Sunday, December 8, 2013

The man in the uniform!

Whole my life I always hated the man in uniform. May be it was the memory and the experience which has been deeply painted in my mind since childhood. When I was a kid mom used to ask to rush back home and live inside the home whenever the military colour huge vehicles stop by our village. Then while growing up, my school bag would be searched every early morning by the patrolling army and they would asked us every morning where are we heading to in their broken Manipuri ascent. In the cold and bitching winter we have to answer with a heavy breath and holding our sweating forehead that we are going for tuition in our school, to a place 11 km away from my home. Sometime they intentionally made us scared while asking questions like in what party we belong to and helplessly & hopelessly we would stand like an accused ready to take any punishment they would give us.

Every morning mom and dad would drop me till the road where my friends used to wait for me to start for our cycle journey till school. Whenever I go home and the voices of honking buses at 3 am would suddenly awake my fear and anxiety of living in those time. I woke up with a haunted fear of losing myself every morning where I had to face the patrolling armies at 4 am and answer their questions. I would always stand with teary eyes beside my friend Santosh who would be standing in a long line of men pulled out from the local bus every morning for body search. After so many years and almost a decade of living in Delhi, after learning the meaning of democracy, learning the law of this land and knowing how much injustice has been done to us as a human and citizen of this country, I can never forgive the state, every silent men and women of this country which colonized not our home but our soul every now and then. Their grief, their malice would surely give a smile to me and those who lost their lives to their silence. What made me broke down and cry every time I visit home is not the sounds of gunshots and bloodshed of state and non state armed groups but how we have become immune to the unnatural death of so many people who lived among us. The very unnatural trait of this phenomenon has been made so natural in our day to day life. It's just part of our life, everyone said.

I could recall the day I was coming back from school with Santosh and Issac and they have been isolated and carried away in a corner to question. I had to stand nearby our cycle holding their bags and praying from inside please God don't let anything happen to my friends. At the same time, I dream many horrible things about myself. What would happen to me, will they kill me too after they killed my friends and apart from that many horrible things even horrible than death which could happen to a girl. Sometime we started living with so much of suspicion among each other. While cycling 3-4 of us together in that tiny road I would be doubting on my own friends in school uniform and asking myself what if anyone of them have been found out as related to some banned organisation and what if we all have been caught. Every morning and night the only haunting dream of my parents were to see me coming back home safely. I never assumed whole my life those men in uniform are human, have a soul, have a body which can been killed, filled with veins carrying the same red colour fluid like in my body. I saw them as bunch of machine gun walking tall and I thought they are sent from another planet everywhere, jumping like the scary animals in some jungles with their thorny hats till the time I listen to the human behind that uniform.

The space I have always avoided whole my life was being interacted with man in uniform. I even avoid my friends husband or boyfriend who joined the institution of uniform and defense. I always hated that it's a place where human machine are manufactured, human robots are preserved. I makes me more annoyed was stupid foolish women going gaga over the man in uniform rather knowing the politics of this institution and uniform. One of my colleague said girls go crazy with man in uniform and  I won't be surprised if my fiancee said one day that he slept with a woman. You know girls are crazy about them. I just said hmm and said it depends, first we have to check whether they are really human. Then she got what I mean to say and never start that topic in the lunch table. I literally hate this kind of corporate women without a brain except they know is how to use computer and of course whatsapp or whatsass!!

But life gets you different lesson. It was the episode of Dhantewalla in 2010 which shocked me seeing 76 dead bodies of CRPF people lining up on the road, most of them belonging to the remote villages of UP and for the first time I shed some tears for those man in uniform while seeing their family crying in the tv news, their mud house, their old parents and half naked kids. That was the time I started knowing the double facets of victim-hood. Now also I do not want to believe that they join the force because they aggressively love their country and they know what is the meaning of nationalism. I was not crying for that made-to-believe machine in the uniform but of the man behind that uniform made up of blood and flesh and who has been killed as pawn in the war for nothingness but for the benefits of corporate and politicians. Let it be state or non-state armed people both the category belong to poorest of the poor group or middle class family who either fight for an empty stomach which has been kicked mercilessly or a family who eats basic non-nutritional food but dream of a comfortable life of a live-able home, a car, a family, a happy wife with a pride. Both the group do not belong to the dynasty of Gandhi, kings or whatever. I will not go to the question of nationalism and love of this country. Till now that's not even in my illusion, I can't understand whole my life and I hate aggressive campaign of nationalism by the upper caste people in this country and I do not believe in the existence of their nation excluding the poor, north east, kashmir, tribals, dalits, beggars and women at large and without those who die without knowing a life they have been gifted with this life.

Then here I met some snobbish type of girls in an institution and told me I really like that army guy. He is too smart and dress so well. That's the first time I got so offended about what someone I like. I was like no way what the hell I was doing from last one year. I need to get over and run away from what I'm thinking and shared what I felt to my close friend saying I'm so shattered. But it was after giving some thoughts I initiated to have a conversation with that man in the uniform. What makes me more vulnerable was knowing the very human, filled with blood and flesh, insecurity and loved of his own life and unlimited dream like anyone of us. May be knowing him helps me to break every piece of my hatred and instead I'm more able to understand and blamed the politics, institution and rules set against their willingness.

But I'm still left with the illusion that whether those girls who were going gaga over him was really ready to feel that human behind that uniform, feel the pain of that man in uniform whenever he leaves for his operation in a dense jungle when he know that he is fighting for an unknown enemy created out of nothingness and at the same time he can not do anything against the institution, system and the rules of military law. I do not know really how love, affection and attraction has been defined by the women of this era, by their computerized brain and whatsapp addicted heart??

 As far as I know them I don't think any of them seems to reads politics of Maoist, Army, CRPF, Dams, minerals-mines, patents, corporate, border and the very man in uniform who they have been going gaga. I could not even see the anxiety in the eyes of that woman to understand the fear in his eyes of his life, dream and a willingness to be like anyone of us to live a safe life. What made me really annoyed and irritated was what they saw in him. A brave machine with six peck, high-tech mobiles, his personalized vehicle waiting outside the institution to escort him, his short and smart hair cut, his biceps and his cleanly ironed dress, but in all the above description, there have not mentioned anything related to his being a human, that willingness to be loved, cared, blood, flesh, insecurity, pain, fear and dream! Or may be they are just wanting a prospective body they can perfectly advertised to the world. What the world believes, the brave soldier!! But what I know was different, he is just fragile, insecure, love his life, dream like us, feel the pain just like anyone of us, has the tear-ducts and it is not the politics of his uniform all I know but the human behind that uniform and only thing I hated were what all those women like to own and love, apart from his soul, all I hated was that uniform which made him look like undead and immortal to those girls!!!

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