The JCOs Stripe on his epaulettes 

The Britishers while leaving India handed over the manpower of Indian Army in three parts to us ; Officers, Junior Commissioned Officers(JCOs) and the Other Ranks(ORs). The task of a JCO was basically to convey the order of an officer to the troops and vice versa in the language best understood thereby maintaining a link between the two for smooth functioning of a unit. He being a mediator was thus used as a punch bag for release of emotions by the officer from above and grievances of ORs from  below. As a result he was sandwiched between the two. The Britishers though have left but the traditions are still continuing unabated.

We had an outspoken JCO Subedar Sharma(name changed) in our unit who would generally break with the increase in work load. Once he was fed up as some of his men were cribbing for the grass cutting task given to them while on the other hand the Company ompany Commander was getting furious on him for the delay imposed as some VIP had to visit for inspection. I was new to the unit and was told to supervise the show.  After the men were convinced for their cribbing and put to task again by him he faced me and said,

“Sahib dekh liya hum JCO logo ka haal. Kya zindagi ban gayee hai!”(Sir have you seen the state of JCO’s how miserable the life has become)

Showing solidarity to him I said, ”Chalo sahib kabhi kabhi aise bhi sunana parta hai. Sab theekh ho jayega. Main hoo naa” (Dont worry officer sometimes we have to be at the receiving end.Everything will be allright. I am there with you)

Pointing to the JCOs stripe of red and yellow colour on his epaulettes he said,” Sahib angrezo ney humay yeh stripe aise hi nahin lagayee hain iska bahut bara matlab hai”(Sir Britishers did not make this stripe just like that it has a deep meaning attached to it)

“Woh kaya hai?”(What’s that?) I asked him with curiousity.

He said pointing to the upper red stripe,” Upar se to hamara khoon officer log chustey rehtay hain” (The officers suck our blood from the top;The red colour of the stripe denoting blood)

He continued pointing to the lower red stripe,”Nichey se jawaan humara khoon chustey hain”(The soldiers suck our blood from below;The red colour of the stripe again denoting blood)

I wondered what he would say about the middle yellow stripe but he answered very logically keeping his forefinger on the middle yellow stripe of his epaulette,

”Aur hum beech mein peelay parh jaatey hain”(And we turn pale/yellow in between)

“Very correct“, I said sympathetically.

After that day I never got confused with the fact that it is the yellow stripe which is in between two red stripes on the epaulettes of a  JCO and not red between two yellow ones whenever doubt of the same arose in my mind out of the blue.