Author: Smita Nair
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: March 18, 2012

Introduction: Retired Naval officer brings alive life in a Sainik School in his short story compilation, After You Sir

From canteen manager Pillai battling with the demands of 600 hungry cadets to the tussle between every bunch of 50 boys at the Sainik School restroom to finish their chores within 15 minutes - there were eight bathrooms between them - and from the daily exercise regimen to the strategy they drew up to steal coconuts from trees in the middle of the night without getting caught, retired Navy officer Ramesh Babu has brought it all alive.

The ex-cadet of the Sainik School at \Kazhakuttom in Kerala has more such anecdotes in his compilation of short stories, After You Sir, a name borrowed from an anecdote in Babu’s life.

Babu, now based in Mumbai and assisting the Indian Navy in setting up a research institute, brought out the collection from experiences of serving and retired defence personnel. He has dedicated it to his alma mater.

Babu recalls an incident from the summer of 1998 when a young cadet and an alumni from the school had met him in Mumbai. The boy, who was from a poor background, was also facing some medical problems in enrolling in the academy, recalls Babu.

“It was when we were about to raise a toast together that he said After You Sir,” recalls Babu.

“We had used the phrase last in school. It made me think we never got to really know our batchmates’ families, as religion and wealth were never discussed in school. Everyone had to wear uniform through school life. The roll number served as our identity.

It stuck me that we need to help poor students sail through important years of their studies and start a fund to help the deserving ones. The book’s title is from that afternoon when the boy reminded me of my school 25 years after I left it,” says Babu.

The royalty is expected to help poor students at the school. Babu gives the reader a peep into life at a military school and has brought the characters to life. The laundryman, for instance, who serves as the boys’ access to the world outside. He is their man Friday “smuggling cigarettes, movie tickets and titillating books”.

The matron watchfully shadows them as a mother, and years later she receives Admiral Rajinder Singh before he takes charge as Chief of Staff at the Southern Naval Command. There is a MIG 29 fighter pilot, now a quadriplegic, Anil, who ‘writes’ about a tense cricket match from school days, punching the keyboard with a twig.

The book tells the reader about a school censor board that scrutinized letters before they were sent to parents. There are also anecdotes where lovers disguise as cousins to evade the peering eyes of the matron. Babu says his late father “always wanted to read the first copy” and that was how he was exposed to books and a storyteller was born.

“I travelled to many states and met former cadets, their parents, and former teachers of the school to compile the book. Yahoo group contributed as we would discuss our school life and were in touch with school mates,” says Babu.

More than a year was spent in meeting these people and collecting anecdotes. Some are hilarious, (imagine the governor pressing the cheeks of a grandmom assuming her to be a cadet in make-up at an annual day function) and some are heart-touching like a commander’s strict father gifting him a cane and asking him “never to use it on his kids”.

While the Old Boys Association continues to keep school anecdotes fresh using social media groups, Babu hopes the book reaches a wider audience. “Bonds we make there are for life. Even today, a roll number can mean a world of stories.

That was our identity. Our only identity,” says Babu of a disciplined and frugal childhood. The school, set up in 1962, now has a documented copy of the anecdotes that took shape in its environs.