Once I asked a soldier who live nearby my place, “What do you think about New Year celebrations?” He replied, “After so many years I am celebrating this….” He further continued, “The last day of the year!…everywhere the mood of celebrations and elation. Populace travels all around the globe to celebrate new-year with mammoth blast. The destinations for the same majorly include Dubai, Singapore, Paris, etc. Even in India, cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Bangalore remain alive for the last week of the month. Several ones even loose the track of time….and money too. At the same time, there are few individuals standing at the border-gates, over the hill-tops and mountains near fences protecting kids, families, mother and fathers of their nation. They might not be able to give a call or send a Whatsapp message to their family that how happy they feel and how eagerly they wanted to celebrate that night at home for many years…..but…”

He further continued, “If you ask Google to define a word ‘soldier’ many renowned names like Oxford or Cambridge or Merriam Webster word-databases come up, accompanied by nearly 36 million results within just a blink of an eye. Many websites redundantly describe the word as ‘a being with special utilitarian skills, experience that enables them to use weapons and related machines’. I am not blaming general population who are easily picturing their uniforms, huge houses and facilities, but not looking at the hardships they had to take for that. After working for the whole week no one wants to read or even think about something over such tracks. The mundane lives revolve around money, parties and friends. No one can point a finger over them saying that why are you not showing respect? Or what is wrong? Because it’s their personal choice and our constitution is based on the same.”

He took a halt in the walk we were having and said, “But few individuals are so enamoured by the thoughts of their nation that they don’t even mind about their family lives or their kids, wives and mothers. They don’t think about people giving them respect only twice a year. Not to mention the names but myriad number of movies gave a glimpse of their lives. The enormous hardships and pains they undergo are just out of our imagination. Can someone think about their mindsets and how they must be running? While soldiers are holding a flag till their last breath, people in the nation are watching the war scenes on TV and thinking of packing so that they can leave the country during 1999, Kargil. Soldier fighting 300 Chinese gun-men or a major paraded and dumped in the ally nation whose bodies can’t be ever recovered are few exemplary individuals. They were constantly thinking about billion lives, but left just one out of it.”

Finally we reached below our building and I was listening to him, “In case of UN Volunteering, Swachha Bharat Abhiyan or No Suicide Act these teams are ready to serve. Any time they are always on their feet to help others. They do not care about the day and night time track and because of them the young generation can ‘Eat-Sleep-Rave-Repeat’. One can write innumerable number of words to extol them but even thousand dictionaries or million pages are not enough. For the safe tomorrow they have given their today. Hence, any number of Sun-Burns, One directions and Republics run safely. Such things can’t compete even slightly what they do and the harsh truth is they never cared much. A humble request to all the readers, in this ‘Happy 2017’ at least demonstrate some respect for this people every time you celebrate something, every time you pray to God or help someone. General population in India never think back even once before donating money or food in a temple, but they stay back and relax at home on those two days of holidays or even go for an outing. I think such prays and helping hands will augment the motivation and vigour of the borders, which will help them protect the nation and their own selves in a better way.  JAI HIND!” I also repeated, “JAI HIND!”

Responses