Little Soldiers
A few months back, a tall, handsome young man with a calm veneer came to have lunch with us. He is a captain in the Indian army. After lunch, all of us sat around him and asked him questions about his life at the barracks. With a twinkle in his eyes, he spoke of running never ending laps, bitter cold days, rigorous discipline and dangerous frontiers.
He is a mechanical engineer and his job during a war is to inspect the grounds and facilitate swift passage for the rest of his troop. As his proud father listened, he narrated tales of dangerous challenges. His words made us shiver, but his stance was of a man who was merely doing his job. A job he was very proud of and a job that, inspite of the glorified celluloid versions, he enjoyed and felt passionate about like any other self-chosen profession. Everything he said, had the flourish of grit and determination, but his manner was the same as it had been when he came home from college and spoke of his new friends and their latest antics.
He had an air of quiet confidence, responsibility and humility. Looking at him, I remembered the tiny brat who use to turn the house upside down, who once threw, one by one, two-dozen eggs at passer bys, who was always playing the truant in school and was the terror of the class. When did that tiny brat grow up to be such a man? In his soft serious calm, I could still see the mischief and the warmth of childhood, but along with it there was the effortless strength of a true soldier. Ofcourse, he also spoke of boring afternoons when he had to fiddle with a tiny peg, waiting for dinner to be served and all the body aches he had after the customary dance with a wife of some senior!
The other young man was a brilliant student in school, went almost all around the globe even before he was fifteen. He won these trips in quizzes or through academics. After his higher secondary exams, all of his friends went for the usual engineering and medical entrance exams; he rebelled and went on to get an economics degree in an unfamiliar city. Last winter, he came home with a stubble and tales of exotic dinners that consisted of an ox’s tongue and theatrical experiences in amateur groups. This summer, as per his college guidelines he will be on a summer job with one of the premier business houses but what he really revels at is along with the educational experiences he will get to carry paper from one desk to another, as a peon, or get to serve drinks, as a bearer. Things which most probably he wont be asked to do, but at the moment, he is pretty gleeful about them and is bragging all about it everywhere!
The third young man always talked nineteen to the dozen, as a kid, though younger, always fooled me out of my quota of sweets and biscuits. He was a remarkably intelligent kid and an amazing mimic. He wanted to be a journalist, still does, but due to conventional pressures went on to become an IT engineer. Today inspite of the fact that he spends hours as a software professional, he is also a cricket commentator, the most popular compeer in his locality and a wizard with politics and current affairs. Thinks the country is going to the dumps because of American outsourcing and it should stop, though it would mean people like him would get lower salaries or might even be without jobs. Still mimics other people, but most of the time in his words, thoughts and beliefs he is the stand up comedian who can laugh at his own apparent realities and sift them away from his true being.
The last but not the least is a man who is much younger than the other three and still has miles to go. He has just passed his higher secondary exams, yet I call him a man and the rest of his friends, boys, because of the choices he has made so nonchalantly, this early in life. Again a promising and brilliant chap, he had passed his ICSE with 96%, he just passed his ISC with 63%. By normal standards he has fared pretty badly, and if he could have had his way he would have completely dropped the exam. He will ofcourse not get admission into any of the premier institutions, but he doesn’t care a fig for them. His dream is to become a disc jockey and someday become a true experimental musician.
I remember seeing him the first time, sitting at the back, poring over a difficult treatise on astronomy. While the rest of the class barely grasped the nitty gritties of the difficult poems in their course, he always absorbed them and went on to question the very premises of the poet. At times, after a long night at the club, where he works, he almost fell asleep in class, at times he stealthily read other difficult books while the rest of the class paid attention to the regular course being taught, at times he sat with a bored expression wondering why at all go through all this regular stuff and at times he came up with the most fascinating interpretations.
What I will always remember is the twinkle in his eyes. I have seen that twinkle turn into baffled pain, confusion, defeat and again come back to a bright self-assurance.
Today, as medicos and students all over the country protest against reservations it is the quintessential spirit of youth that I see. The reservation as an issue is a matter of serious deliberation for another post, but what touched me in the past few days is the realisation that the spirit has not died. Our youth can still battle for social causes; they can still take up cudgels for justice and go to any limit to fight for what they believe in.
Though a cleverly commercial venture, that is what I had liked about the film Rang De Basanti too. The means the young people chose in the film or the end might be far fetched, but I think the film expressed in a passionate and touching way the unquenchable thirst of youth - the essence of an age that can break all boundaries.
The four men I spoke of have lived up to that spirit. They are not rebels without a cause. While the other three might not have chosen professions as obviously glorious as the first one, each of them is a success in my eyes. They might or might not attain what the world views as rewards, but I think just by being what they are they have already won their reward. In an age of packaging, the gift of the gab and corporate gimmicks they have remained happy in their humility and in their personal quests. When all around me I see young kids mint money in call centres posing to be other than what they are, while they speak in American accents and give themselves American names, these men speak their minds and stand up for things they believe in. In an age where every time a government is formed party people have to be cloistered in unknown motels to prevent buying off, the tides of our times have not been able to seduce these men away from their chosen paths.
They are happy soldiers who walk difficult paths, oblivious of short cuts and rat races, they win battles unknowingly just by being themselves. They celebrate life as it should be.
Here’s my salute to all those young men and women who have been on the streets, protesting for over a week now.
And here’s my proud salute to my three kid brothers and a favourite student.
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