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The Irony Of Paid Soldiers

Yes, the thoughts started to roam his mind like a cyclone. Uprooting, destroying and rampaging all the memories of his life that he once shared with anyone.
the bullet just passed through his right lung missing the heart by inches but he  knew instantly that he is not going to make it as being the man in charge here he knew about the medical facilities here and the nearest hospital being 200 miles back.

His mind was way off the battle field though, the only thing he managed to


remember was that the fellow in his right got hit and in that moment he protruded his head out of the cover and started firing when a couple of bullets just got injected into him.
Flashes of memories start coming and going from his mind like a movie being fast forwarded. He remembered his early days, his childhood and how he used to play with his father. He remembered his teenage when he and his friends would have the time of his life doing all the fun in the world. Faces… faces start coming and going infront of his eyes of all his mates and there appeared a smile on his face imagining them in their homes unknown of the fact that their friend is about take his last breath.

he remembered the look on his parents when he joined army and took the oath to protect the motherland irrespective of the circumstances. He still remembered the tears of joy that trickled down on the cheek of his mother when he came home the first time after completing training. His father looking  towards him proudly with his head held high.
Suddenly the pain in his chest brought him back to reality and he covered his wound with his hand. Blood was gushing out too fast for him to stop.
The face of his one year daughter came in his mind who was born just the previous year, the queen of her eyes and his wife, a lovely sweet wife who he loved dearly and always counted on her on moments of crisis. A loyal woman just in her early twenties will be left widowed because his husband was a fighting a battle that the nation doesn’t considers its own.
severe pain and light headedness followed and he knew that any second now he’ll be taking his last breath.
And he thought about his family wife and kids and then he thought of other people, the common people the simple folks who believe what they are told

will he be hailed as a hero…?

“No, I guess not. To them I’m just another guy being paid to do what I do best. I can’t be classified as somebody special just because I was paid to do all this. PAID PAID PAID….”

deep down he knew, he knew that if anyone in this whole wide world would be asked to risk his life on the basis of just 30,40 thousand rupees no one, NO ONE will do it

your life is not worth this much.

but not him because he is a soldier and that’s what soldiers do
THEY FIGHT, THEY DIE AND IN THEY GET THE BLAME OF BEING PAID.
he coughed a mouthful of blood, spitted it out and lied down flat on the ground
in his last moments these words of Centurion Quintas Dais were ringing in his mind

“it is the soldiers who do the fighting and the soldiers who do the dying and the Gods don’t even get their feet wet”

darkness… pitch black darkness just engulfed him and he felt his whole body trembling and then suddenly he took a last breath full of blood and rolled over to one side
and then…
then nothingness…

From the ink of a soldier...

Souled Out

In an inert atmosphere, where one could hear a fly buzzing. Lying on my bed I could see the fan covered with dust as if I never used it. It was the middle of winter probably December and the clock was showing thirteen to three. A sun beam was coming into my room directly over my face probably trying to irritate me. I was least bothered about it. Though this apathetic behavior of mine made me quit, declaring everything on God’s earth an immutable one. Deep thought about what happened in my past and what could be the aftermath, compelled my conscience to fight with me. But my pugnacious behavior buried my conscience deep under the cherishing memories. Though reminisce could never be the part of my life as nothing good or worth mentioning happened in my long boring life.

            Ummmmm…. Memories flashing in my mind, fading in and out. But some as clear as my existence and my presence. My childhood, love of my parents, my first day at school, watching beautiful girls in my adolescence, planning to tease friends. All these memories made my lips smile though they were rough.

The clock seemed to be proud of ticking away time. It was showing twelve after three. I was worried something bad would happen or had the premonition of unfavorable winds that would drift the clouds of my wishes to the barren mountains of despair and would desolate the world of my heart. Or my wishes and plans would be buried deep under the age and no one would be able to help me out. Was that feeling due to the fact that I lost my friend or some girlfriend of mine betrayed me? It was still unclear to me but I had the idea that something dear to me is leaving me for good.

            The ticking of clock was getting faster for me and my epileptic head set everything rotating. It was seventeen after three and my soul departed.

          That gave me the answer. It was my soul who left me alone in the grave. Reason of despair was not the departure of my dear soul. But the painful feeling was “I LOST MY LIFE”. I loved my life for a noble cause. I wish I had one more life to accomplish that noble cause. For that the soul had to be the sole part of my mission. But it left me to lead a boring life in the grave.

                                                                     The dead man writing.




courtesy: Capt Furqan Ahmed, EME
a great friend and an even better person.

Good Bye to life.... but Why ?

He was born in a very rich family with all the facilities that a man could think of. As a child he was pampered and taken care of with the highest affection by the servants that have been employed by his parents. As he entered teenage it started to make him sad that his parents don’t have enough time to spend with him. Quite soon his mother and father got divorced and it all became a dream for him. He could hear the whole argument his parents were having that night but he couldn’t do anything. The pain of losing them was intense and he thought that this will never leave him, will come to haunt him at nights. And it did left quite a mark on his personality but time went on and he graduated, joined his father in the business. There he found a girl that soon became the queen of his dreams. He proposed her which she accepted happily and it was a moment for him. Such joy such happiness he felt the kind of which he never had or never will. He married her and they started a family together.

He was born in a middle class family. They had all the necessities of life and his parents tried their best to provide everything to their child. He never had all the luxuries of life but still had enough for a child to get going with. As he entered from childhood to teenage he fell in love with a girl about her age. Day and night were spent dreaming of her and he got her in a relationship at last. He felt a joy like never before on her being complying to his approach. Things went smoother and he imagined nothing can be better than this. But fate had something else in mind and the girl left him for another. His whole world came tumbling down in a second and his life started to vanish around him. He felt as If he was being strangled by some invisible hands and thought that there is nothing more terrible than life itself. Pretty soon he came over the grief and started a job and things became smoother. He still thinks of her sometimes.

He was born in a very poor family, the kind of which, cant either expose their poverty to the world but live in a life of miseries, wants, needs and dreams. Since day one he had nothing that a child could call personal possession as his family was fighting a war with the increasing inflation rate. Childhood passed in a blur of memories and it wasn’t even till late teens that he started cursing his pathetic wretched life. He loathed the thought of living, of simply breathing as if it was something on his shoes. He thought that he can never be happy in his life. His father made him join a workshop where he was to learn automobile repairs. He was good and being able to start young he was faster, quicker and perceptive than others. He quickly learnt the trade and started making good income. People used to say that he can identify the fault in a vehicle by simply looking at it. Things got better and he started saving. His parents married him to a decent girl, someone he liked pretty much afterwards. From his savings he established a workshop of his own and hired other people to work for him. His workshop became popular and customers used to some to him increasing his income.

There he was standing outside his workshop and looking at the traffic thinking

“life is so good that I don’t know if it could get any better”

In all these above described events one can easily note what’s the similarity. I was sitting with my mentor in a restaurant having a late lunch when he told me

“Remember this Ahsan ! there are times in a person’s life that something bad happens and he thinks that he cannot be more sad than that, grief overpowers his all senses and he thinks that he will always remain sad like that and things will never change, similarly, there are also times in a person’s life that something good happens and he feels such joy and such happiness around him that life becomes a living dream of heaven for him and he thinks that the extent of which he is happy now can’t be matched and he’ll be always like that

They are both wrong

The feeling of sadness that engulfs him makes him think like that so he thinks that he’ll always be sad and not even once will he see the glimmer of happiness. This singular feeling increases his pain and plunges him deep down in the valley of hopelessness, similarly, when he something good happens he also go in a trance like condition of happiness believing that it will always be like that

Everything is temporary

Nothing will last forever not even the grief or the joy not even us for that matters. So one should not consider each situation as permanent.

And remember! Always be on the positive side. Whatever phase you are going through always remain at the positive side, so that in your heart of hearts you know that you are right….”

In the living memory of Behzad Akhtar Jhattial....

Kill me please.... I dont have money to live

He woke up at cock crow again and as usual, rinsed his face with a couple of splashes of water and looked towards his wife who was sleeping. Then he turned and watched his 3 children who all were sleeping in the same room. Their faces blank and their eyes closed, they looked so serene that for a moment he was caught in a flashback of memories. He saw his first son being born and oh what a joy he felt at that time being called father to a son. He remembers all his relatives wishing and congratulating him as he stood among them holding his firstborn in his arms.

He saw his second son being born in very difficult conditions as he had no money at that time so he had fewer wishes and fewer congratulations. He saw his first daughter when she was born to him, the rush of excitement he felt as he considered his family complete but

He also saw all those years that passed him by and all the troubles and the hardships he had to face. Having no considerable degree or education he was left with only one profession to follow, so he became a laborer. He saw as the inflation rate got higher and higher and his children got skinnier and skinnier. It felt like each particle of fat was removed from their body right in front of his eyes and there was nothing he could do about it. He worked from sunrise till sunset but couldn’t get enough green to give his children a proper meal.

He jerked all of these thoughts out if his mind and made way towards the front door and as he was about to go out he saw his youngest daughter following him. He stopped and looked towards her with an affectionate smile and she said “baba please bring apples today“.

These words reverberated in his mind for a couple of seconds, he wanted to tell her that they don’t have enough money, wanted to tell her about the market influx and everything but what does a 6 year old knows about money or salary or income or inflation. So he just replied “yes, I will”.

As he started the day’s work the words of her daughter kept taunting his mind, mocking him as if to dare him to do the inevitable. So he made up his mind that he will get them. What kind of father he would be if he can’t fulfill the little desires of his children. As he marched out of the working area with the day’s income in his hand, his destination was the market where he could get some fruits for his daughter.

When he reached the vendor and heard the voices of people saying apples 180 Rs to 200 Rs his brain just started spinning because the 300 Rs income was like …. Was like… nothing to him. He couldn’t control his emotions at that time and a tear trickled down his face and he looked up with eyes that were saying 

KILL ME NOW, I DON’T HAVE MONEY TO LIVE

From the ink of a soldier only a fraction of reality can be drawn, the rest… is left to the reader.

Why Kashmir conflict is a blessing

Many a times I’ve found myself in a discussion rather to call it a heated discussion about the Kashmir issue. It is quite fascinating to see how people give arguments about the conflicted region and pardon me to say it aloud each and every single person present gives a unique description of it. Not to mention the fact that how easily they present a solution this is viable in their sense of knowledge. Let me proclaim at this point that I am not a protagonist of suppressing freedom of speech but it’s just the fact that the ideas they present, the solution they give are such ludicrous that it’s like rubbing the lamp of Aladdin and ending all hardships in a jiffy.
I don’t call myself an expert on the matter but isn’t it quite obvious why the Kashmir issue is so much crucial for us, for the army and for the establishment. It’s just so rue some that the common man can’t see the relation here.

First take in account the strategic location of Pakistan being surrounded by India, China, Iran, Afghanistan and the Arabian Sea out of which only India can be declared as an enemy or a threat. Now why do we call India an enemy not because we fought three wars with her but due to the fact that it has control over a region that we claim as ours, Kashmir. The people that get killed there are our very own people and their pain is our own, that’s why we call India an enemy.

Now lets take an account of the army that we are having; we have 650,000 active troops and 500,000 reserve troops almost a total of 12 lakh of people currently employed by army for warfare, which of course by any standard a huge army considering a country of our size.

And the sole reason of keeping this army is the Kashmir conflict, due to which we call India a threat.

Lets say if by any miracle of God this issue is resolved then what will happen? A very simple explanation here. UN will simply say that Iran and Afghanistan are Muslim countries and your friends, China is a big ally of yours and your conflict with India is solved and you have no imminent threat from them.

THEN WHY IS PAKISTAN KEEPING SUCH A HUGE ARMY AND DEFENCE BUDGET.

So Pakistan must disband her humongous army and send them home. Now we can’t be having this situation can we but on paper the demand from UN is right in essence. As we have no need for such army then why are we keeping it, by doing so disturbing the balance of power in the region.

From the ink of a soldier a very brief account of happenings can be written and yes, Kashmir is a blessing.