(or how a code stronger than Enigma was designed by an Infantry Captain)
Situation in Brief…. As the title of the story says, the one of the characters of the story is based at Kupwara (Kupwara for the non Armed Forces and some of the Armed Forces readers too, is a border district in North Kashmir, J&K), the year is 1995 and the security situation on ground is bad (not that its any better now). The lack of communication facilities made the Hero of the story (that with all modesty will be yours truly… all those not happy with the third person form of speech, your truly means me.)
“What is STD?” asked a millennial. “No its not what you think.. ‘S’ here does NOT stand for ‘Sexually’ ”.. replied the not so old man… There was just one STD (SUBSCRIBER TRUNK DIALLING) booth in Kupwara town, near the Headquarters, where we could go safely. Smart ones had found friends in the BSNL (Government Communication Agency) exchange. Smarter ones had a link through army exchanges. Smartest ones had no one special to call. I was NEWLY ENGAGED.. (generally ‘newly’ is prefixed to ‘marriage’ but the reader must know that writer was engaged for a period of approximately two years and also belonged to the category of having had no girlfriend in the school time. NATIONAL DEFENCE ACADEMY {NDA, though offering undergraduate courses does NOT offer all the privileges like co-ed colleges and thus can safely be termed as SCHOOL PLUS or PLUS PLUS (if you are into superlatives)} . Thus, I belonged to the majority of emotionally challenged people who needed to stay in touch with near and dear ones (one’s fiancee indeed topped this list).
You are just a Captain…The visit to Kupwara could only be on operational reasons as my company’s base was a good 30 kilometres away and the area was infested with the terrorists as also the threat of IEDs (IMPROVISED EXPLOSIVE DEVICES) ran high.The operational reasons were far and few and yours truly was a just a Captain who could not be detailed for too many conferences at the Headquarters.{As it is, the conferences that we attended, never went beyond the level of Battalion Headquarters, where we were frequently called to be given a ‘PIECE OF MIND’ by any one who happened to be senior (most of the seniors did enjoy this additional task of ‘taking youngsters to task’, given by the CO (Commanding Officer)}.. oh snap!!! the story.
Letters, Civil Number etc…. I spent all my free time in day dreaming and in writing letters to my fiancee. The replies that I received to my 10 PAGE LONG LETTERS never went beyond one page and the ratio of numbers never went above 10:1. The romantic situation was really bad and so many times when I managed a chance to go to Kupwara, the person whom I wanted to talk to, happened to be away. I had to perforce talk to the whole bunch of WOULD BE’S(would be mother-in-law, would be brother-in-law and would be aunt-in-law… the reader must note that I had no would be sister(s) in law… ). It was with sheer flash of good luck that I found an old acquaintance in the Signal Regiment (communications branch of the army) and he promised me a weekly call to my would be in laws’ CIVIL NUMBER… (all the phone numbers other than our internal army numbers are called Civil Numbers, even though they are just numbers only, SUCH RACISM). But reaching Kupwara, even electronically, from my Company base was a thoroughly complicated process. We had the Battalion Exchange, then we had one at Chowkibal, then Kupwara, another one at Srinagar and finally at Jammu and from there if one was lucky, the operator would connect the Civil Number and if all the nine planets (yes my dear Watson, we had full nine planets then including Pluto, which has been thrown out from the Solar System under some vague definition… poor guy), were aligned, my fiancee would be there to receive the call. The calls also got through at odd hours (odd signifying any time after 9 pm which was not appreciated as my would be in laws belonged to the extreme (farthest) end of conservative families). Because of so many ‘exchanges’ in between, the voice quality was very bad.
The Key to Rebecca… One had to rely on the operators to pass the message and saying I LOVE YOU (which was maximum level of proximity permitted in those times) was one hell of a task. In those crazy days, I said more ‘I LOVE YOUs’ to men (the operators at the army signal exchanges), than to my fiancee. What hit me hard one day was the title of this story… I heard the chap saying “I Love You Madam, Sir is saying”… (आई लव यू मैडम, साहब कह रहे हैं). It hurt me that the I LOVE YOU message that was supposed to be conveyed in Third Personby the operator, was being relayed in nearly ‘FIRST PERSON’. But then, there was no way out. The romantic in me was both excited and hurt by those relayed calls. There has to be a way around all this. Extreme situations call for extreme measures. Thus, a new coding system was devised by yours truly (me). This must be the most innovative idea, even ahead of the German Cipher innovation ‘ENIGMA’ (of World War II fame). I call it ahead, because Enigma’s code was eventually broken by the British, while the code devised by me remains unbroken till date. (Readers must try and read ‘THE KEY TO REBECCA’by KEN FOLLETT)
Beat them at their own game…Yes sir, communication suddenly became exciting after I prepared a list of 51 WORDS, PHRASES AND SOME COMPLETE SENTENCES and sent one copy by post to my fiancee… and my calls through the various army exchanges (read operators) went like this..
Yours truly (me) : “tell madam, 21” (code for ‘I miss you darling… darling was added for the kick)
Operator : “21”
Fiancee (through many operators) : “Tell him 43” (code for I miss you too….)
Operator : “43” (???)
Me : “12, 15, 23”
Operator : “12,15,23” (???)
She : 17, 17 17
Operator (now at his wits end) : (%$#@*&^%$ ) “17,17, 17”
(don’t expect me to decipher the rest of the numbers. I told you!!! the code remains unbroken)
The operators thus, could never understand why they could not anymore say I LOVE YOU in ‘NEAR FIRST PERSON’ to the female voice on the other end of the line.
I had beaten so many on their very own turf.
