We were disciplined and we were woken up at 4.30 in the morning.

We used to manage to get up at that time, but some how sleep while brushing, finishing our early morning chores getting woken up in the toilet by good greetings "abe sale jaldi ajaa". We South Indian never knew what this meant.

We would assemble in the parade ground. Some of my co-trainees were lucky that they could still sleep while running without dashing into one another.

Then our Parade. We would rush last to pick up the rifles on a mere belief one day the armourer would say all rifles are over.

We never saw such a day.

Then our tea break. Probably this was the only period where we could push about 1 liter of tea and each nearly half a dozen bananas, half roll dilpasand and some samosas. Still by 12.30 we were hungry and were eagerly looking for some pretext for early lunch.

Training days

We were woken up by 5.00 AM which is almost midnight for many of us in our homes. We were taken to a ground and made to run. It was indeed a thrilling experience to run when you cannot see your own palm.
Then we were asked to get ready by 7.00 AM after having our breakfast. We were served with Parathas which is fondly called as "Shaktiman" (Not the vehicle). Many of us south Indians had never seen such a dish, but had to gobble up.

We were taken to Logistics section. We were given one big bag (kit) which looked like a boxing bag. The bag was full of items viz-a-viz Stainless steel plate (till date I have retained as a prized momento), Mug, Winter vest, summer vests, boots, Dinner shoes, Canvas shoes, 3 pairs of socks, belts, anklets (not ghungroo), blue shorts, 2 pairs of cotton Khaki uniform.

We were then told to wear the Winter vest (which looked like a collarless T-shirt)in cream colour and blue shorts. This was our only dress for the next 3 months. In this dress we were once taken out of the gate when we had to travel by foot from Jalahalli West to Jalahalli East to get our Dental Check up done. This outing would be one of biggest outing in our lives after we went inside the training unit.

The next day we were told we would be taken to SSQ(Station Sick Quarters). We were given milk on that day in the morning. Many of us were not in the habit of drinking milk, still we were forcefully fed by our mentor. We were similarly force fed with a dozen tablets. This was the secret behind us getting drunk (with milk of course).
This was our malaria course of tablets.

Our First day with IAF

My Experience with IAF will be given here. Let me start with the first day of my career with IAF. On 12 Oct 1987 the Monday was my first day in IAF.
We were recruited in Chennai and were said that we would be routed to Bangalore. The same day we were sent to Bangalore by Bangalore mail. Though I belonged to Bangalore reaching the place with so many co-recruits and then all were dumped in a "Shaktiman" and sent to our Training Institute was a different experience.
On reaching there we had to wait for some time (hours) to get our billets. We were allotted one senior.
The most depressing incident for all our co-recruits came following. Many of them had punk style haircut, stepcut, all sorts of fancy hairdo. We were all taken to the barber shop enmasse to get ourselves 'disciplined'. I did not sport a different hairdo my haircut in regular used to be similar to the defence cut.
All were given the 'Traditional' 'Chappati cut'. Even though my hairs prior to this was very small even then the barber gathered maybe about 1/2 kg of hairs from me. (only imaginery weight). Imagine the plight of my other recruits.
Many of them literally wept for having joined the force only reason was haircut and not homesickness. The dinner in the mess was to be wasted as almost all of them did not have their dinner that day.