WHEN WE LEFT THEM BEHIND

WHEN WE LEFT THEM BEHIND

Attached extract from my new book.'Smiles  Tears and Heartbreaks'

Brig Lakshman Singh , VSM
These partings and reunions happen off and on at varying intervals during the service careerA fate ordained for those who serve and their families, so others can sleep in peace and in the comfort of the feeling of security, unaware of the traumatic experience at every of one of those frequent partings
I WAS SURFING the TV channels when my attention was arrested by a scene from the ‘70s movie, VIJETA, in which the son, a flight cadet, leaves for advance training.


The scene was set in front of a first class compartment and the parents, Shashi Kapoor, playing the role of the father and Rekha, the mother are facing their son.  All the actors, professionals, and masters at emoting.  The father, with a stoic continence hiding the inner turmoil, the mother's face overwhelmed with a plethora of diverse emotions clearly depicting the whole gamut: pride in her son, her affection for him, pain of the looming separation and also apprehension and uncertainty of the future, while the son is torn between feelings of leaving the parents and the excitement of soon joining his comrades.
The scene then cuts away to the sitting room of the parents in Bombay.  Both appear a bit distraught: as Kapoor hands over a coffee mug to Rekha who breaks down in a flood of tears with the gates of pent-up emotions opening wide.  ‘Let me cry, let me cry!’ she wails between uncontrolled sobs as Kapoor tries to comfort her unsuccessfully. 
The scene did hit an emotional cord deep inside of me, reminding me once again that the fate of the servicemen is that they must inevitably leave their loved ones behind more often than not for the frequent calls of duty.
On many such occasions, overwhelmed and preoccupied with my own feelings, emotions, excitements and apprehensions, I had been only mildly conscious of the turmoil going on inside of those whom I was leaving behind over a span of 30 years of service in the Army.
Possibly the first time such a situation arose was when I left along with my brother for Lucknow.  I do not recall the occasion but I must have been too excited of the prospect ahead of me, of joining the university, to notice the feelings or emotions of my parents.
Things became clearer and much more specific once I started receiving calls for training at the erstwhile NDA now known as IMA in 1954.
With tears in her eyes, my mother, a simple, affectionate, and loving lady from a village had exclaimed, “Today, I have sold my son!”  My father had just signed the bond required before a cadet could report at IMA.  The truth of what my mother had said dawned on me now and I realised that one has to pay a heavy price for wearing ‘OG’.  I could only wave half heartedly at my father that day.  Unaware of his feelings at that time and on my way from Nanital to Kathgodam from where I was to catch the train to Dehra Dun.  He was preoccupied with the ongoing strike by the roadways employees and the riot-like situation on the road further down, and waved me on to push ahead quickly without stopping. 
Every time I left my parents behind to report for duty, I would turn to look back at the threshold of my home where my mother stood.  She always had a melancholy demeanour and a faraway look in her eyes as if to discern what lay ahead in the future.  In contrast was the “matter of fact” deportment on my father as he saw me off at the bus stand or the railway station as the case may be. 
Later another set of those being “left behind” was formed when I met my future wife Jeet.  She, along with the family, had come to see me off at the Dehra Dun bus stand.  As the bus started off towards Saharanpur, Rosy was hidden from my eyes but not from my mind.  I was in a daze, lost in my own thoughts of the short time I had spent with her, totally unaware of her feeling at that time.  I was to learn of that much later, post her demise, from her jottings in my diary. 
The picture of hurt in Jeet’s eyes, Jeet along with her sad expression accompanied me all the way back to Pathankot where I was off to to join duty, when I had to leave immediately after the delivery of our daughter and also later when, like a good soldier, I abandoned my wife of less than two years and the child of nine months or so to join the unit by 29th October 1959 in far away Assam.  ‘Abandoned’ was the word she had used then and again many times later to remind me of her mental state on being left behind.  What she was feeling at that moment of separation, of being torn from the father’s lap, in her child’s mind and limited experience of world is more difficult to describe or visualise. 

The sad lament of the engine's whistle more so as heard in summer nights while sleeping on the terrace of our village home, had a lot more to do with both Jeet and me in later life.  It would be reminding us night after night of my impending departure, causing so much pain, by the same train till one late night I would leave her behind tearing my-self from the last embrace, words unsaid to answer the call of Army.  I can only visualize her feelings at that juncture.  However, I was utterly miserable walking in that dark night, each step taking me farther and farther away from her, silent and lost in my own thoughts with no words being exchanged with the person accompanying me to the station to see me off.
The tenure in Armament Research and Development (ARDE) was immensely enjoyable and satisfying and of a settled life.  Then I took the risk of changing track once again; changing from a scientist to a soldier once again.  I left for the long journey from Poona, in the last week of December 1970, to the far east of India, this time to Kalimpong in West Bengal.  By this time the children were of an age that they would have experienced their own feelings on the parting.
These partings and reunions happen off and on at varying intervals during the service career.  A fate ordained for those who serve and their families, so others can sleep in peace and in the comfort of the feeling of security, unaware of the traumatic experience at every of one of those frequent partings.


NOTE :- Brig Lakshman Singh's books 'A Solder's Journey in Life With Two Wives' and "Smiles Tears and Heart breaks' are available as e - books, 15% free down load, from Smashwords.com 


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