BEING A CIVILIAN

Now those who have read my previous posts , may have wondered that why do i use the word "civilian" .
To start with , being an army kid u learn almost everything about life by 19 ( ie how to face people , wat 2 say wen & wat not 2 say , wat 2 say jisse fayda ho , all etiquettes & ya all that ) but wat u dont learn , is that , how to mingle with the 'non -army ' people .
the trick that most of us learn is to charm ur way thru people , lets c wether that helped me in my life or not.
lemme start with the samll things - while growing up we never really stayed in kolkata 4 long , jst 4 the summer holidays which wud b divided between dida bari & thakumar bari , & ya visits to & from relatives wud b inevitable ."inevitable " because at that time we didnt like them , not the relatives of course they wr really sweet people trying to make us comfortable all the time , but me & my brother cud'nt really understand the language ( i mean yaaa we did speak it at home but only bcoz of ma - thank god ki she taught us som bangla , me & my bro never speak in bangla , nor do we do that with papa ) especially wen pple speak it soo fast , also the culture wud be so different , durga puja meant a 10 day ka hols 4 us but we came to talk about it as dussehra , funny it seemed then that people didnt know wat it was to ' close ' their plates , that
some laughed and sed " ohh maaa" wen we sed " good afternoon / morning / night , uncle /aunty" .
if some1 else asked us " hey r u 4rm calcutta" , we wud be quick to reply " yes we are , but we dont know bengali " , It was only later on did i realize that that every armi bachha does that , doesnt matter 4rm vich part he / she is 4rm " all they sat is - yes we r 4rm there , but we dont know the language"
So y is it so ?? y r we so uncomfortable wen we go 2 our own relatives? I think its because deep down its embedded in us that we r some how different 4rm the 'civilians" . I was going thru life like this wen we got posted to kolkata.

After coming here we made many bengali friends ( yes they wr civilians) & u know wat slowly we realized "hey they r nt bad or anything"
actually the thing is wen u dont understand a language , pple r nt always kind enuf 2 translate it 4 u , thats wen u think that perhaps they r making fun of u .
By now i had many friends here , & had slowly started to resent the feeling about the difference between . there is this thing in army circles - u r either a MAY QUEEN ( a beauty pageant vich takes place every may) grl or u r not . i belong to the latter . & thankfully i had many civilian friends who neither knew about such a thing nor asked silly questions , THANK GOD
Its been about 8 years since we've shifted to kolkata & it finally feels like home . i mean abhi bhi lagta hai " hey 8 yrs se no posting , can u imagine that??"
i travel by state buses & not 3tons or jeeps or jongas anymore ,nothings more yummy than phuchka. I'v learnt loads of bangla , thanx to clg people , but hindi still remains my language , i have also learnt that to many people my background doesnt matter , that all i need is to be happy with the way my friends are . Well there are some people who ask me" hey amrita , tui gun tulechis?? AK - 47 dekhechish?? kabhi chalaya hai" or just " arre colonel ki daughter "
But u know wat all i can do is smile coz im just as proud of wat my dad does as anybody wud feel about their dad . & for those who dont know , an officer is not really allowed to take home AK 47 and show it to his kids ;) , nor do they really talk about wat they all have to do in kashmir or any such area .
SO i guess now im an Army-Civilian gal & referring to the may queen thing . a friend recently sed " hey amrita , army grls r supposed to b the sexy cutey types , u r not , but ur intellect is maha attractive" . he he eehhehhehe :)