Into the Meets club walked the General and onto the stage. He paused there for a brief moment before starting to address the relaxed but none-too-eager faces in front.

Seated before him were the 150-odd commandos of this course. All to the man, except the unfortunates in the MH (military hospital) and the RTU-ed (returned to unit). All tired, all sleepy, but nonetheless here because he was to lecture them on 'Future warfare'. The General started on an informal note.

"Good morning, commandos," he says.

"Good morning, sir."

"Not loud enough," says the General to himself and repeats more heartily, "Good morning, commandos."

"GOOD MORNING, SIR!"

"Hah, good, that's more like it," the General pronounces, "I hope you have enjoyed your 30-kilometre march. How many of you feel sleepy?"

The commandos preferred to keep their counsel on that.

"Okay," the General continues, "During the course of my lecture if anyone feels sleepy, they are most welcome to stand up, go to the side, or even go out, to refresh themselves. All right?"

There was no reaction from his audience. Not that he expected any. No self-respecting commando would dare to take that little bit of pleasantry at face value -- especially, not when their instructors were sitting right behind.

"Fine. Now let's talk about the lecture theme..." the General pauses. He surveyed the hall again. There was a sea of capped heads looking straight up at him. He didn't like that much. They were all too stiff. The General decided to put them at ease.

"Commandos, sit at ease," he says, "Relax!"

The commandos relaxed. They took their hands off knees, sank lower in their chairs and prepared to listen. The old boy was going to talk for some time and he had told them to relax -- might as well do that.

The General started from where he had left off. He knew the lecture by heart. This was his pet subject and he had spoken on it plenty of times. No sweat there. But the trick was to make it interesting so that the trainees stayed awake and got something out of it. He knew they were dying to sleep, he knew many would sleep as soon as he began -- hadn't he seen it all before?

There, look! Some of them were already settling lower into their chairs... and in the middle rows heads had started lolling. But the General continued bravely.

"Commandos," he says, "Now we will discuss the concepts of future warfare with regard to special mission..."

All around, chins were sinking systematically onto chests. And within 15 minutes all but the very brave and the unfortunates in the first three rows were lost to that luxury which the trainees rarely get to enjoy... Sleep.

Sleep. That brief three-hour punctuation which stops the days from being an endless succession of torture sessions... For six weeks the trainees are made to go about with the minimum amount of rest and maximum activity so that they finally emerge as tough specimens who can work efficiently under the worst conditions.

"Even if you make a catwalk here and hold a Miss World contest," an instructor had said earlier, "they wouldn't stay awake. The minute they sit down anywhere they start falling asleep. That's how tired they are. "

And so they slept. This, after all, was Adam day, their holiday. This, after all, was the day when they would have the pleasure of changing out of battlegear into civilian clothes and going out for their first brush with society in 30 days. Maybe they would paint Belgaum red...

As thing turned out, the commandos didn't paint the town red. Neither did they do anything which their instructors wouldn't have approved. They didn't thrash any auto-wallahs who acted smart, they didn't trash any bars -- and at the movies they were exemplary.

"Move in pairs. Do not -- repeat do not -- get into any bloody fight with auto-chaps or hotel-chaps," the chief instructor had warned them the previous night, "If you have the strength keep it to yourself. You know what happened to those who created trouble earlier? They are going to be courtmartialled. There are only 10 more days for you to finish the course -- so don't go and bloody bugger it up. Your conduct tomorrow should be of the way expected of you..."

The instructor's warning was in view of the notoriety which Adam day had acquired over the years with the Belgaum public. Incidents were many when the locals wanted to check out the efficiency of the commandos -- and had found them not at all lacking. Mini-riots had occurred at movie houses when tickets ran out and the commandos could not be accommodated, when auto-wallahs tried to make an extra-buck from their taklu-ed passengers... Rogered to the edge by their instructors and just waiting for a release, a scornful word, a smirk, a not-so-innocent comment, was all that was needed to swing the commandos into action. And then god help the unfortunate.

But such incidents have burned deep into the memory of Belgaum's locals. Now when they see the familiar shaven head and the jean-clad (usually) figures, they treat them with respect. Anyway, the chief instructor himself had called up at the theatres and other 'sensitive' places and requested for seats this Adam day.

So when Commando M arrived to watch Ishq with his friend, there was no occasion for trouble. Enough balcony seats had been set aside and, as usual, the staff were treating them like, if not exactly the royalty, quite close to it.

"Where will you buy the tickets," the friend asked M, "Will you have to show your identification or something?"

M looked at him -- a civilian -- pityingly and removed his cap. "This is all the identification they need," he said, beckoning to a security, "Arre bhai, yeh commando-wallah wing kaha hai (Where is the commando wing)?"

The man looked at the civilian's full head of hair and wanted to ask something. But he changed his mind hurriedly when M raised his eyebrows. He pointed towards a flight of stairs... In Belgaum, it was evident, a shaved head could get you places.

Inside, the movie had already begun. The heroes (yeah, there were two of them) were just about to break into a dance (Hum ko tum se pyar hai) while rows upon rows of shaved heads watched with interest.

"Hey, how come there are so many taklus?" a woman wanted to know as M and his friend, after a few accidental attempts at lowering themselves into the laps of perfect strangers, finally managed to find vacant seats.

"Shhh" hushed the man beside her, "Gently! They are commandos!"

M turned in his seat and grinned. See, he seemed to say, what did I tell you?

As the movie progressed, there were the usual catcalls and comments (boys will be boys!), especially when the heroes decided to take the girl who was dancing with them for a bike-ride.

"Yeh night navigation chal raha hai..."

"Commando," came another call, "mission shuru kar!"

"Yeh tho chaltayi rahata hai, (This will go on)" M says, "Nothing unusual. But that's the limit -- unless we are pushed."

Fortunately, none among the audience thought it would interesting to do that. So two hours later, M and his friends were enjoying tea at a restaurant in uptown Belgaum.

"I am glad the 30-kilometre run is over," M's colleague said, "Now it's all right. Just 10 more days to go... and the 40-kilometre run. But that should be okay, I guess."

"We had heard about the course before -- so all these were expected," M, who had come to the camp straight from a posting in Siachen, said, "It is not all that bad."

Once you do the course, M's colleague took over, you come to realise that you are not a superman, you realise your limitations.

"Does it," he was asked, "bring in any change in your attitude to others. A superiority complex or something..?"

"It makes you much more confident, it helps you realise your potentials," he answered, "But it doesn't make you superior or anything. We are not taught we are superior to the civilians (if that's what you are referring to). Just that when it comes to doing certain things we can do it.

"But yes, I must admit we have fair-sized egos, especially regarding you (civilians). When we see one -- there are many coming to see us training -- we feel 'oh, here is another joker. what does he know?' But that's because we know we can do things which he can't. I wouldn't call that superiority. It's just that we are more confident. And irritated, too, because the army doesn't get credit for half the things it does."

"Chalo bhai," M interrupted, "Let's go out. We have to be back soon. Usse pehle tumko butterfly dekhna hai ki nahi?"