence, you could have to chosen to go and join the Pakistan army, you were given that choice.  Do you wonder what would have happened if you had done that?”

“Well, I was still shaving, and I gave a flippant and jovial answer, since the interview had not begun.”Well, my dear girl, I guess if I had done that, then Pakistan would have won the war!”

“I could hear her laughing at my answer, and then I came out of the bathroom, cleanly shaven, sat down, and did a long interview with her. I thought I had done it rather well, and she went away, along with the photographer, who took pics of me from a lot of angles”

“The next morning, I was woken up from sleep by a flurry of telephone calls.” “What have you said, Sam? Look at the Times of India” said family and friends. I grabbed a copy and, lo, the main headline on the front page of the newspaper read, “Pakistan would have won the war if I had led them – Gen Sam Maneckshaw”. I held my head in my hands. The one sentence that I thought was a joke, something off the record, had been faithfully copied down by the reporter, and  headlined by a canny editor at the venerable Lady of Boribunder, as TOI was called. The rest of what I had said in that long interview was overshadowed by that first paragraph.“

“All hell broke loose. Parliament was in session, and the opposition was baying for my blood, disrupting the Lok Sabha, and calling out “my intolerable arrogance”. “

“I got a call from the Prime Minister’s Office, asking me to come and meet Mrs. Indira Gandhi immediately. When I went to meet her, her eyes were blazing with anger, and she burst out : Sam, how could you have said that ?!!’

“I explained what had happened to her. She cooled down, though I don’t think she entirely believed me. But the legend of the arrogant Field Marshal was born that day”

“I realized, at a great cost, never to underestimate the media, even if it was a chit of a girl who represented it”

The entire episode was recited by the Field Marshal in a relaxed way, and with a twinkle in his eye, his polka-dot tie immaculately in place, seated on a rattan-work sofa in his suite.

Our Director General had kept quiet, engrossed at the story. He now spoke up : “Sir, do you remember you came to our mess just before the war, and gave us that inspiring speech ? I had just joined, and I had goose-pimples listening to you that day, and I remember that speech till today”

He had again become a cadet, in front of the legend, “Sam Bahadur”.

 

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