Day: July 26, 2012

Last year, around this time, I had visited the Dras War Memorial.No true Indian can visit there and not get emotional.

I strongly believe that Indian civilians do not have a clue about the numerous sacrifices made by our Army brethren to save our country from our murderous enemies.Not only are Indian civilians clueless, they are utterly insensitive and callous too.

Here is a heart-breaking anecdote from an Army daughter:

While news coverage in 1999 brought Kargil to the Indian living room, we witnessed the war at a very personal level. With every tricolour wrapped coffin, we hoped it was not someone we knew. Not the officer who used to play hide and seek with us during Mess parties, or the one who used to take us for bike rides on his new Kawasaki, or the one who first taught you how to hold a tennis racket or even the one who we used to make fun of because some pretty girl refused to dance with him in last month’s social evening. But all we could do was hope. As the number of dead soldiers soared, our hopes waned. Every death was the loss of a father, a husband, a son, a brother a fiancé or a childhood sweetheart, all of whom to us, were family.
While most of the country was surprisingly supportive, given the lack of information about the defence forces out there, there were instances that made most of us Army kids cringe, partly in disbelief and partly in disgust.

 

I remember flying Indian Airlines from Bombay to Bhuj and as I was about to board the plane I suddenly noticed those dreaded coffins about 10 meters from where I was.

There were about fifteen of them, along the sidewalk, wrapped snugly in the tricolour before they were about to be transported to their various residences or battalions. I noticed this rather corpulent gentleman giving stern directions for what exactly to do with these ‘boxes’ as he called them. These were his exact words, while he loudly thumped one of them “Arey kya yaar, in dabbo ko hatta yaha se, poora jam karke rakha hai idhar.” My heart sank and my eyes welled up instantly with tears of anger, rage and most of all, insult.
But I could do nothing. I let him deride the lost lives of the people I have known and loved for years. To my horror, I found out later, that Indian Airlines had refused to transport these very coffins in their carriers. So much for being a public sector airline.