Suman Kochhar

Hearing drawing room discussions about the border situation I am often reminded of my childhood days when I was a witness to two major Indo-Pakistan wars of 1965 and 1971.The Kargil war was much later. Having lived in an important northern cantonment town, a war situation has its own significance for me. It was a unique experience of compassion and caring and provided an insight into the minds and lives of Army families to us as children. Memories of the emotional trauma are still very fresh in my mind. The passing of multitude of tanks, armoured vehicles and scores of military trucks carrying infantry, on a road a few yards from our house, near the main Army supply depot, signalled an imminent war. As children, we would line up with adults on both sides of the road, carrying the small hand-made India flag and felt very important helping elders in handing over refreshments to soldiers in passing vehicles from morning till late evening. It gave us a feeling of camaraderie and responsibility. Songs of patriotism blaring at high volume greeted and blessed the soldiers who were going to the border to protect our country and our lives. It was a similar scenario at the town’s railway station, a major northern railway junction.At home, overseeing that my younger brother got inside the trench in time, during an air raid, was my responsibility. Posters made by us struck on the trench walls and playing cards came very handy in  making  the trenches less intolerable. Dinner was cooked and packed in tiffins by 5 pm, to avoid putting on lights at night during the blackout time. Discussing the latest situation and sharing meals with neighbours in the compound of our block in those cold winter nights provided some succor to our tired and frightened souls.  During daytime we shouldered the responsibility of reporting suspicious strangers to our parents and prided in calling ourselves the ‘young spy detection brigade’.Most of my school batch mates were Army officers’ daughters. At that tender age we were able to feel deep compassion for them and understand  the pain which they suffered when a father or a loved one was killed in the war. Their agony and tears are still engraved in my heart. News of fresh casualties poured in every day. My tender mind refused to accept the immense loss of human life. A teacher of ours lost her husband during an Air Force ‘sortie’. Her heart-rending cries and the nerve-wrecking sound of anti-aircraft guns still ring in my ears and my heart ardently wishes and prays to God that we never have a war again.