BEING A CIVILIAN

Since Rakhi Sawant's swayamvar has already been written about , I'm republishing one of my first posts . ( nahi nahi main comments ki pyasi nahi hoon :P )

This post is free from any inhibitions and 'for the bloggers' typecasting . (only the typos have been corrected :) )

Some time back , I was silenced when I was a view different from the pity or rather the charity like words voiced for Army men and their families. Solidarity and Unity is different from pity. So here it is ....


To start with , being an army kid you learn almost everything about life by 19 ( i.e. how to face people , what 2 say when & what not to say , what to say jisse fayda ho , all etiquettes & ya all that ) but what you don't learn , is that , how to mingle with the 'non -army ' people .
the trick that most of us learn is to charm our way through people , lets see whether that helped me in my life or not.

Lemme start with the small things - while growing up we never really stayed in Kolkata for long , just for the summer holidays which would b divided between dida bari & thakumar bari , & ya visits to & from relatives would be inevitable ."INEVITABLE " because at that time we didn't like them , not the relatives of course kinda nice, but me & my brother couldn't really understand the language ( I mean yaaa we did speak it at home but only because of ma - thank god ki she taught us some Bangla , me & my bro never speak in Bangla , nor do we do that with papa )

Especially when people speak it so fast , also the culture would be so different , Durga Puja meant a 10 day ka hols for us but we came to talk about it as dussehra , funny it seemed then that people didn't know what it was to ' close ' their plates , that some laughed and said " ohh maaa" wen we wished " good morning aunty " .

If someone else asked us " Hey are you from Calcutta?" , We would be quick to reply " Yes we are , but we don't know Bengali " , It was only later on did I realize that that every Army bachha does that , doesn't matter from which part he / she is 4rm " all they say is - yes we r from there , but we don't know the language"

So why is it so ?? Why are we so uncomfortable when we visit our own relatives? I think its because deep down its embedded in us that we are some how different from the 'civilians" . I was going through life like this when we got posted to Kolkata.

Now I like to think that since we lived in so many places we didn't liked to be just a bengalis (btw i detest the term 'BONGS') rather an Indian .(So full of desh bhakt haina :) )

After coming here we made many Bengali friends ( yes they were civilians) & you know what slowly we realized "Hey they are not bad or anything"
Actually the thing is when you don't understand a language , people are not always kind enough two translate , that's when you think that perhaps they are making fun of you .

By now I had many friends here , & had slowly started to resent the feeling the difference between .

There is this thing in army circles - you are either a MAY QUEEN ( a beauty pageant which takes place every May) girl or you ain't . 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 years se no posting , can u imagine that??"

I by state buses & not 3tons or jeeps or jongas anymore ,nothings more yummy than phuchka. I've learnt loads of Bangla , thanks to college people ( saheli ) , but Hindi still remains my language .

I have also learnt that, to many people my background doesn't 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 ,AK - 47 dekhechish?? kabhi chalaya hai" or just " arre colonel ki beti "

But you know what, all I can do is smile coz I'm just as proud of what my dad does as anybody would feel about their dad . & for those who don't know , an Officer is not really allowed to take home AK 47 and show it to his kids ;) , nor do they really talk about what they all have to do in Kashmir or any such area .


Give or take now atleast I am fluent in 3 languages and will never say " bubbbaa the chair is sssoo heabby"



SO i guess now I'm an Army-Civilian gal & referring to the May Queen thing . a friend recently said " hey Amrita , army girls are supposed to b the sexy cutey types , you are not , but your intellect is maha attractive" .

:D :D


ps : Oh! I'm gonna miss Poulami