A Soldier’s Agony

For an unemployed boy from a  poor family, it isn’t about ‘having a career’ or having a five year plan. It is about getting a job that pays well. The Indian Army provides such an opportunity to young men, who need not be highly educated but should be physically fit.

No soldier was ever born a patriot. The training they go through completely changes their outlook. The boys become stronger and focused men. This manhood exposes the fissure between philosophy and the truth. The cracks in this masonry of reality gets filled with the grout of love for the nation first, then the fellow men and lastly his own life. 

A boy who was raised with love is now in a war. The tourniquet is dripping red and fatigue in every inch of his body. This deracinated being, is now emotionally detached. He possesses the raw power to face the danger with grace, to follow every command and protect the motherland. He has to kill. He has to serve. And if at all he survives, has to feed his family back home. A soldier never kills a man, he eliminates a possible threat to his nation.

To honour these men, there are dedicated monuments, movies and many printed pages. Very often some candle marches are organised too.

Then what? What next?

The soldier climbs down the mountains where he once sprawled from exhaustion, to the society we call our homes. He finds people of his country fighting and arguing over issues like religion, language and caste.

My father adorned stars and our national emblem on his shoulders. I have not stayed in one place for more than 2 years. I have spent my childhood in more than 8 states with all different languages. My mother has collected handicrafts from all over the country and her recipe book has recipes for mutton rogan josh to vangi bhaat, from dhokla to rosogolla and the Assamese dish, fish tenge. In the process, it didn’t make sense to love just one state, speak just one language and embrace just one culture.

But, today when I attend the parties where the polished educated lot, sit with their champagne glasses, I am judged more than often for not knowing the local language and a few call me an outsider. Am I an outsider in the country for which my father went to the battlefield?

I have an eight years old son. He knows about the Bhagwan Gita, the Holy Quran and a little about Jesus and Guru Nanak ji too. I wish he grows in society where he is not questioned about his caste or what language he speaks. I wish he is celebrated for his kindness and not his financial status. I don’t want him to go to a foreign university because I want to be sure that opportunities are present in my country. For freedom of opportunity is the foundation for all other freedoms. 

Many warriors have bled to keep our country safe. But if our thoughts don’t change, every soldier who died ; died for nothing. Every sacrifices made are in vain. Mothers lost their sons for whom? For us, who are too busy vandalising the country’s property in the name of religion. Let’s make a nation where we are able to live happily and prosper together because we belong together. Let’s make the world of that limbless soldier or that war widow a better place and making their sacrifice worth it.