Perched on a high stool in the officers bar, Major S surveyed his companions over a pitcher of beer. It was around one in the afternoon and the major always preferred a cool drink to rejuvenate him before lunch.

"You know," he says, "Though it looks as if this course is all physical, it isn't -- it's more of a training of the mind. What we teach them here is to understand their hidden capabilities. We build their confidence, their self esteem and their endurance."

Major S is a senior instructor at the Junior Leaders's Commando Training camp. Tucked away in Belgaum, 80 kilometres from Goa on the outskirts of Maharashtra, this is the army's only centre for training its personnel in unconventional warfare -- or rather, special missions as they call it.

The aim of the centre, a senior official had explained, was to produce individuals capable of carrying out subversive activities behind enemy lines. It does not produce crack teams, but individuals who can form crack teams in times of war.

"We are not in the business of training commandos who hang out of VIP's vehicles and point muzzles at the general public," he said, "We train men for war, not for peace-time operations. We teach them how to sneak into enemy land, carry out subversive activities and come out."

The concept of such specialised training was conceived in 1962, as an immediate aftermath of the Chinese aggression. The army's infantry school in Mhow was entrusted with the task. A nucleus of officers was sent for commando courses to foreign establishments and, on their recommendations, a curriculum formulated. Thus, on January 11, 1964, the commando wing started functioning in Mhow.

Till 1970, the course was open to officers of all services. But once it was made mandatory for infantry officers, admission for the rest of the services became vacancy-based. The next year, the wing was shifted to Belgaum to escape the congestion in Mhow.

The centre now runs two types of courses: Ghatak (O) and Ghatak (N). The former is for officers, and will have 150 students per course (three courses every year). The Ghatak (N) is meant for non-commissioned officers. Again, the centre runs three courses every year, but with 208 students.

"There isn't much difference between the two," says the chief instructor at the centre, "The officers course stresses more on developing leadership qualities and battle tactics. And the medium of instruction is English while it is Hindi for the jawans -- but the basics are same."

The 42-day capsule has 600 periods crunched into it -- 15 periods a day -- to develop the three basic elements needed for a special mission commando: confidence, endurance and tactics. And it is the duty of instructors like Major S, and his companions Captain N, Captain R and Major D, all of them now enjoying their beer, that these are inculcated in the trainees, that the 'boys turn into men.'

"I am sure half of the trainees must have dug my grave by now," says Captain R, "That always happens. They always have a hate-hate-love relation with the instructors. When the course is at its peak and we are pushing them hard they would really like to kill us. But towards the end their anger will evaporate and we end up friends."

Captain R remembers how he longed to 'bugger' back one of his instructors.

"Captain --- was a guy I would have given half my salary to get shot," he says, "The fact is you are being rogered day in and day out by your instructors throughout the course. The whole point is to put you under maximum strain. And it is the instructors who do it. Naturally, your hatred is all directed against them."

When the recruits arrive they are picked up and transported straight to the camp where they would stay for the entire length of the course (except for two three-hour breaks in the third and fourth weeks). The minute they are inside, their ribbons are removed -- for the next 42 days second lieutenants, lieutenants and captains will all answer to 'commando' -- and heads shaved. The idea is to give them a feeling of uniformity, that whatever their age (the upper limit is 30) or rank they are all trainees.

The commandos are given a toggle rope, a safety rope, four text books (precis, rather), a 'demolition card' (a table for calculating the amount of explosives for different structures) and three paplus of different weights.

The recruits (they are all 'fighting fit' when they arrive but still lose 'up to eight kilos' before they are through) are then put through two weeks of intense physical training. Lectures and demonstrations are intertwined.

The third and fourth week would see the instructors pushing -- 'buggering' -- them harder and harder. There is the 20-kilometre speed march in full battle gear, there is the rock climbing (20 feet in 1 minute flat), there is the unarmed combat, there is the battle obstacle course (you have to cover 17 hurdles spread over nearly a kilometre in 14 minutes), and then there is the 30-kilometre speed march with an 18.5 paplu and a 4-kilo rifle (you have to cover a kilometre in 8 minutes). Engineering classes, night navigation, confidence-building exercises like the Ledo jump (you are made to freefall 16.5 metres into a pool), slithering and rappelling comes with it.

You are also taught survival techniques -- how to live off the land -- which includes eating snakes. Once a commando has killed and eaten a snake, the reasoning goes, he will not shy away from anything,

More physical conditioning and tactical training will follow in the fifth and sixth weeks. There will be written tests and, finally, the 40-kilometre speed march.

"In the initial weeks their physical condition will start deteriorating. By the second week it is at its nadir," Major S says, "Then we start the patch-up work..."