Diary Of A Soldier -21, an English translation of Gautam Rajrishi's 'Fauji Ki Diary' (फ़ौजी की डायरी २१)

Barsaat kaa baadal to deevaanaa hai kya jaane.
(the rain cloud is a crazed, how would it know)

"Kaise ho Gurnaam Singh ?" - How are you Gurnaam Singh?
"Kuchh to bolo Gurnaam !" - "Say something Gurnaam !"
"Tumhaaree beewee milne aayee hai tumse Gurnaam !" -"Your wife has come to see you Gurnaam!"

...The ICU chamber of that big army hospital in Udhampur had been echoing the past few days with more or less similar calls. During an encounter in the interior of Kashmir some days ago, a bullet fired from an AK 47 - after brushing past soldier Gurnaam Singh's bullet-proof patkaa - had entered and got wedged inside his brain. The brush with outer edge of the bullet-proof must have slowed down the bullet, the reason why soldier Gurnaam Singh was still alive. The helicopter, arriving immediately, had promptly transported injured Gurnaam to this army hospital in Udhampur. The very sight of a helicopter during all such encounters bolsters manifold the will power of the injured soldiers and the expert team of doctors and nurses on duty twenty four/seven in the military hospital does not delay a second to show their wizardry. After the seemingly unending surgery, the doctors had managed to extract the bullet lost in the mysterious labyrinths in the brain... but Gurnaam had slipped into a coma immediately after.

He had regained his senses a few days back but was neither able to recognize anybody nor say anything yet. His being alive after that fatal encounter was, in itself, nothing short of a miracle... and now his recently regained consciousness was adamant on a miracle too. The constantly-gazing-into-the-vacuum eyes of soldier Gurnaam Singh, who lay on a bed in that ICU surrounded by miscellaneous monitors and instruments, were also waiting in tandem with his consciousness for some miracle to happen. His parents and his new bride, who had arrived from a remote village in Punjab, were too awed by the grandeur of the military hospital and shining uniforms of the doctors and the nurses and feeling too tongue tied to be able to speak much. The thin and slender bride, her head covered with a dupatta, sat quietly by Gurnaam's bed or outside in the corridor... head bent, shedding tears.

Meanwhile, hit by the terrorists' bullets in another encounter two days back and admitted in the same ICU, lieutenant colonel saab, now lying in a bed beside that of Gurnaam's, was fearful that though he had escaped the enemy's bullet, he and all the other soldiers lying in that ICU chamber were sure to drown now and die in the flood of tears raining down the bride's eyes.

It must have been five or six days since Gurnaam Singh had regained his consciousness but not his memory, when one Khanna ji, a childhood friend of lieutenant colonel saab, came to visit. Khanna ji, somewhat short in height, prided himself on his booming laughter and Punjabi culture. Like any other average Indian Khanna ji was more interested in the stories of his friend's neighbours rather than in his friend. Having taken a full account of the injured soldiers lying on all other beds in the ICU chamber, Khanna ji's focus now turned to Gurnaam Singh. The moment he came to know of his details, Khanna ji got carried away and started off in his typical Punjabi...

"Hore bhaya, tera naa kee ai ?" - "So, bro, what's your name ?"

With a few short guffaws Khanna ji carried on...

"Oye, Gurnaame kidda ho? hah hah hah... yaar, tu kuchh bolda kyun nahin... kuchh to bol tu...hah hah hah !" - "Oye Gurnaam, where are you from?... why don't you say anything my pal... say something..."

...and suddenly, to the amazement of everyone present, it was as if a divine voice descended from heaven... as he lay on the bed, Gurnaam Singh's lips moved...

"Mera naa Sipahee Gurnaam Singh hai, te tussee kaun ho...hore kitthon aaye ho ?" - "My name is Sipahee Gurnaam Singh, and who may you be...where are you from ?"

It was as if joy itself had come at the time to that ICU chamber of eight beds to perform cartwheels and somersaults. Lying on his stomach on the adjoining bed, the lieutenant colonel saab screamed in excitement. The feet of all the doctors running from all the wards and corridors of the hospital had, as if, wheels added to them. All paths in that huge hospital led, for the time being, to its only ICU chamber. The hurriedly assembled doctors around Gurnaam, besieged by a mix of joy and amazement were voicing their respective opinions. All of Gurnaam's 'vitals' were perfectly in order. The conclusion that all the doctors reached was that it was the current of his mother tongue that Gurnaam Singh's adamant semi-consciousness, caught in wait of a miracle had actually required.

Meanwhile, the fear in the lieutenant colonel saab of drowning in a flood had suddenly reached its zenith, for the sobs of that thin and slender new bride, like clouds bottled up fora crazy one long, were now bringing down an incessant torrent of tears.

...and in that fear, the lieutenant colonel saab was reminded of a couplet by Nida Fazli...

"Barsaat kaa baadal to deewaanaaa hai, kyaa jaane
Kis raah se bachnaa hai...kis chhat ko bhigonaa hai”

(The rain-cloud is a crazed one, what would it know
which path to avoid... which terrace to pour down on)
               

Diary Of A Soldier - 20, an English translation of Gautam Rajrishi's 'Fauji ki Diary' (फ़ौजी की डायरी -२०)

   Kitnee Srishti mein kitnaa prem...
(So much of love in so much of the world)

So much of distance ! Distance... so distant ! So much of pain that... uff... enough of it for now please ! So much of noise that it turns the voices deaf ...  so much of quiet that it can make the silence voluble ! So much of fatigue that even sleep would fail to fall asleep... ah, so much of sleep that one could forget all the fatigue ! So much of sorrow that all happiness just craves to come into being... so much of happiness that sorrow is nowhere to be seen ! So much hatred...uff, so much of hatred that it becomes difficult to make even a mention of love and so much of love that the very presence of hatred astounds ! So much difficulty that everything seems easy... so much of ease, it's like facing a storm of difficulty ! Such chill that one could embrace the entire sun... such heat that even the Himalayas will not be enough !

A pain-like pain... so much of pain in these burning soles that taking off these heavy boots after a long patrol, one can't figure out whether the soles are still there or have peeled off along with the soggy and wet-for hours socks ! So much of something that seems unsaid that there is no justification of saying anything... so much has been said it's as if nothing now remains unsaid ! So many bullets fired from so many guns that it has riddled the very soul of a nation... so many wandering souls that the guns in the entire world have run out of bullets ! Such a large number of martyrs that that there is a dearth of land for pyres... such large stretches of empty, barren lands that the hunger for martyrdom is never satiated ! So many of coffins that there is no tricolour available now to wrap them up in... so many tricolours being woven, for the coffins do not stop coming! Such valour that there is no sign of fear... so much of fear that it makes valour disappear !

Someone calling out from the opposite bunker across the border... 'have you gone to sleep, sir'... evokes laughter on this side... "Shut up you rascals ! Losing even to Bangla Desh... and you have the cheek to play cricket" and again loud guffaws. The embarrassment in the silence on the other side begins to fill the cold air with a strange warmth. So many words...aha, so many words to weave stories to revel in... so many stories that words begin to play hooky ! The resonance of so many... so many guffaws that the flow of tears loses its sound and so many tears, that the resonance of the guffaws gets drowned !

A guffaw had resonated that day too. Not one but many guffaws... together. In that month of October. The October of nineteen years ago. The war of Kargil had ended two months back for the country. But only for the country... not for its army...

After the formal declaration of victory at the end of July, combing operations were still being carried out from bunkers occupied on high mountains for any remaining enemy till much later. A small search party of dare-devils from a battalion of the Indian army under one such combing operation had reached near a cave in a high mountain following leads. The search party consisted of two officers... one major, the leader of the party and one lieutenant, the second-in-command...along with twelve brave soldiers. They had confirmed intelligence ... the informer had, by pointing towards the cave, announced there were seven to eight enemy hiding inside the cave before them. Having given a once over to each and every detail of the plan to attack for the last time and with the party seated before him, the young major saab, the leader of the party was holding a spirited 'briefing'. Contrary to its name, the 'briefing' was stretching on and on...

'Kaalikaa mata kee jai - victory to mother Kalika ! Love you all ! Let's do this !'

Actually, the major saab -pointing towards the haunt of the enemy - was becoming a bit emotional. They didn't have an exact idea of the number of the enemy and the mission had to be completed before darkness descended. For some reason, major saab had this premonition that some of the members of the party going with him on the attack may not make it back in one piece after the mission and therefore his emotions were  surging up again and again in sentences like 'I-love-you-all' during this briefing of the action of the mission.
      
The second-in-command of the team, a little younger than young lieutenant, was now becoming a little exasperated with this long stretching 'briefing' of the major.  He wanted only to advance now, explode on the enemy hide-out and return to his base-camp. One more of 'I-love-you-all' from the major robbed the young lieutenant of all his patience and before exploding at the enemy hide-out he exploded at his own team commander...

"Arre, be done with it sir ! What will happen at the most... either those bastards will die or we will ! If they die we'll go, have beer in our camp... and in case we die, one or the other road will be named after us !"

Along with the rock-melting resonance of the laughter of all the team- members, the shout of 'victory- to- mother- Kalika' became engraved on the mountain for centuries.

"kitnee srishti mein kitnaa prem
ki kehnaa na pade
mujhe prem hai tumse
aur kitnaa prem 
ki karne ko poorie umra bhee kum ho jaise !

kitnaa main 
ki tum aao
kitnee tum
ki main na rahoon !"

(so much of love in so much of the world
that there is no need to say
I love you
and  love you so much
that an entire life would seem short
to fulfill it !

so much of me
that you should come
so much of you
that I no longer remain.)

Diary Of A Soldier - 19, an English translation of Gautam Rajrishi's Fauji ki Diary (फ़ौजी की डायरी - १९)

Dard thaa diyaa gayaa ki har dukhee ko pyar doon
(I was given pain so I would give love to each one in distress)

Winter is beginning to make its presence felt on these high mountains. The days still have the comfort of the cover of an angelic balmy warmth, the evenings however are gradually falling under the terror of the ghouls of cold. If all goes well this winter would be the last for this battalion on these merciless mountains. The impatient wait for the next summer may make this winter somewhat easier, for having completed its tenure, the platoon would have left by this time next year for some city in the centre of the country. Meanwhile these mountains have handed over to us a pile of countless stories...such strange stories that will take a life time to be told to the civilization spread under these pre-historic mountains, and even if told - who is going to believe them dear diary !

The commanding officer of the neighbouring battalion told an extremely interesting story over the phone yesterday...

...pushing and shoving out the month of August, September has somehow made its advent. One of the many important tasks allotted to the battalion is to keep the main roads of Kashmir used by Army convoys safe. It is normal for the terrorists to stealthily put mines under these roads... this is something you are well aware of diary mine. Of all the main roads, the most important is the one that leads to Leh and has maximum traffic of army convoys. The task is performed by various companies of the battalion by dividing the road in many segments. Each segment of the road is kept secure by one company of the battalion by dividing it further into small pickets. Each such picket is manned generally by four to six jawans. Each company usually establishes, on the roadside at a fixed distance, fifteen to twenty such pickets named Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta etc. according to the English alphabet. The story is about picket Charlie.
       
The daily, long convoy of army vehicles going from Shrinagar to Leh had just crossed the stretch of twenty five kilometres of the road allotted to one company of the battalion to enter the area of its neighbouring company. The moment this news was confirmed on the wireless, the company commander - a not-so-tall but decidedly dark and handsome captain - had heaved a sigh of relief. Having instructed all his jawans posted at each picket in that stretch of twenty five kilometres to stay watchful, he was about to return to his company base when an anxious message coming over the wireless touched not just his entire being but seemingly also the air around with a thousand watt current.

"Charlie picket for Tiger, over ! ...come soon otherwise Kehar Singh will kill this woman...over!"
Coming down his ears, the anxiety in the voice of the wireless operator had begun to course through the Captain's veins when he ordered his driver to turn the Gypsy back towards picket Charlie. Picket Charlie was hardly ten minutes away and during these ten minutes Captain saab ran Havaldaar Kehar Singh's entire bio-data tens of times in his mind. Plain and simple, totally disciplined, father to two children, a little on the heavier side but totally fit physically... what crisis could he have brought about ? The Captain's anxiety was as if racing against the speed of the Gypsy on the winding, meandering road.

There was a quite a crowd collected over there when the captain arrived. He could see from afar through the windscreen of the Gypsy four jawans surrounded by local Kashmiris from a settlement next to the picket. Full of apprehension, when the Captain stepped down preparing himself to face the worst, he saw everyone from the settlement giggling and laughing and Kehar Singh - sitting with a Kashmiri doll of about ten years on his lap - feeding her puris from the packed lunch in his Tiffin. The way the story unfolded, the Captain - who had feared the worst - couldn't stop laughing out loudly...

...the mother of that Kashmiri doll was thrashing her black and blue in rage over goodness knows what reason and the little girl's wailing was reminding Havaldaar Kehar - standing on duty nearby - of his own daughter. He pleaded three or four times with the woman to leave the girl alone and when she did not pay heed the enraged avatar of Kehar Singh first pushed the woman aside and then picked up the little girl in his arms. As the furious woman lunged at him, things went beyond his capacity to control. The people from the settlement told Captain Saab how havaldaar saab, carrying the little girl in his arms, had brought down an unending shower of blows. Amongst the group from the settlement, the first to  support havaldaar saab was the father-dear of the girl, saying the insolent woman deserved what she got... this was what she did to the children every day... she would now come to her senses.

Making his return after a moment, the Captain saab had an interesting story to share with his life-partner over the mobile that evening and I am reminded of a verse from a famous song written by late poet Neeraj...
         
"Haath the mile ki zulf chaand kee sanwaar doon
honth the khule ki har bahaar ko pukaar doon
dard thaa diyaa gayaa ki har dukhee ko pyaar doon
Aur saans yoon ki swarg bhoomi par utaar doon"

(I was given hands so I could smooth out the locks of the moon
my lips opened so I would call out to each blossom and bloom
I was given pain so I would give love to each one in distress
and breath so I should bring the heaven down to this earth)

                                                                               --x--