Inspiration

Remember those mandatory “How was your Summer Vacation” essays we had to write during every new session at the school?

I wrote pretty much the same essay, with few differences here and there from the same essay book, every year. But summer of 1998 was different, nothing drastic, but different. Something stirred inside me and I was itching to write about it, but with the fear of sounding too philosophical for a 13 year old, I skipped it.

It was the usual “summer holiday” evening, mom took me to the local park for slides. For some reason, she started telling me about her family, her extended family, and then something about my maternal grandfather, I wasn't honestly paying attention, till I heard, “He was a Doctor in Indian Army”.

Rest of my holiday was spent asking about him each and every day, who was he, what was he like, what he studied, how he got into Army…an endless series of such inquisitive questions. Mom patiently answered to the best of her memory & knowledge about him; little did she know, what her son’s heart had suddenly started aspiring for! 

The last straw that ignited the fire for that 13 year old was when he saw Late, Capt. Hanuman Prakash Gupta’s picture in Army uniform.

At the age of 22, he got married to Smt. Sharda Gupta and next year, on 24th July 1966, he was commissioned as a Captain in the Medical Battalion, Army Medical Corps.

His first posting was somewhere in the field area of Kashmir. On 16th March, 1968, while he was going to relieve a fellow officer, there was a mine blast and he met with a fatal accident. His body was found several days later. He did leave behind a legacy, not knowing that he will be inspiring someone 30 years later to follow his footsteps.

Today, when the younger generation comes asking me the same questions, which I had once asked, it makes me smile.

To them, all I can say is: “Yes. The love of uniform & the respect, the fascination of being called an “Army officer," is all very attractive, but that’s not the totality”.

What inspired me was my grandfather as a person, a person who believed in selfless dedication to his country and to humanity in general. A simple, calm and helpful human, that’s how everyone remembers him till date and that’s what I aspired to be.Inspiration comes when you are least expecting it, in the simplest of things, but it is difficult to grasp. It makes you reconsider your views, makes you push your limitations, makes you kick open the closed doors and find, your very own, hidden sanctuary behind it.===========================================================

People always asked me, why and how I joined the Armed Forces. I could never touch this particular string of memory, as if it was buried somewhere deep within.

Looking forward to many more...