Maximum City
October 2020
By Sheela Jaywant
Sheela Maushi; as Nawang called her is Nawang’s mother’s sister. She is married to an Air Force Officer, spending time with them had a major influence on Nawang to serve the country and dedicate oneself to protecting her citizens
11.11.2000.
We’d arrived in Mumbai about three weeks before this date and were settling down, tracking grocers, vendors, dhobhi and milkman, familiarizing ourselves with Maximum City which I’d left in 1978.
Around 11 A.M., strolling on Ranade Road, Dadar,—if intuition is a thing, that was it— I felt I should visit my sister, Geeta. Cellular-phones weren’t common, so contact was limited to landline calls. A little while later, I went to Carmichael Road; she wasn’t at home. Sonam, Nawang’s elder brother, was talking agitatedly with someone over the phone in an inner room. The family’s house-help quietly told me, ‘Something’s happened to Nawang-bhaiya’.
Nawang had got his commission very recently and was posted to a hot-spot, Kupwara, Kashmir. It was unlikely, I thought during those few moments, that it could be more than a road-accident, if the news had been relayed over a long-distance phone-call. But Sonam was cried out: ‘Nawang’s no more’.
I phoned a Colonel I knew: ‘Could you confirm this news for me?’ I asked. Within minutes I got my answer. Nawang, the football-loving Gandhian, with the twinkling eyes and mischievous grin, about a month shy of his 25th birthday, had given his life doing his duty, serving the nation, honourably and bravely. It was later that I learnt what happened, and how, in an attempt to rescue a severely injured brother-in-arm, he received the bullet with his name on it.
When I think of him, these are the memories come to mind:
Nawang trying to smoothen the wrinkles from his father’s forehead, trying to erase the latter’s irritation over something he’d done. He would have been two or three years old then.
Once, when he was about eleven, he travelled alone by bus from Peddar Road to my house in Dadar. He missed the stop and got off two stops later. While he was walking back, finding his way in a leisurely manner, we panicked. Bus after bus came and went at our stop and there was no sign of the boy. Before a formal police-complaint was registered, Nawang showed up, sweaty but cheerful, wondering what the fuss was about. Very calmly he told us: ‘I knew what I had to do and I did it.’
Fast forward to 11.11.2000: Nawang knew what he had to do and did it. In the best traditions of the Indian Army.
As a teenager, he came to stay with us when I was in Jodhpur. There he witnessed something few relatives do: my husband had ejected from a fighter-aircraft. It was early in the morning, and Nawang and I were playing chess when someone came to tell me what had happened. I explained to Nawang what and ejection from an aircraft meant. He was curious, but, as was his wont, he heard me out, asked no questions. He kept observing, listening as I spoke to people over the phone, or those who dropped by, and shared my relief when we got the update that he was being taken to hospital, conscious. When he came home from hospital, in discomfort but good cheer, Nawang decided to entertain him. He acted out a role from a play he’d taken part in, he recited some verses from memory, and he told me jokes in Marathi, Gujarati and English. That talented side of Nawang I had not seen before, nor did I see it again. But it has stayed in my mind all these years.
There’s more: Food- from fish-curry to daal-rice, gulab-jamuns to pineapple-salads, he relished every bite he took. And football- a favourite game, participation preferred over spectating.
In 1995, after a trek, he came to our home in Bareilly. He seemed to be fond of our dog and the latter reciprocated in measure. Our son, Saurabh, showed him the Mig-25 and the other aircraft that were parked, wheeled and flown in the technical area that could be seen from one of our windows. In the pre-internet era, such experiences brought knowledge, aroused curiosity and triggered dreams. Nawang’s interest in the Defence Forces and keen desire to be a part of them stemmed from his visits to Army units, meeting soldiers leading hard but purposeful lives and an inherent sense of ‘service’. It was this innate trait that made him fast on 31 January to pay homage to the Father of the Nation (perhaps due the influence of his maternal grandmother). He understood what ‘giving’ meant, whether food for a day as a token reminder of a great leader, or his life for a comrade’s sake.
Those whom the gods love, die young; when their purpose on earth has been met, their tenure is complete, and they leave. The trajectory of such lives is brief, intense and, in the case of those like Nawang, glorious.
In soldier-heaven, Nawang must be sharing notes with others gone before, gone after, looking down with care and concern upon those at the border, those undergoing training, future faujis, present ones… hoping that peace reigns again, that post-Covid, the planet has learnt its lesson, that war or war-like situations are no match for a little virus. I can almost hear that giggle; I can most definitely bring to mind that smile which curled into his cheeks, his eyes twinkling at the world around, wondering what the fuss is about.