One of the most affable and jovial officers, one could ever meet. A true Haryanvi Jat, stood six feet tall, never smoked or drank or ate any kind of meat. 

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Did you guys know that DS Chhillar was originally selected for Air Force. He was Rajendra Kumar’s buddy  at Air Force SSB at Clement Town in Dehradun. They passed SSB and were sent to undergo  their  medicals at the Air Force Medical Establishment at Subroto Park Dhaula Kuan in New Delhi. Now comes the hilarious part.... as expected from a Jat that too from Sainik School Kunjpura. In their Batch was another candidate whose father was from the medical side. So the father of this candidate told his son the last 2 lines of the box for eye test. When they found him mugging the last 2 lines...the secret was let out of the bag and no sooner every one had mugged up the 2 lines. So far so good. When Chhillar's turn came for the eye test...he closed one eye and rattled out the last line in one breadth when asked to read the line. When asked to close the other eye....the saala Jat closed the second eye also....and with both eyes closed he rattled out the last line once again. The doctor was baffled Jat could read with both eyes closed and they all were caught.  Well the whole story then tumbled out but the Doc was very nice and he passed all of them. Then came the turn of the Physician and Chillar could not cough when the Doctor was holding his balls to check for hernia....he kept clearing his throat. Then came the ankle test and our good friend kept moving his leg from the knee rather than  move his ankle up and down. The Doc only told him one line after checking his papers....quote, "Kunjpura ke Jaat se aur kuch expect bhi nahi kar sakta thaa ", unquote. But he cleared  his medical. 

Both DS Chhillar and Rajendra joined NDA in Echo Squadron. Chhillar was always after Rajender’s  back side for clearing the Drill Square Test in the first chance and then got permission to grow his moustache while Chhillar could not pass his Drill Square Test and he would always tell him Saale mooch ugaa kar dekh, nikaal doonga.

How he became a Brigadier... During the boxing bout he took a direct punch on one of  his temples. He won the bout but collapsed on coming out of the ring. He was rushed to MH but the Doctors declared him DIL and he was moved to CH Pune. We later came to know that he had completely lost his memory  to the extent that Ganesh Kataria and Rajender  used to teach him how to walk at CH Pune in the initial days when they would visit him at CH. He stayed in CH for a long time and that is how he became a Brigadier. The injury also caused some damage to his memory, which indirectly got him down by another term, on academic grounds. Good cross country runner and a boxer. He had the usual josh of a jat in him and helpful attitude.

One of the most affable and jovial officers, one could ever meet. A true Haryanvi Jat, stood six feet tall, never smoked or drank or ate any kind of meat. A pure vegetarian who loved milk. During  cadet and midshipman days, his friends, often pulled his leg for his slow uptake; he took them all with a broad and friendly smile. Ever ready to help out anybody, and his mates hardly missed an opportunity to take his help, although mostly with selfish intent. SN Mohanty recalls two incidents with humour mixed with some guilt. First, In Goa, a few of them took him along to a bar. While they enjoyed their local feni, Chhillar went strong on soft drinks. Unfortunately, they didn’t serve milk in the bar. As they got high, they turned boisterous  in the bar knowing that they had their six-foot bouncer standing sober next to them. Poor Chhillar cleared the bill and carried them back to the ship. Second, When their ship had docked in Bombay, a young Mauritian lady turned up onboard. Several smart midshipmen (Chhills not included among them) got chatty with her, had beer with her, and danced with her. Finally, it was late, and she was worried about how to get home. Someone had to drop her home at midnight, travelling on the local train. Who else but friend Chhillar could be entrusted with the task? The lady, a bit tipsy herself, suddenly was full of confidence on seeing the hunk accompanying her. For his part, Chhills played the perfect gentleman by not only dropping her home at the dead of the night but also bought her some snacks, because all the smart midshipmen had been so busy being showy that they had forgotten she needed something called dinner.

Shrikhande recounts Chhillar's great reputation in the Academy as one who quite literally fought with life itself to come out of coma and find himself devoid of memory, basic language skills etc. Few men would have made the kind of recovery he did. But he did. His struggle with academics and naval training in 6th term, when we became better acquainted, was obvious but his spirit, like his strong jaw, was indomitable. As cadets in the old Mysore, he was once again showing his old spirit. He lost 6 months as a Midshipman and eventually joined the 57th course. In the hurly-burly of initial years as junior officers our paths occasionally crossed. His beaming smile, ramrod bearing and friendliness was always so apparent. He completed his Long Communications  course and was at sea for some years. He later branched out into some NCC and SIGINT work and his last chat with him was when Shrikhande was in HQIDS and he dropped in for a cup of tea. 

His wife Santosh was very friendly and adorable lady…but unfortunately she died because of pneumonia. He coped with this tragedy with fortitude.  Later Chhills got married again to Deveshwari. Chhills seemed a chilled out chap, but only a few knew what he had been medically through. Some came away with a wrong impression about him. One guesses that this was because they saw the present without an idea of the degree of his head injury and the miracle of his recovery. He was a fighter and he fought hard with life to live his life and bring up a family and make so many friends along the way. A Texan with a Texan's  heart.

The news of Chhillar’s demise came as a shock. It was the end of a jolly good fellow. That fateful day Devendra Singh Chhillar came back from his morning walk and prepared tea for himself as usual.  He sat on the chair in his balcony and never could finish his tea and just left us for his heavenly abode due to sudden cardiac arrest. Chhills shall always remain with us although he may have shed his body but his memories cannot be taken away. 

He is survived by lady wife Deveshwari and two sons. Family settled down at Gurgaon. Elder son Prateek now working in Viacom Media Networks and younger son Pratyush just joined for the BA Pol Science degree course in Amity University.

Penned with inputs from Sunil Dhir, BS Purba, Rajedendra Kumar, SN Mohanty, Manoj Rawat and Sudharshan Shrikhande.

🙏May his soul rest in peace🙏