An Unsung Hero

I belong to a small village in Uttar Pradesh state, India. As I said it's a small village, I must say that my village is small in terms of area, not in terms of the scarifies that a great hero has made for protecting the glory and dignity of our beloved mother nation. The willingness to do something for the country and always uplift the glory of the nation by exceptional achievements was always in the mind of this hero right from his childhood. As a student, this person was exceptional in his studies and along with that, he took part in many cultural fests, especially those where he has to portray himself as a great freedom fighter like honorable Bhagat Sing Ji, Rajguru Ji, and the great Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi Ji. It was a recreational activity for the people who used to see that play, but for that boy, it was a golden opportunity to experience the sacrifices that our freedom fighters have made throughout their lives in just a few hours of stage performance.

And I must say that you will be both happy & surprised to know that the parents of that boy has profoundly named him, "Rashtra Gaurav Pandey". Time passed and as all parents are conscious about the future of their child, his parents were no exceptions. But the problem was out of traditional herd mentality, they wanted him to be only an Engineer or a Doctor of some kind( With all due respect to all the Doctors and Engineers). But this boy has pre-decided his future. After completing his intermediate, he went to NCC and completed rest of his studies over there and later came out to be an officer in the Indian Army. He fought many battles, got injured, and sometimes death just touched him, but as a brave son of Mother India, every time he stood firm in front of enemies, looking at them eye-to-eye as if he is saying, " You can touch the sacred soil of my motherland only over my body. Don't you dare to do it, when I am alive." Such a great level of commitment and dedication was really an exception. 

Not only he was a brave soldier but a social reformer also. After getting retired from Indian Army, He contributed to the infrastructure development of many villages, contributed to improving transportation facilities in nearby remote villages, and also worked hard to provide affordable education to the deprived youth of nearby villages. He was a retired person, his job was gone , but not the spirit of serving the people of the nation. 

We are really proud to have such a great personality in our own village. Such is his aura that even today when some stranger asks us, "Where are you from", every time the answer to this question is, "We belong to the village of Rashtra Gaurav Pandey".