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Drill was the basis of all discipline, so were we told by our Junior Commissioned Officers Instructors and Non Commissioned Officers Instructors, JCO Instrs and HIs for short. It was almost a daily affair. The Drill Square was at the far end or rear end of the OTs, opposite Shivaji Battalion area and close to the River Adyar. Ah! River Adyar! Many memories are associated with this water body. But more of Adyar, later. Drill Square was always treated as some kind of a sacred place by our training faculty and as gallows by all of us. There were more specimens to be seen in this place than any other place in the OTS. There were cadets who could never get the essence of drill movements. There was a particular GC, Shyam Kumar from Shivaji Battalion who hailed from Shimla, who would move his arm and leg of the same side while marching as opposed to ‘opposite limbs movement’!  He later bowed out to Drill and Map Reading and returned to hills. The Drill Square in the OTS was particularly hot and rough as it was black top and the average temperature in Madras is much higher than many parts of the rest of the country and humidity is unbearable. It was a common sight to see cadets on their knees or hunches or even on all fours, with palms full of blisters, caused by the hot tarmac. All those who were weak in drill were ordered to keep running around the Square. When drill with arms started, the running ritual was done with 7.62 mm SLR raised up in both hands. Those were crazy times.​​

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To teach words of command to cadet appointments, HIs would tell us to yell so hard as to make all birds sitting on surrounding trees flee in fear. We were supposed to shout from the stomach and not from throats. ‘Generate the voice from your stomachs’, the HI would tell us.​

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Those who were too weak physically or technically (in terms of skills related to drill) and also those who were unwilling to put in hard work would line up daily near the edge of the Drill Square with either a request for Permission to Report Sick or with a Medical Slip, advising rest, in other words, “Excused PT and Drill.” There were many GCs who could be often seen lazily moving around the PT Ground, Drill Square or Billets with Medical Slips in hand. Some had even mastered the art of looking sick and hapless with the help of their facial expressions and limping of limbs! But then it was an art few could master, lesser mortals had to go through the hottest of fires to get steeled. Based on our records, our DS Staff even went to the extent of giving pen picture ‘OTS Attache to the MH’ to Saroj Kumar Padhi of Jessami! It simply shows a very high level of dedication to a particular profession by some of our comrades!!​

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"Open those bloody legs, nothing is going to fall out!"

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A Drill Instructor, while marching his contingent.