Life in a cantonment is like living in a walled city. It is a self-contained space providing as many amenities as possible. The tall walls with their barbed wire fencing running along the length and breadth of the city within is not an easy space to be in. The regimented rules cannot be broken and everyone must adhere to them. It is also a space of discipline where rank is worshipped.
I was born and raised in cantonments across the country as my father, an army man, moved around. My mother, a homemaker due to familial compulsions, packed and moved with him without a word. Every cantonment we lived in felt no different as each of them lay within walls with barbed wires. While some children went to the Kendriya Vidyalaya located within the cantonment, some others went to private schools outside the walled city. Though everyone says that life inside a cantonment is the best that can happen to you, it is not so. A cantonment-dweller finds it difficult to adjust with the world outside of it.
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When I started college in Pune, I was intimidated by the world I was thrust into. Living in the confines of the space with it strict rules and regulations, I was unprepared for the chaos of Pune that lay outside the cantonment. To begin with, there was too much noise and everyone spoke in a loud voice even if one was standing close to them. For me, everything seemed too loud, noisy, and harsh. The biggest difference I felt was the lack of class difference. Everyone was at a level platform. After the initial hiccups, I made numerous friends.
In the cantonment, the rank of your parent decides the friends circle you keep. In fact, rank dictates every aspect of life there. Even when people are off duty, walking their dogs or at the market or riding a two-wheeler, their backs stiffen and they salute when a senior passes by. This has been an irritant for me. I have never understood the need to stand in a ceremony when a person of a senior rank passes by. I was told by my father that an officer of a senior rank had taken offence that a lower-rank officer had not saluted him when he had passed by late into the night. The said junior officer was taken to task for saying that he had not noticed the senior officer on that dark night. This is the ridiculousness of the class distinction. This trickles down to the wives and children too.
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However, when I started college, the lack of such a ceremony was a welcome change. My college friends were fascinated with life in the cantonment and would look forward to visiting my house. There was a stiffness about them when my father was around. I did not find the same thing happening when we were invited to their homes. They walked barefoot in their homes, they had the freedom to wear any type of clothes and walk around their locality, they had more freedom to do things than we cantonment dwellers did.
Discipline, time management, dressing up well, social interactions, poise and respect are habits that are ingrained into children of the cantonment. When I started interacting with civilians of my age, I realised that the same values are followed by them too, sans the regimented approach. Some years ago, my father retired and we moved out of the cantonment. While I live abroad, my parents settled in a seaside village and lead a ‘retired life’. My father was keen that I join the army like him. However, the residue of the class difference has stayed with me, despite the years gone by.
(The writer is a technology expert settled abroad. Views expressed are personal.)
