Life as an Army Officer's daughter.

Today, I saw a video of soldiers returning and meeting their families after really long. I could relate to that. My father was in the army, and most of the times he would be posted to field stations. There were times when we would see him for only a month in a whole year, sometimes, even less, depending on how much leave he would be left with. Even in peace stations, he would have to pack his bags and leave, so, we the family would be left behind.

Back in those days owning a telephone was expensive, and the only way we could contact him were letters. Mobiles were not even introduced then, and since we didn't have a phone we would go to our neighbours house (if they had a phone) or at the guard's room. I remember, Papa would call up and leave  a message with the guard, that he would call back again, and so, five in the morning, we would wait in the guard's room, still groggy from sleep, staring blankly at the phone, at every ring we would jump expecting it to be him...when the call would finally arrive, we could barely hear him and thus, would shout in the mouthpiece as if that would make it more audible. Then, we started recording tapes and exchanging them with each other, every time his would arrive we would sit in front of the music system and listen to it over and over again, even have our dinner while listening to his tapes, especially the part where our names were mentioned. When, we recorded, we would record and re-record to make it the most interesting tape for him.

The day he was expected to come back, Mama would dress us up in our finest clothes and would do the same for herself. My sister and I would wait impatiently, sometimes, even waiting in the guard's rooms to spend as much time with him as possible, and when we would see his auto (tuk-tuk) arrive we would jump with joy and hop in. While, we would hog on all the time, Mama would wait patiently for hers. Sometimes, we would miss him so much that we cried, and Mama would bravely hold her tears and console us, but who was consoling her?

Most of my civilian friends found it cool that I belonged to an army background, and all they ever saw were the fancy dinners, parties, guns that my father must be holding, how many people he must have killed and all that, sure, we had a lot of fun being the army kids, luxuries and places that we got to see, but they never saw the pain, they never understood how hard it was to move from one place to another and make new friends every year. How our mothers suffered every time their husbands left, or how worried we all are when they are posted in field stations. If Army taught all the army families one thing, then it is how you cannot take life or your loved ones for granted.

So, when I saw this video, I understood.