The Olive Green Gypsy Trail: Displacement and Relocation

Roopali Sircar Gaur

“I have received my Movement Order,” Dad declared. Mother looked panic-stricken. “Start packing! We are leaving in 15 days.”

Soon those boxes made from wooden crates would begin getting a new coat of black paint again.

And slowly the mind would begin to dismantle itself.

Time to get moving.

New home, new school, new friends.

A train would take us away from all that which was familiar. The unfamiliar was exciting and full of anticipation too.

The temporary accommodation had predictably remained temporary for two years. The boxes never opened. Except the one that said “kitchen”. We seldom ever made it to the so-called “permanent” housing. It was a sort of cheat word. A year and a half later or, if you were lucky, two years later that “movement order” would become a reality.

I am an army brat and an army spouse. So, I have never ever had a forever home. A permanent impermanence and dislocation stalk us military families. Yet we learn to rejoice in this continual displacement. Perhaps it’s embedded in our psyche or, as some say, in our DNA.

The boxes mark a soldier’s life journey. Stencilled in white, every box sets up a trail. Emblazoned with the development of a career. From the small precious tin trunk, marked “Cadet” “Number” “Indian Military Academy” to Captain to Major to Lieutenant Colonel to Colonel to Brigadier and on and on. Travel details etched in white paint and in our memories. Bangalore to Dehradun, Jaipur to Kolkata, Srinagar to Thiruvananthapuram, Bhuj to Kohima. The promise of all journeys spawned by the small tin trunk, long ago, marked “Cadet”.

We often travelled to our destination on military trains. These trains carried troops and vehicles and weapons and all the property of the unit or regiment. And some animals too. Chickens and goats. Rescued animals and birds that became regimental mascots. The Military Train always took a special route and stopped for a long time in the non-commercial parts of the main station. Food would be cooked and served by the Officers’ Mess cooks. Hot meals, as we impatiently waited. Security checks had to be done. Only when the bugle sounded could the train leave the station. Admittedly, that part was quite thrilling!

 As the train rumbled by, catching speed, children waved and random adults watched in awe as soldiers sat atop battle tanks, loaded on the train, their long guns covered with tarpaulin. We felt a strange sense of adventure and pride. Trains that left from big stations and sometimes from small military zones were accompanied by nimbu paani (lemonade), cucumber sandwiches and packed lunches. A happy pipe band offered a farewell tune. Saying goodbye through train windows decorated with marigold flowers was always painful. Well wishes would pour in for services rendered. Who knew when we would meet again!

We travelled all over India, and lived in homes that didn’t let us feel homeless. Even if it was just one room with no kitchen, sending us off to the Officers’ Mess for every meal. Each time, properly dressed to eat only with a fork and spoon. Tired of this ritual, we sometimes sneakily cooked a meal in our tiny dark storeroom. The travel trunks covered with shawls from the great Indian states of Manipur and Nagaland made up for furniture. If you walk into a military home in India, you will at once know where the family has lived. The garden umbrella from Pipli in Orissa; the decorative spear from Nagaland; the carved furniture from Rajasthan; the embroidered curtains from Jammu and Kashmir; and the carved sandalwood Shiva from Karnataka.

Other times we lay on cotton mattresses in the back of a truck known as a “three-tonne” as part of a military convoy that took us from Bangalore to the salubrious town of Wellington in the Nilgiri mountains. This was another one of Dad’s famous movement orders. We would stop at resthouses along the way. A hot meal here, a cool drink there. Surprised city slickers in their cars or on foot would stare and we would happily wave to them.

We were growing away and growing up on these many journeys. Military families are different. We are pan-Indian. Our fathers’, brothers’, and husband’s ranks, and more recently, our mothers’, sisters’, wives’ ranks were only for the office or the field. They did not apply at home. But the military work never stopped. Sometimes the dislocation was acute and the displacement traumatic. Everything was unreachable, incommunicable.

School break meant going to remote places named Aishmukam, or Tangdhar, Pedong, Dulabari, Zero, Churachandpur, Ganganagar, Dras, or Kargil. That depended on permission from higher authorities. Up, up in the mountains we went up winding roads where soldiers stand precariously plastered against the craggy face of the mountains. We looked up and shouted, “Thank You!”.

As we travelled across this vast country of ours crisscrossed with rivers and deserts, forests and lakes, mountains and villages, towns and cities, we imbibed its beauty and natural grandeur, and its people became part of the commonality of humankind. We erased all the divisive forces of caste, community, colour, food and religion.

Moving from one place to another was at times heartbreaking. A surprise awaited in the meeting new people, local cultural exchange, learning of languages, inculcating new food habits, and more. The frequent displacement of military life makes for the becoming of a composite culturally sensitive person. If you visit the home of a soldier from Rajasthan, his wife will happily feed you authentic South Indian delicacies! I own exquisite sarees from every state of India because we travelled miles into the interiors of these regions and bought them from the weaver. How else could we afford it?

Then one day, years later, travelling in a rattle-trap military “Jonga” jeep-like vehicle, I found myself being followed by a cheeky guy in a fancy car looking at me disdainfully and honking away. “I could easily buy a car like yours, buddy,” I thought bemusedly. “But you can never ride in an olive green Jonga. For that you must pay with your blood. Not with your cash.”

The painted black boxes carry a part of soldiers and their families’ lives. If you see such boxes at a railway station, telling you where they are going and who they belong to, please thank the soldier and wish him/her Bon Voyage!

---

Setu, July 2024