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The Love Letters - Rahul Agarwal

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Sukhbir got his first posting in Kashmir on the Indo-Pak border. It was a hard life there. The cold was intense and except for a seven-hour break for sleep and two half an hour ones for meals; the soldiers had to be on guard all the time. Although there was no big combat as such but due to the marred relations between the two nations there would be frequent exchanges of fire across the border. Sukhbir worked diligently. Whatever little time he could steal out of his tight schedule he invested in writing letters to his beloved Parmeet.

Writing these letters was the best time of the day for Sukhbir. All his dreams, hopes and happiness were enclosed in these little pieces of paper. He would write about his future aspirations, how he would return to the village after this assignment and things would be as before. He told Parmeet that he just couldn’t wait to marry her. In fact all his sources of future joy seemed to originate from this single thought and feeling, his love for Parmeet. He would write endlessly about all the things they would do on his return. To someone else his letters might have seemed to be that of a young child writing about the toy house he was building. The excitement was just the same. In fact, maybe that’s what it was. A little toy house he had dreamt of, far removed from the cruel world outside, hidden in his village, where he would be living a life of love, as envisioned by God for man.

He never got a reply to any of his letters. But that did not worry him. For he knew Parmeet couldn’t write and she would have been shy to ask someone to write a letter to her sweetheart for her. He was content to know that she was reading his letters and waiting for him to come. This impending joy seemed to underline each of his days and its activities. He would sit and talk with his mates who were married as if he were one of them. When they would talk about their families, their wives, their kids, he would get lost in a world of his own. Whatever they mentioned they would do with their families, he would write that down in his letters to Parmeet. He loved thinking about the kids he would have. He would write about the names he had thought for them and all the games he would play with them. In his own mind he could literally see his son running to him as he returned from the fields. All this and more would be engraved and sealed with a kiss on a piece of paper to be posted to his sweetheart in Punjab. Sometimes his friends would tease him that his sweetheart would have run away with someone and he would just laugh it off saying that wouldn’t happen in a thousand years. But when he was alone in his bed, there would sometimes be that fleeting thought, what if this came to be true. That Parmeet had found someone else. This would fill him with unimaginable terror, all his dreams would seem to crumble to dust and the future would seem simply blank. He almost found himself shivering at these times. But then he would remember the fond memories of the time spend with Parmeet and all that they did. He would remember her eyes and her love for him in them. He would feel her hand on his shoulder and he would be reassured of their love.

One of the reasons for Sukhbir’s new found optimism was the influence of Major Singh on the young soldier. In many ways, Sukhbir had found his idol in Major Singh. Just talking to him made Sukhbir feel so much better. Major Singh was a man of highest ideals and a fighter. Life had been rough to him but he had never let that dither him from giving his best to it. With a childhood spend in an orphanage; he had had to work his way through much of life’s earlier part. He lost his wife within the very first year of their marriage. But he was so in love with her that he had never considered another marriage. He told Sukhbir the importance of values and principles in life, that it is these virtues that help you keep your faith in life when everything else deserts you. He told Sukhbir the importance of being faithful to those one loves; for a man to be able to serve his nation, he should first be able to serve his family. His words were like a sermon for Sukhbir. He promised himself that he too shall try and tread on the path shown to him by Major Singh and be someone he can be proud of. Major Singh too had a special liking for the young soldier. Sukhbir reminded him of himself in many ways. Sukhbir told the Major all about his earlier life. It was because of this liking for Sukhbir that made Major Singh, for this particular army camp didn’t have any facilities for sending or receiving mail, go out of his way to post Sukhbir’s letters whenever he went out from the camp to the army headquarters. In fact, it was he who encouraged Sukhbir to write letters to Parmeet in the first place.

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