No Margin for Error

NO MARGIN

FOR ERROR

Tanushree is a self-confessed word-a-holic and a traveller. When not reading or writing books, she’s sure to be packing her bags and boots to zip around the world. A true maverick, she stumbled through many career choices before settling on writing.

A chocolate addict with a penchant for the unusual, she has collected dozens of interesting certificates that range from a wine-master’s assistant at Australia, an international reindeer driving licence from Lapland, to one from ‘The School of Hard Knocks’ at Royal Selangor.

No Margin for Error is her ninth novel.

After leading a nomadic life for several decades, thanks to the Indian Army, she has finally grown roots at Pune. Tanushree can be contacted on her website – http://www.tanushreepodder.com

OTHER BOOKS BY TANUSHREE PODDER

Boots Belts Berets: A novel about pranks, parades and love set in the National Defence Academy.

Escape from Harem: A Mughal saga of romance, revenge and retribution

On the Double: Drills, Drama and Dare-Devilry at The Indian Military Academy

OTHER INDIAINK TITLES

ROLI BOOKS

This digital edition published in 2019

First published in 2019 by

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eISBN: 978-81-86939-83-3

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For the unsung heroes of this country

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Like most Indians, I was outraged when Mumbai, the country’s commercial nerve centre, was attacked by terrorists. The enormity of loss, both human and property, shook me up.

More than 160 people including 18 police officers and two NSG commandos were killed in the attack that continued for about 60 hours. More than 500 people were injured and property worth hundreds of crores was gutted or destroyed. It was the deadliest attack, ever.

Apart from the commandos, there were many other agencies and individuals, who had risked their lives to help the guests trapped in the hotel during those fateful days.

I had read the heroic accounts of the Taj Mahal Palace staff, who helped the people trapped within the hotel rooms. Many stories were told, many examples of human empathy, bravery and strength quoted. These include the one about the hotel’s kitchen staff forming a human shield to protect the lives of guests, another one about Karambir Singh Kang, the general manager of the hotel, who continued to save people even after his wife and two sons, died in the fire set by the terrorists. These were ordinary people who rose up to the extraordinary circumstances, some of them dying in the process.

Then there were 1200 firemen, who rubbed shoulders with the NSG commandos, risking their lives while fighting the raging flames triggered by the terrorists holed up at the Taj Mahal Place, the Trident and Nariman House during the terror siege. Between them, they managed to douse the flames and rescue hundreds of people trapped in the buildings.

The NSG saved many lives by rescuing people from the Oberoi, the Taj and from the Nariman House. All this came at an irreversible loss. Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan died in the attack and Commando Sunil Yadav was injured.

Everyone involved in the battle against terrorism showed exemplary courage. Every individual went beyond the call of duty to save precious lives. The ghastly incident brought to fore a lot many things. Among them were the examples of human ethics, values and solidarity.

A writer can only pick up a pen to express anguish, and I decided to do so. I was determined to document the bravery of my countrymen, as well as the cowardice of the attackers.

Many books have been written after the Mumbai attack, but mine would be a fiction, I decided. There were two reasons for that. Firstly, a non-fiction account provides no scope for emotions; secondly, I wanted to bring out the training that goes into making heroes.

Once that decision had been made, it was left for me to settle on the protagonist and other characters.

Since many of the brave men, who fought the terrorists, were from NSG, and the commandos are mainly drawn from the army, I chose to write the book with them in mind.

The back-story of the protagonist forms an important part of the book. In the No Margin for Error, the back-story had to dwell upon the kind of training, as well as the psychological and physical build up required to make a successful commando. To do that, I would have to take the book back at the beginning of the protagonist’s career.

Also, the success of my two books Boots Belts Berets and On the Double had led to demands for a third book in the series. The two books had also been successful in popularising characters like Pessi and Maachh. The two of them were relatable and well-liked but having set the books in earlier times, I couldn’t use them as NSG commandos during the 24/11 Mumbai attacks.

After a lot of deliberation, I decided to create Neel Dutta, Pessi’s son. Modelling Sam on the lines of Joe, another popular character from On the Double, seemed just right. Once the protagonist was decided, the story took off. A few interesting characters like Mago and Bhullar were specifically created to bring a smile on your face. Their antics will serve as a reminder to those of Maachh and Porky in the earlier books.

To flesh up the characters, I decided to give an account of Neel’s life after passing out from the IMA (Indian Military Academy). Though they are decades apart, the third army book No Margin for Error begins where On the Double ended. It begins with the protagonist’s commission in the army.

Since the account of the terrorist attack brings a heavy feeling to the book, it had to be balanced with a hefty dose of humour. I brought in a few characters and incidents to weave in the lighter side of life.

As in the earlier books there is enough fun and humour to keep you laughing. But, there are poignant moments as well. Fun, adventure, thrill and emotions, No Margin for Error is a partially true account of an ambitious and brave soldier and the challenges in his life.

Though, it is fiction, the book required an extensive amount of research. It was like I was being urged by the souls of those, who died during the course of those horrifying hours, to narrate their story.

I am sure you will enjoy this one.

– Tanushree Podder

ONE

Attending Sam’s funeral was the harshest punishment I had ever faced. Nothing I had undergone in the past, not even the commando training, could compare to the pain I experienced that day. Physical pain, we had been trained to endure. That was bodily suffering that went away after a few hours. It is emotional suffering that I am not good at handling. Sam’s death was an amalgamation of physical and emotional ache. It took the wind out of me, splintering my heart into a million tiny shards. Sometimes, it is difficult to describe the bond between two people. There are no logical reasons.

Sam had been my rudder and life-buoy.

Ambling aimlessly through the house, I found Ananya staring unseeingly out of the bedroom window. She was sniffling like a forlorn puppy. The shock of his death was too much for her to bear. She adored Sam. On his part, Sam ribbed her mercilessly, flirted outrageously with her, goaded her to leave me and set up house with him. He made her laugh as I never could. He could change her mood and make her come alive. His laughter was infectious and his joie de vivre matchless.

And now he was gone!

That morning, as we sat in the small church for the special prayer service, there were hundreds of moist eyes around us. The sight of Colonel Rodney Fernandes (retired), Sam’s father, immovable as a rock in his wheelchair, the trembling lower lip defying his efforts at controlling grief, tore my heart. Once a valiant officer, now reduced to a helpless man by militancy, he had lost his only son to the evil of terrorism.

Sam’s bereaved mother and sister sat in the front row – silent and dignified, their red-rimmed eyes the only testimony to their grief. He had been an ideal son, brother, friend and officer.

By dying the death of a martyr, he had fulfilled his last wish. Sam had the habit of dwarfing others with his virtuosity, damn him! I wiped a tear surreptitiously.

The handsome hunk lay six feet under; just another lifeless body. His boundless energy, undying optimism, mischievous smile and twinkling eyes were now mere memories.

How swiftly humans are transformed into nothing.

‘Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return’... I recalled the burial and shuddered at the thought of him lying six feet under the ground with a mound of earth over him... ‘In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.’

The sheer number of people attending the service to bid farewell to a brave army officer was amazing. They couldn’t have been Sam’s friends; he hardly had any. The mourners spilled out of the church into the lawns and beyond the gates, up to the road, patient and persistent. Hillocks of flowers adorned the burial place, tear-streaked faces bid goodbye to a man who had been a stranger to them till he conquered their hearts with his heroic death.

Time seemed to stand still.

‘Life for a soldier is all about three Bs – bullets, bouquets and body bag,’ Sam used to say. ‘He faces enemy bullets. When he conquers the bullets, he is greeted with bouquets, but if he is defeated by the bullets, he lands up in a body bag.’

This time around, although he was brought back in a body bag, Sam had managed to get all the bouquets he could have wished for.

That night, hundreds of candles glowed in the night, sending prayers for Sam’s soul. For once, the rich and the poor, old and the young, Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, Muslims and all other communities had united to express their gratitude to a man who had given his life to save so many.

Nursing my drink, I sat despondent in the small den that Ananya had created for me by carving it out of the hall beyond the dining room.

‘Sam, you were a great soldier,’ I murmured, saluting the framed photograph on my table. He, an arm wrapped around me, was smiling drunkenly into the camera. The picture was taken during a vacation at Goa. The two of us had been plastered to the gills. ‘But there was no bigger idiot than you. Who gives one’s life to save another? Not in today’s world of unsentimental pragmatism.’

Ananya slipped away to deal with practical necessities. While I wallowed in the luxury of grieving, she dealt with the humdrum business of living. Women have an admirable resilience. They recognize the transient nature of human life. It is the men who are weak. I felt broken and incapable of functioning, whereas she put up a brave front.

It would take me a long time to recover. Where my loved ones were concerned, I was a weak man. A very weak man, indeed. In the weak moments that night, I re-lived my time with Sam. I recapitulated each one of those moments, stretching them for as long as I could. Along with those memories came a host of others connected with our life in the army. Funny, how you plunge into the past when stricken with grief and self-pity.

Destiny intertwines lives, I have always believed. Nothing happens by chance. Sam’s entry into my life was not by chance, either. We were fated to share many beautiful moments together. We were destined to bond.

Life does not end with the death of a friend, nor does it halt beyond the few moments spent grieving. Everything continues as before. I continue to breathe, eat, take part in dangerous missions with the slim thread of my life held in the slippery hands of destiny, enjoy time with my little daughter and make love to Ananya. But nothing will ever be the same without Sam. His shadow will always hover around my heart and hearth.

My optimism and enthusiasm fizzled out with his death. My ambitions and dreams had unravelled in a matter of hours. Is this what a friend’s death does to you? I wondered. How long was it since we had left our homes for the assignment? I had lost count of the days, hours and minutes. It took a while for me to recapitulate the details of the past four days.

Was it only 96 hours? It felt like a lifetime.

TWO

WEDNESDAY, 26 NOVEMBER

A LITTLE AFTER MIDNIGHT

The buzz of my telephone interrupted my dream just as I was slipping into the pleasant part. It had been months since I’d enjoyed a peaceful night or a pleasant dream. Sleep came in bits and pieces and there were no dreams, only nightmares. I didn’t need a psychologist to tell me the reason for the nightmares. That was just one of the many prices that had to be paid for being involved in a constant war against terrorism. Professional hazard, I guess.

Cursing, I picked up the receiver and growled into it even as I guessed what was coming. This was the third time in these last few months that I was being summoned in the middle of the night to tackle an unpleasant situation. It was becoming a habit to start dressing even as I picked up the phone.

‘Placed on one hour’s notice for an outside operation. Details will follow,’ the cryptic message poured into my ears. It was from the Big Boss, aka BB. He never wasted any time on superfluous words.

Sleep vanished in an instant. It is strange how years of training takes precedence over comfort. Swearing, I sprang up from my bed and rushed to the bathroom. From the other side of the bed, Ananya groaned sleepily, ‘Where is the fire?’

‘As of now, only the BB knows where the fire burns,’ I mumbled, applying lather on my face.

She got up and shuffled towards me. The only one in the family who remained fast asleep was our four-month-old baby.

‘Does he suffer from insomnia?’ Ananya asked, rubbing her eyes.

‘Ask him about it, the next time you meet.’

Her disgruntled rant floated in from the kitchen. Like a good wife, she ensured I never left home without a cup of coffee. My protests had no effect. She was the ultimate boss.

I had barely begun running the blade on my stubble when the phone buzzed once more.

‘I’ll pick you up in twenty minutes,’ Sam’s voice floated across the city. ‘And if Ananya is awake, tell her to pack some sandwiches for the two of us.’

‘So, you expect it to be a long drawn affair? Where is the rendezvous?’ I shouted.

If there is one thing that the boom of guns does to you, it is the gradual decline in hearing. It also makes you assume everyone has weak hearing and makes you shout over the phone.

‘It is at Palam Airport... as far as I know.’ Sam was learning fast; he had taken to speaking in short bursts like the BB.

‘What is the emergency?’ I probed. It was irritating to be summoned at short notice, but it was doubly maddening not to know where you were heading.

‘Switch on your television, man. You will get to know.’ His voice was equally loud.

Ananya picked up his words and pressed the button on the television remote.

The excited voice of the reporter floated out of the idiot box. ‘Mumbai’s pride, the Grand Palace Hotel, is on fire. No confirmation on the number of dead, yet. The terrorists are firing from the top floor. It is believed that there are a number of hostages in the upper floors...’

‘Shit...’ I heard Ananya curse. Her face had registered a gamut of emotions – from shock to anger and frustration – all within a matter of thirty seconds. ‘Some heads should roll... this is getting disturbingly frequent.’

Pictures of mayhem stared at me from the screen as I stood dumbfounded before the television. In the confusion, I forgot that the lather on my face had begun drying.

‘For those who do not know about the Grand Palace Hotel, here is a brief introduction...’ the reporter was shouting to be heard above the din. ‘Established in 1930, it is one of the grandest and oldest hotels in Mumbai. With over 300 rooms in its North and South Wing, it has hosted luminaries from all over the world. The Heritage Wing standing between the North and the South wings is the oldest part of the hotel...’

‘Isn’t it time the Home Minister owned up moral responsibility and vacated his chair?’ Ananya continued her tirade. ‘If he doesn’t do so, someone should have the good sense to push him out of it.’

‘Cool it, darling,’ I tried to pacify my agitated wife.

I guess it is difficult to remain cool when your spouse is called upon to lay his life in the line of fire.

‘How long should we remain cool? It’s time for action, not calm,’ she retorted.

‘First of all, they should revamp our laws. Nothing but the most stringent punishment should be meted to terrorists and the cases shouldn’t drag ad infinitum. That would send a strong message to all those fuckers out there. You can’t extend olive branches to bloody murderers who have made violence their profession. They have no compunction about killing people. When have they shown mercy, to deserve some themselves?’

Her language shocked me. Never in our short married life had I heard such words from her. The cuss words conveyed the extent of her frustration.

Ananya was picking up my lingo. I smiled.

Fragments of my wife’s tirade reached my ears as I emerged from the bathroom.

‘Things are going from bad to worse.

A strong nation being led by weak and incompetent politicians...

We have to pay with our lives for other peoples’ folly...’

I rushed around, putting the paraphernalia into the backpack. She was still ranting in the kitchen.

‘Next pay commission, mark my words, the armed forces will be downgraded still further. The gap between the bureaucrats and armed forces will continue to grow...

With a civilian working as a security advisor, the nation is doomed. Peanuts will bring monkeys...’

A tight knot of anxiety took possession of my stomach.

At parties, I am often asked if commandos experienced fear while facing terrorists. Silly question! Commandos are human beings. They do experience fear and anxiety in life-threatening situations. It would be unnatural not to be nervous when facing guns and grenades. Terrorists mean business, man. They don’t barter and argue. They shoot! They are trained to do so. So are we. The difference lies in their cold-blooded approach. They kill without thinking while we are guided by sanity. Rationality has no place in their world, but we have to remain restrained. Ironic.

At the risk of being labelled a coward, I never shy away from admitting my jumpiness before an operation.

The knot in my stomach grew tighter as I struggled into the uniform. I waited for Ananya to cry, but I knew she would continue to rein in her emotions. Her pride and my anxiety stemmed the tears. They would come later, in the privacy of her bedroom, after I departed. She didn’t want to weaken me with her tears. I called up a few of our comrades as I buttoned up the shirt. Viplab had been put on standby, Arun was on his way and Mahesh was already at the airport.

Ananya was waiting at my elbow, sandwiches and coffee neatly placed on a tray.

‘There is no time for all this,’ I protested, buttoning my shirt. ‘You shouldn’t have bothered.’

She pushed a sandwich toward my mouth as I belted myself.

‘There is always time for them. Nothing will change in the few minutes it takes to drink the coffee.’ She placed the cup of coffee at my lips and I took a long sip from it.

‘You are a darling,’ I smiled, my hands busy with the shoelaces.

The army vehicle honked down below. Sam had arrived. I took one last sip of the coffee and ran my fingers through my hair. ‘Time to go. Your boyfriend is getting impatient. I must run.’

Ananya handed me a packet of sandwiches, her eyes troubled.

‘Take care. I’ll be back before you can finish your dinner,’ I waved. Pausing near the door I turned back and placed a finger on my lips in a gesture of silence and farewell. ‘And not a word of this to your family or mine. Remember the Harpocrates’ code?’

She nodded, her eyes filling up with tears.

Harpocrates, the Greek god of secrecy and silence, was our code during my missions.

Picking up my backpack, I raced down two steps at a time without a backward glance. She skipped down the steps after me, hair dishevelled and her housecoat flapping in the wind. For once, she was unmindful of her appearance. I turned towards her and she hugged me.

‘I know you’ll do a great job,’ she said with a smile, but tears were lurking in her eyes. I knew they would start streaming down the moment my vehicle disappeared around the bend. The luxury of shedding tears would have to wait. The army wives are taught to remain impassive till the husbands left on their mission.

‘Remember, I love you and I am always with you,’ she murmured into my chest.

These were the moments I hated. Words of farewell never came easy to me. Dumbly I nodded my head and ruffled her hair, not trusting myself to speak. From inside the vehicle, Sam looked at us, an amused smile playing on his lips.

0050 HOURS

Sam was drumming his fingers on the dashboard as he waited. Patience had never been his virtue. A couple of commandos sat in the back seat, their faces in the shadows, the emotions masked by surrounding darkness.

‘That was an emotional parting,’ remarked my friend.

‘You won’t understand,’ I shot back. ‘You are not married.’

‘Thank God!’

His logic about matrimony was unbeatable. ‘In our profession, it is unwise to marry. Why drag another person into the mire of stress, danger and uncertainty? I will marry when I retire,’ he often said. ‘If I live to see that day, you will be my best man, of course,’ he added for good measure.

‘You will have to look for an old maid willing to spend her life with a cantankerous old man.’ I never failed to remind him.

‘What’s the latest?’ I asked, taking a seat next to him.

‘We are off to Mumbai on a paid holiday.’ Sam turned the ignition key and the engine came alive.

‘Great! I love these paid holidays.’ My voice dripped sarcasm. ‘Are we sleeping in a suite at the Grand Hotel?’

‘Who knows where we will sleep – in a suite or a coffin.’ His black humour began surfacing.

‘These bloody jokers have no sense of time,’ I groaned, as my pal engaged the gears. ‘Waking up at midnight for a mission is not my idea of a holiday.’

‘Next time I’ll tell them to choose a better time. Will ten in the morning be suitable, your lordship?’ he chuckled.

The vehicle took off and I waved at the solitary figure standing forlornly near the steps of my house. Behind her, the branches of the Gulmohar tree we had planted together on my birthday waved a cheerless goodbye. As we turned the corner I noticed Ananya had lost weight. With a heavy heart I realized she was also paying a price for my career. The stress of my hazardous missions was robbing her of a peaceful life.

The nation calls us valiant, but it is our wives who are the stronger gender. Imagine waiting for a loved one whose life is at risk! It takes much more guts than fighting a battle. For a simple reason; the adrenaline isn’t pumping when you