Pride And Prejudice.

Today was a very busy day....and also a very funny day.
It was 10 in the evening. I was in the officers mess having my drink when i got an emergency call. The incident was so that, one of our vehicles had stopped in front of a unit gate and the driver had got down to prove his identity. But the goof had placed his vehicle in neutral and the vehicle rolled over the hill .... hitting the gate and totally destroying it.

I had to give up my drink and rush to the spot to acess the damage.The adjutant of the unit was already there, and more than acessing the damage it was save your face for me. I had to apologise for the soldier very sheepishly and the adjutant just could not stop laughing at the incident. Good i knew her or we were for a very tough evening.

The thing is that sometimes our soldiers do such idiotic things that are beyond the comprehension of normal thinking. But they are the same people to whom we depend our lives on. One thing that is noticiable is that collectively they are a strong force, singularly non-existent. It takes all the time and patience of an officer to take into account the situation and manage the task satisfactorily.

Another thing many civilians and Army probables think that the Army is all about sitting in the border and protecting the boundaries of our motherland. But the truth is that, its just a small part of our jobs. Most of our energy and time is spent on keeping the troops fit and their morale high. Make sure that they get right pay and dont go for an overdraught, get their food in the right time,get their clothing issued in regular intervals, take speacialised training capsules, keep the unit in ship shape form and in that time when you are deployed for an operation make sure your troops are ready to take on any danger possible with a "pinch of salt".

The problem is you get to see more administration than you see action,(some do see a lot of action, but then like i said, some...), and this leaves many an officer in the begining years of their service dissapointed. They keep raving for action but most usually are again dissapointed with "only" administration. But this does not mean they are disgruntled, which most usually is thought so, they learn as they grow in service the importance of administration. The sinscerity is never lost and the "josh" remains. Somethings in the heart never die.

The one other most dissapointing part of serving in the army is the media. They seem to just waiting to bite our backs. They want a scandal in the army so that they can feed their tummies, and in the same breath they want us to do a good job so that thay can sleep in the nights peacefully. Now thats what you call an oxymoron (i would prefer moron). Its not fun when the media slings mud like on a major who seemed to have taken fake videos on killing pakistanis in the impossible terrains of siachin. Come on guys--- thats a place where you are fighting to live, and the last thing you are going to do is produce a movie!

Temperatures range to upto -50 deg cent. For atleast 6 months you dont see a single blade of grass, leave alone trees. No people, no movies, no drinks, no smoke - only snow, mountains and the damn mist. People lose their limbs if they dont wear the right thickness of gloves.
Every moment of yours is a pain. You are in an altitude of above 18000 ft. You have all kinds of problems like high blood pressure, breathlessness, loneliness, and the pain of seeing others in pain. Even bacteria does not survive there. And finally when you come down you are a wreck. You most probably are not able perform sexually, in the worst of the cases, and you have conditions like high blood pressure for the other half of the rest of your miserable lives.

And you have the energy and time to produce a movie and a fake one at that?. Then trust me the guy really deserves a medal and the government has not made a mistake in giving him one.
Ladies and Gentlemen, he just made the first and only motion picture in the world's highest battlefield and also one of the most inhospitable regions of the world. He deserves an oscar.

In the end allow me to quote one of the most patriotic songs ever made in the country. One of my personal favourites and loved by millions..... and this is dedicated to the Indian media.

Mazab nhin sikhata, Aapas mein pier rakhna,
Hindi hain hum, Hindi hain hum, Vatan se,
Sare Jahan Se acha, Hindusthan Hamara.

(Religion does not teach us to interfere in each others affairs! We are indians, and our country is the best in the world.)

Here is a good humour page....
http://www.armyinkashmir.org/v2/laugh_bytes/humour_uniform.shtml