Sitting besides my window as I watch the rain pouring down (weather has been funny for quite sometime now !) I am suddenly aware of where I am and how this is somewhere I would have never imagined myself to be a few years back. I was a civilian ( that’s what they call us !) in the truest sense ….blissfully unaware about anything remotely related to the fauj ( everything except that they are brave men protecting us ..) so where I am is a result of series of event which started with falling in love.. 

 Ours is a high school romance…..oh yes! The reactions we get as soon as we tell this to someone…most people go awwwww……we love it…yes we do ….but most people fail to realize the struggle that the oh so sweet high school romance sustains..

Its very easy to fall in love when we are of this age…everything works in our favour..the high running emotions…the urge to rebel…the encouragement from friends…so on and so forth. We met in school in 11^th standard courtesy to my fathers and his mothers transferrable jobs..so as destiny might have it …we landed up in same school …same section and the story began….well ill gladly skip the details ..but you can guess the aftermath of it all.

I have always wanted to be a doctor and him….well he had honestly never been sure of that..sometimes an astronaut other times a pilot or later even an aeronautical engineer…so you can see my man never gave me slightest of ideas where our future is going to go.

After completing his graduation he went into a phase which well….most of the graduates do….facing every government job examination! From banks to airforce to IB he gave them all…. The pressure to get on with something was high…and honestly I was not helping with this either…..but what exactly did you expect folks……yeah I was all into .. “love conquers all” and “love is all you need” for quite sometime…but there comes a time in your life where reality checks in and you wake up to the truth..

Choosing between the love of my life and my parents was never an option for me…but then when is it ever an option for anybody?! I wanted my parents to love and admire him as much as I did and what job he had was going to play a huge role in it….so there can you blame me if I put a tad bit of pressure on him myself??? Let me tell you he surely does blame me and you know it keeps coming up even now in one of those intense fights…. But yeah so what! I had my reasons as well, and you need to give the girl a break…

Then amidst all this he tells me about this SSB call…and I had absolutely no idea about it..the only thing that I knew and well the thing that mattered the most to me was that he will not be able to use his phone for 5 days??!! I mean can you believe it …who does that!! But apparently Fauj is all about things that you never thought you’ll ever go through your life …which I learned in the coming years.

For those who don’t know the process of SSB starts with an initial screening which filters around 80% of aspirants ….so after a successful first day he got to make calls and informed me that he has been screened in. The next 4 days were ..well you can call them stressful ..waiting and hoping for the good news….. then came the most awaited phone call I picked it up and asked “so?? What happened??” ever so cheekily he said “wahi jo hona tha …” and I was like “done ??you got selected” and yes he was …..the following days are a blur due to the sheer happiness of the fact that he got through SSB ..the comings days our conversations were all about what happened at the SSB the psychological evaluation, the group discussions , the physical tasks…I still marvel at the fact that he got through such physically taxing tasks given the fact that he has never been too much in such things before …and ofcourse the final interview and how you can never know what works and what may not work for the interviewers ……but alls well that ends well…..

Oh wait did I say end??oh man …this was just the beginning …..the SSB is followed by a medical examination ….well yeah if anyone is planning to join army I must tell you be prepared for some kind of surprise/shock that awaits you post your medical examination…..we were in for one hell of a shocker ourselves …..but I guess its best if we leave it to that…..through the selection procedure if there were highs there were lows too and the medical examination and the strings of events that followed were the lows for us….but RR ,Delhi came to rescue and my beloved was deemed eligible for training.

 The entire process from appearing in CDS to SSB and medical examination takes up almost a year and though it sounds like a long long time but there are so many things happening that you rarely have time to think about where is all of this taking you…our mind keeps us focused on clearing the next upcoming stage so much that while you are investing all your energy in clearing this one you are blissfully unaware of the future.

The process of selection for Army or rather the selection for the eligibility for further training is a tedious one. But it marks the beginning of a life long journey as an Army officer which is truly remarkable in every way.

Once the entire process of selection for training academy was complete I seemed to have suddenly woken up. He is joining Army ?? As in …posted at border ..guns…bullets..tanks…and I was completely out of my mind. I wanted him to succeed so much that for sometime everything else was clouded with just one thought that I want to see him clear his exam, SSB, and medical tests; once all of this was done ,fear took the place of anticipation ..but that is a story for another time.