For Major General Ian Cardozo, Bombay is home. It’s also the city that reminded him why he was meant to be elsewhere. With roots in Candolim, Goa, the Cardozos had made Colaba their home in the early decades of the 1900s. “We lived very close to the sea, [on Hormasji Street], and perhaps that’s why, I initially wanted to join the Navy. But I changed my mind, when I happened to meet a senior from my school, Sunith Francis Rodrigues, who had returned from the Joint Services Wing [the National Defence Academy]. He was polished, very much in control of himself, and in the span of two years, had already become a boxing champ. Being in Bombay, and seeing people caught up in a routine, going to the same office day in and out, made me feel that I wasn’t cut out for this.” The encounter with Rodrigues, who many years later would be appointed as the Army Chief, gave him a sense of purpose. “I realised that the Army is the place for me…,” he recalls. His father had been more than encouraging. “I was born in 1937, and the World War II started two years later, in 1939. From the dining room window of our house, we could see the Gun Carriage Factory, which became the training ground for groups of soldiers heading for WWII. During that time, my father made two scrapbooks with newspaper cuttings and photographs [related to developments of the war]. He also had a large collection of books on the military that he shared with me. [All of this] gave me an insight into war, and what it meant to join the services.”

After completing his schooling from St Xavier’s High School in Dhobi Talao, where he played hockey, Cardozo joined St Xavier’s College, leaving abruptly after he was enlisted to be part of the Joint Services. “The vice principal of the college told me that my leaving without completing the course meant that I had denied a more meritorious student from getting admission to the college and that I should never, ever think of returning,” he laughs.