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Pat Gate, the presenter of Voice of America, invariably concluded her programme with a pronouncement of, "If you see someone without a smile, give him one of yours". - Ella Wheeler Wilcox, in her immortal couplet sums up the ethos thus:
- Laugh and the whole world laughs with you,
- Weep and you weep alone,
- For the sad world must borrow it’s mirth,
- But has trouble enough of it’s own’.
- The author shares his smiles and laughter with the readers.
How a raw-boned teenager, grappled with the King’s English of the British interviewing officer with his Hinglish (Hindustani English), makes a hilarious reading. Company Sergeant Major (CSM) hauled up cadet Bahukhandi and awarded him three punishments for no apparent commission of an offence or omission of rules. When questioned the CSM came up with an incontrovertible reason, your name is too bloody difficult to pronounce. Mon Dieu! The CSM would have pulled his hair, had cadet KRZYEWISKI (pronounced as SHUH-SEHF-SKI) of the US military academy Westpoint had been under him. As a Pip-squcak (Second Lieutenants were so named), his encounters with the commanding officers are amusing. The reader shall travel with him into the impregnable sub-tropical forest of the Indo-Burma border and meet totally naked denizens of a village. As an observer of United Nations in Lebanon the author was captured by the fidayeens and his subsequent escape is nerve tickling. The book facilities a peek into the ethos of nascent, post-independence army. Army Oh Army packs a "punch and a pinch", capable of making even an introvert to chuckle. The soldier-humour of the book is irresistible.
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