Bhagora by Riaz Aqib Kohlar

About this novel

Bhagora (Urdu: بھگوڑا, “the deserter”) by Riaz Aqib Kohlar is an Urdu army novel told by a young recruit, from the aching first weeks of basic training to the commando course.

It opens at the mess table. Amjad is holding up a plate of eggs and baingan cooked together and swearing he can’t do this job: his knees have given up, every part of his body aches as if it’s been beaten with sticks, and there isn’t time to rest or even sleep properly. The narrator tells him this is just training. They’re going to be fauji, not schoolmasters; they have to defend the country, not sit on chairs drinking tea. Zafar tells them both to stop arguing and eat, because they still have to change.

ٹریننگ کی سختیاں، دوستوں کی نوک جھونک، اور فوجی بننے کا خواب۔

Riaz Aqib Kohlar describes the routine in detail. There’s the whistle that means everyone must assemble at once, khaki shorts and white vests, forty minutes of running, crawling and rolling, games, PT before fajr, star navigation at night and map reading by day. The recruits joke and grumble their way through it. After eighteen weeks they get a mid-term break; Amjad comes back a day late and has to do extra drill, and swears that next time he won’t come back at all. Three or four boys have already run away, and Amjad blames the instructors’ behaviour.

When volunteers are called for commando training, Amjad and the narrator both step forward. Their letters arrive at the end of September, and from their unit at Gujranwala they are sent to the training camp at Jalozai. The first stage is a forty-kilometre march through the night.

It’s 1343 pages and reads like a recruit’s own memories: practical, funny in places and full of army detail. It’s a different read from the site’s usual romance novels.

You can read Bhagora online here or download the complete PDF for free. More by Riaz Aqib Kohlar: Janoon e Ishq, Snipper and Pasheman. See them all on the Riaz Aqib Kohlar novels page, or browse our army novels.