Sixteen

And she stood there
Fascinated, intrigued, captivated
By the doorway
As the corridor shone bright.



She just stood there
The door ajar
In the balcony
With her Bud in her hand.



And those big brown eyes
Looked up at the sky
And, while the moon smiled back at her
Her face contorted, as if she was about to cry



With the whiteness of the moon
Reflecting back in those brown
A tear rolled down her cheek
And clutching her teddy tight
Spoke she, in a voice so meek



"Everybody says it,
But I don't want to believe
I know it, and I know it for sure
You are here with me.



I don't care
About what they say
It's my Sixteenth
Won't you be here, at least today?



I am small, and I need you
You can't just leave me and go
It's a big world outside
And I need you here, don't you know?



Left all alone now
It's not fair, can't you see?
They say you're up there, in the stars somewhere;
But I miss you Mummy, Daddy."

SOLDIER, I SALUTE THOU.

A false allegation, the Adarsh scam, a fake encounter in Kashmir, a frustrated jawaan shooting at his senior officers. A reputation upheld for over six decades of one of the best worldwide known, third largest organizations’ tarnished and thrown away in a minute. A minute of those news clippings talking about how what happened where and why.

An organization which claims to have men in uniform they are proud of, who give away their everything for the love and sake of their nation, leaving aside their fears and insecurities, the man they call a soldier,, has been pulled down from his pedestal. In a society hungry for the ‘masala’ news the soldier has been targeted, time and time again and shown as a man he never was.

He never asked to be termed as the ‘hero’ in the media, but he was. Fighting silently for his country, making extraordinary sacrifices, the soldier never craved for attention, or the unwanted media hype, but all that was shoved at him.
                                    Once used to the attention, a man craves for more and more. And this hunger at times can drive him crazy. And probably this is what happened in several of these cases.

 An ordinary man, who has made his sacrifices, shown courage above and beyond the call of duty, gone farther than he thought he could, and had the courage to stand up every time his nation called, is the one who is the real hero, and is the one who has been put to shame.

By these mere acts of shamelessness, hunger-craving men, who obviously are impervious to disgrace, the Indian soldier, who comes from a family like yours and mine, has been publicly humiliated and disgraced. I as a person, as a citizen of this nation, for which several thousand of them have laid down their lives, refuse to believe that the men who show such courage, spirit, and conviction at such a young age would go about at a random killing spree without a reason, rape a woman or spy on their own officers’. It is easier to believe a lie that has been heard a thousand times than to believe a fact that no one has heard before.

                        1.1 million Soldiers. The third largest army in the world. And a remarkable 62 years of glory and honor is something that’d charge up any officer, young or old, making him feel proud of this organization that has been alive in this country ever since ever. As a matter of fact, the 15th of January is celebrated as The Army Day every year (reason being Field Marshall Cariappa became the Chief of Army Staff of our independent India in 1949). So, lets’ not make any generalizations based on the stories that we keep hearing. These will keep coming and going. After all, all societies have a few rotten apples. They are just hauled up and thrown out faster than you can imagine. Justice in the forces is swift, certain and ruthless. Just ask yourself how many such cases have you a heard of in the last decade? A handful? Out of the millions who donned the uniform in this time, there were hardly any that were found.

 Soldier, I salute thou, I say. What do you say?

Nine.

PREFACE

This is the preface/prologue to a story I just began writing. Hope you like it. More to come soon...


It was now or never.
It had to be done. And, I – I did do it.
It was like tearing away a part from me, and keeping it right in front of me, but not being able to touch it.
Whatever I’d said, all of it, his expressions said it all...that he’d not understood a single bit of it. But as he took the letters from my hand, somewhere inside my head a voice told me even though this is the right thing to do, I shouldn’t be doing it.
But what was done couldn’t be undone now.
And as I hugged him one last time, I looked in those brown eyes to search if I could see it. And through that utter confusion that was clearly written all over his face all I could see was the reflection of a pair of eyes blinking back tears. Only.
That was the last time I ever saw him.