The Three Incidents

Incident 1 : The Siachen Guy
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Place : Pathankot , a small town two hours from Jammu
Time: Late evening, summer of 1994

Dad and I were in a small STD-XEROX shop photocopying some papers. A man dressed in the army uniform came in asking if the STD phone was free. Pathankot is a army town and you have soldiers all over the place. But there was something about this guy's voice that I looked at him. He looked weary; tired to the bone. He ambled towards the phone and made his call. Dad and I could easily hear the conversation; he was calling up his family after a long time and he had been posted at the Siachen glacier for the last 6 months or so. That conversation gave me goosepimples. There were so much of emotion; happiness and relief.


Incident 2: The Picnic
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Place : Hyderabad
Time: Late evening, sometime in 2001

I had accompanied dad for a section picnic to a nearby lake. The picnic was fun; the usual games, prizes and the mess food. While coming back, somebody started singing a old popular hindi song. Everyone joined in and it was fun. It went on for another hour or so till we were pretty close to the Air Force station. And suddenly we were tired and thirsty and quiet. And then an uncle started singing "Saare Jahan se accha". Everyone joined in. That performance gave me goose pimples. I had sung this song numerous times at school and heard it countless times. But had never heard it being sung with so much of emotion, so much of pride.

Incident 3: The Train Journey
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Journey: Hyderabad to Delhi
Time : Sometime in the year 2000

This was my first solo train trip. Mom and dad were a little apprehensive at the station giving me all kinds of advices at the last minute. But all their apprehenions vanished once we were inside the train. Mom and dad discovered, to their delight that the entire section was full of Army officers. They were all going to attend a colleague's wedding. The journey was great fun. Lots of great converstaion. I was amazed to find out that most of the officers there came from families steeped in the army way of life. Their dads, grand-dads, great grand-dads had been in the army. They were married to or were about to marry daughters of armymen. Their battalion had served in Kashmir, in Siachen and other areas. One of them had won a "Vir Chakra" for an operation against the militants. They had known fear and had looked at death from close quarters. But yet they were wanted their children to join the army and when they said that they wanted to "serve the country" ; they did actually mean it. I felt so proud of these guys. Where does all this come from?