WHEN WE LEFT THEM BEHIND
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
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
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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