This article was written by me when my son was deployed somewhere close to Karakoram Pass in the DBO sector in Ladakh. He was posted in the Ladakh Sector. After the Galwan incident, where 20 soldiers of the Indian Army were killed, he had to rush to that area with a company strength of Ladakhi soldiers. For days, there was no communication from him. Occasionally he would call and then go off for days. The days were full of uncertainties with no news coming out from that area.
A Mothers Heart
She is not able to sleep. It has been five days since her son spoke to her for a brief two minutes. It was a long-distance call put through by an army exchange operator. Before her instructions to her son could finish the call was abruptly cut. It has been like that since her son got deployed on Chinese border, known as LAC, since mid-June. The calls were erratic and very brief, mostly at the mercy of the army exchange operator. Gone are the days when she could pour her heart to her only son through mobile phone calls and give him all possible instructions mostly aiming at his well-being, safety & security, eating timely and of course her favourite topic of making up his mind to get married.
The son, like a true fauji, does not
talk about “what is happening there”? She tries to gather information from TV
Channels and social media but seeing the shoddy display of jingoism, war cries,
and saber-rattling by TV Anchors shuts it off cursing them that maybe none of
their near and dear ones is in the army and deployed on the border. Her husband
advises her not to watch TV and not to believe what appears on Facebook and
WhatsApp messages. Any news about ‘Meeting’ on the border with the Chinese is
keenly read, watched, and heard by her. “Their mothers must be equally
worried’, she muses about enemy troops.
She had been an army wife and
suffered long separations from her husband in her prime age. Those days mobile
phones did not exist and letters were the only means of communication. By the
time the letter could reach her husband and elicit a reply, a lot would get changed.
Some minor problems could get mitigated or she could overcome singlehandedly.
In the absence of her husband, she miraculously played the double role of father
and mother for her kids and brought them up. Quite naturally she and her
husband did not want their son to join the army and suffer long separations
from his family. But fate decided otherwise. The son won’t listen and he too
followed his father’s and forefathers' footsteps (fourth generation now); went to the Indian Military Academy and chose to join their (her husband’s) battalion. Though
felt proud of her son’s achievement, she cannot help being over-worried about
her son’s well-being, more since his deployment in the forward area. Her
husband at times feels irritated and tells her that she wasn’t even half as
much worried about him as she worries about her son. She tells him that he does
not know about a mother's heart.
Her son is deployed at a place
where civil phones do not work. He has given a civil number of his unit
Adjutant, that is away from his location, to be used in exceptional cases. She insists
on using that number but the old man is reluctant. He doesn’t want to
‘interfere’ with unit routine and also does not want to sound ‘too worried’. “It
is warlike”, he tells her, “Leave it to God. Everything will be fine”. He
assures her but she insists. Seeing her restlessness, he gives in. Almost apologetically,
he calls the unit Adjutant and asks for well well-being of his son. The officer replies assuring
them that all is well, their son is absolutely fine, there is nothing to worry
and they can call him anytime. Profusely thanking the husband disconnects the
call. Mother hears everything, feels happy, thanks God, and appears calmer and
satisfied. “I can now go to sleep peacefully”, she says.
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