She had ordered a cuppa tea and was toying with the pen, tapping the table, often making imaginary designs. Her hand bag on one side of the table, palm holding the back of her head, elbow on the glass top, she rested with her legs stretched out. Had quietened the silly cell phone and was totally focussed on the clueless patterns she drew on the tissue. She often frequented 'The Siesta', her favourite joint. The mood there was just right...be it the mornings, noons or the evenings.
Something pleasant blue was approaching the table in front of her. She looked up to see a man in formal blue attire, a bit bald at the back of his head, rest of it sprinkled with the dyed black hair, dark sunglasses, one of those expensive gadgets (an i pad or its avatar. she couldn't make out) in one hand, he casually deposited the car keys on the table. How quickly the mind takes it all, she mused. He caught her staring and she continued doing so for sometime before looking elsewhere. He appeared amused, perhaps hadn't attracted glances for quite a while, she thought. Just then half a dozen formally attired beings like him joined and the conversation drifted towards some business deal.
She lost interest and thought about Sujit. He occupied her mind for the next 15 minutes or so. She had met him in one of the Military technical training institutes. She hardly had met anybody from the Army except the chance encounter with an Army officer while returning from Kolkotta. She usually kept to herself, preferring not to open up to strangers. But this guy had gotten her to talk somehow. She had become engrossed in the various missions/combats he narrated while posted at J and K borders. So fascinated was she by his narrative that when he told her about how he felt when he shot a terrorist at point blank range for the first time, she was completely thrown off ! How could he-a young, good looking, courteous man kill a person ? She tried imagining him with a revolver but that image got to the point of making him look macho, just that. She could not think beyond and before her thought process started towards 'what makes a man kill?', a whole platoon of soldiers joined the young man and her thoughts got subdued under their thundrous laughter.
Here she was interviewing soldiers now. Sujit narrated his story. Kargil. Her knowledge about the place existed as a newspaper memory . A convoy of vehicles carrying heavy ammunition proceeded with Sujit driving the second vehicle. Suddenly the terrorists blew the first vehicle. Splinters flew and pierced Sujit's leg, rendering him limp for the rest of his life. He was shifted from one Military hospital to the other before he made it here finally. While these brave spirits live a physically hard life, their families struggle all alone back home. Sujit was in his late twenties, had a wife and kid. She wondered what motivated them to join the Army. As one of them quoted , he was infatuated with the uniform after his high school. Many join after highschool out of sheer infatuation and still others join for all the facilities they get lifelong...Medical, groceries, travel, education...subsidies everywhere. But this lot was unhappy inspite of all these because they couldn't be promoted in the Army, owing to their disability. How much torture-some the injury should be to them ? The base on which they had been recruited was bravery..courage..which they still had now in ample..but they were rendered unfit for the army. The invisible mental bruise was far more debilitating than the physical ones which was visible. She couldn't bare the feeling of inadequacy she saw way beyond their eyes. She promised herself she would do her best to get them back to the civilian life in the best productive manner and an equally challenging one. They had lived in extremes, now they had to fit in routine. Army promotion was a huge motivation..What reason did they have to move on in daily life ? She didn't have the answer but she would work with them to help find one.
Her tea arrived and she took the first sip. It felt heavenly.
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