The Major - In Reflection

Serving in the Kashmir valley is one of the toughest tests in modern military assignments. It's a war unlike any other. Soldiers live under extreme duress, fighting bitter cold, heavy equipment and an unseen enemy. Quite often fighting terrorism isn't as difficult elsewhere in the world as it is in the valley, considering the villains are hemmed in and isolated in most cases. In Kashmir the enemy within is not alone and never isolated. What makes it worse is, it is tough to tell the enemy from the civilian. And then you even have to be able to differentiate an innocent civilian from one who isn't so innocent. I remember shooting a mad man who jumped off the roof of a hut. It turned out he was just the average village madman who generally did that kind of thing all the time. However the Indian army cannot afford to be seen violating human rights so we always carry a couple of spare Kalashnikovs. One of the boys dropped one near him and then we waited for five minutes a few yards away under cover. Well, when you shoot a 'terrorist' you wait a long time before you go near him so we were following 'protocol'. Soon enough someone walked by and we stopped him and warned him of the danger, let him see the gun and the 'terrorist' and then we cleared the place out. The next morning we just added 1 to the number of 'foreign' nationals gunned down in the valley and the mad man became another statistic. If that sounds horrible I should tell you of the time a couple of our boys, who spoke the local dialect, walked into a mosque dressed as locals. We had information that a few militants were holed up in the mosque. All we found of them months later were photographs of indescribably mutilated bodies.

The war we fight in Kashmir isn't a fair one, no war is, and nobody remembers anymore why we fight it. It's a lot like life anywhere else in some ways though. Danger lurks everywhere; happiness is something you cherish more often in memories than in reality and the only sign that someone is shooting in your direction is that the leaves, in the low hanging tree above you, are being decimated by flying bullets, while you lie prostrate hoping you'll live another day. In fact the bravest of our soldiers no longer have hope and fight with a fanatic frenzy. They're no longer human beings when they fight.

I had a comfortable posting with a desk job in Bombay. When you graduate from training it's the posting you ask for - a desk job in a metropolis. The army can be really kind to you, a few years of service can leave you comfortably placed for life and you look forward to a long life and a peaceful retirement. I know that sounds ironic but in a standing army of one million not everybody dies and at peacetime very few die. So you'll understand how ironic Kashmir is and why very few fresh graduates opt to go to Kashmir. Life is actually in most cases pretty peaceful and very enjoyable in the army. You don't get promoted as often as you might if you were in the valley, but you don't die as often either. Stay away from Kashmir and you get to see so many different places and you get to do it with pride and in a magnificent uniform. Life always seems fine when you are in the midst of that kind of happiness. But life has its own mysterious ways, doesn't it? Just when you look forward to a glorious sunset to walk into, the road comes to an end.

I surprised most of my colleagues when I asked for the transfer to the valley at the fag end of my career. For a broken man they didn't realize I was so broken I was almost suicidal. Anyway Kashmir was too placid for me, I was too senior to be sent around gallivanting all the time and the mad man was only one of two people I pulled the trigger at; the other guy I missed. I did get shot at a few times when we were chasing the enemy but the younger ones were always quicker and there was usually very little for me to do. I guess Kashmir didn't quite work out the way I wanted it to, so I had to be content with a lonely retirement when my time came.

I still think I'd have strung myself up from the fan in six months, simply at the prospect of facing solitude for the rest of my life. For the first six months I often asked myself what else there was to look forward to in life but you have to understand I'm not the kind of guy brave enough to commit suicide. I was left with no option but to try and give myself an excuse to continue. Sumitra became my excuse and to be honest she is no longer an excuse. She filled the void in my heart. She was four when she came home and for two years I hugged her close to my heart. It was just the two of us and I was happier that way. But I guess I realized a girl like Sumitra couldn't be left isolated in my world.

Watching her walk to school that first day with Parijatha was a pleasure too. I would have to be without her for sometime but I was happy in the knowledge that she would enjoy that day more than any other. It was something she was looking forward to for a long time and just seeing her eager and happy made my heart brim with pride and joy. I can never be bored of telling you how special she is. To be honest though, after all these years even I'm amazed by how her story has turned out.

I always thought she'd do better than most people in the kind of situation she was in but she completely defied the situation she was in, in fact she ignored it. It wasn't like she climbed the Everest or swam the seven seas but for someone who was a blind orphan at the age of four what she did with her life amounted to something equivalent.