War is Ugly
War is painful
War is shameless destruction and utter chaos
War brings price rise, scarcity, rations and poverty
War means ‘Body Bags’ rolling in from battle fronts.
War is meaningless killing just because the other guy wears a
different uniform
War brings panic and naked pain to thousands of homes of defense
personnel across the country
War should only be the last and final resort especially when two
developing countries with nuclear arms posture against each other. . the consequences
are beyond imagination.
In half a century, I have been through four wars - four wars that my
country, India, was part of.
The Sino Indian war of 1962, I do
not remember. All I remember is that I grew up with the notion that China was
"Enemy", China was "Big and Bad"; that is, inspite of the
"Hindi Chini Bhai Bhai" rhetoric.
Memories of Indo PakWar 1965
linger….. My father was posted at the sea port, Cochin Customs. We lived in
Willingdon Island. That was the time when Pakistan's Operation Dwaraka eyed the
small port of Cochin, its oil storage tanks and above all, to destroy India's
aircraft carrier INS Vikrant (believed to have been hidden away at Cochin).
Classes in schools consisted of Air Attack Safety drills. With cotton balls to
plug our ears, we were taught to find refuge under huge tables, in the corners
of rooms, into the dug up trenches or flat out on the floor, eyes closed, elbows and hands supporting our chins. (I
wonder where those teachers are now!) Those were the days of ‘Black Outs’. All
window panes of every house had to be blackened to keep the lights in. Several
families packed up and went away to their villages. And whenever a suspected
aircraft came, like a banshee wailing, the sirens screamed for total lights out
and total alert until the second siren announcing “All Clear”. Finally on 15
September during one of the black outs there was a distant droning sound and
the night sky was lit up with a flurry of cracking lights… the anti aircraft
guns in action! Sensing danger, five of us siblings, the youngest a baby,
huddled around our mother. I remember the eldest, my sister, breaking out in a
prayer and was promptly hushed by my mother. We were too young to comprehend or
to question ‘Why’. Fortunately, the
shells dropped that night went unexploded. Some fell into the harbor waters and
only one created a well like crater in an empty plot. (http://indiannavy.nic.in/book/1965-indo-pakistan-war)
The 1971 Indo Pak War, also the
Bangladesh War of Independence, was much closer to home. My father was then
posted at Dum Dum Airport, Kolkata Customs and we lived in 24 Parganas, just
walking distance away from Bangladesh. War was just next door. All over again
we experienced black outs, sirens, trenches and camouflaged anti aircraft guns.
What was new was the influx of teeming Bangladeshi refugees. They would do any
piece jobs on offer and so we had “foreigners” working in our garden. The only
positive - the country unified under Mrs Indira Gandhi with slogans like “Mrs I , you are the apple
of our eye”, “Woman does wonders while man blunders”
And hopefully the last, the Kargil War of 1999. This war I
comprehended very well indeed! The pains, the fears and the meaningless
destructions make me ardently pray that war should be avoided.
So lets not cry for war, friends.
