My love for the military.... or is it??

To begin with there is nothing to begin with, it has come up strongly in the last years and I am just sharing. My bringing up was too much of a self involved thing, or maybe that is the case with everybody I guess. Armed forces was never an option for me, and it was fed to me in a very subtle fashion in my nascent years. Reason - The only son of the family thing in a typical punjabi family, completely ruling the odds against me. Which raises the point that, kids these days have the option of deciding what to do and encouraged to explore new, less known, non-contemporary professions. Its a fancy to here kids saying that they want to do what excites them, what they are passionate about and so on and so forth. Back then, BA was something that every monkey could do, LAW was for those who were VEHLA and KHAANDANI and the challenging professions, where parents could show the world that their kids were worth the salt were; ENGINEERING & MEDICAL. The engineering generation these days won't even be knowing that a place with name like BIDAR exists in India; that it used to be a mecca for any prospective engineer (by any I mean ANY),  it was KALA PANI for all the forced ducks who could'nt get into engineering colleges up north. They might never come across words like DONATION. O what times they were, no wonder they have changed; rule of life. Anyhow, my career was decided with my fathers profession and what mighty luck it was for him; it was called engineering. I guess I am drifting from the point here. My engineering over, and I automatically slipped into my father's profession and tried to do it better initially, but now I have stopped the effort.

2008 was probably the year where the changes within me actually started surfacing. A lot many things happened in the year and in all probability the seeds were sown in years 2006, 2007; my initial time of professional freedom. My distance from my father, gave me a new insight to something called as MYSELF. It was in those days that I wanted to do something, to break off things. Of what form, in what way, when, how; I had no clue. But it had to be done. Someone said that its pretty challenging to do Ladakh on a bike and I said I'm on, and ON I remained while the original perpetrator of the thought quietly made a miss. Till that time I never knew that a royal enfield website existed, and they float a section called RIDER WANTS RIDER. I mean, when things have to happen, they just start falling in place by themselves. A couple of rides were posted there and I was excited to read about them all, but there was this one write up which particularly intrigued me. It was so very open, so very welcoming; it was by Colonel A K Raina. I called up, I fixed up, I tagged along and I completed the ride very successfully. Now, I was friends with serving professionals of the armed forces. No wonder one of my own batch mates is in the army, but he's more of Harbir and can never be Captain Harbir or Colonel Harbir or General Harbir.

So with Colonel saab, I met Captain Suresh and then began the saga of my seeing the military might, of my moving in the military circles. The more I saw of it, the more I wanted it. I could not have enough of it. Be it watching firing exercises, firing weapons, driving tanks, staying in field accommodation; I wanted it all. How it started ????... Well I was in Capital Book Depot Sector 17, maybe 10 years back and I came across this book D-DAY by Stephen E Ambrose. A very thick book and I was not a reader then, but god knows what made me buy that book. Speaking of facts, this book is the most detailed version, by any historian, about the Allied landings on French beaches in the World War II. I ended up reading it twice. What followed was a string of other books by the same author and many others. So in a way, I knew what army was about, its structure, its functionality and the other stuff here there. One day, when Colonel Raina remarked me that you have a military background....  it came as no surprise to me, despite none of my immediate family members being in the armed forces. Probably, it is just the zest within me to connect with myself at that platform, which I was forced to neglect. No regrets what so ever, as long as I can pull things off. If the realization had to come at this stage, then even I share part responsibility for it. No wonder I get along with Fauji's well, and as long as I am clear that I am not there to exploit anybody, ALL IZZ WELL.

I have been told that I have seen all the best things that Fauj has to offer, and that there is a flip side to that coin. I think about it, but somehow, to me, it still is an institution to look up to despite the so called claims of degradation in its standards; I hold it in high regard. My minimal of exposure to this institute, has only increased my regard for it, contrary to what anyone has to say.

Its hard to explain.