She crumbled to the floor, her arms falling to her sides. Her left arm didn’t sit right. He fixated on its angle. It would need to be slotted back. But the pain… he eyed her face, crying inside at the pain that must be tearing through her…
Her eyes were half-hooded, her nose still up.
“aataram…” Sia’s lips murmured.
“Vande…” Samar heard a loud cry. He turned, and the unreal beauty of the valley spread out in front of him. Chains of magnificent mountains surrounded him, snow clinging hard and heavy to their peaks. The sky was a brilliant blue and the echoes of the best chants filled the air.
“Vande!” “Mataram!”
“Vande!” “Mataram!”
Samar turned his head in an arc, and the tricolour was fluttering high in the wind, the troop of soldiers running a drill beneath it. Mavericks.
“Ye lo, Daaxsaab[10],” his backpack was handed to him. Samar boosted it on his shoulder and stretched his hand for his medical kit. The driver, MT Yashwant Singh, carried it in his own hand.
“I’ll take it.” Samar opened his fingers.
“You shouldlooklike a military surgeon stepping into 4 Vikas Mavericks.” Singh shut the door of the jeep. “Walk in ishtyle.”
Samar chuckled, stepping back to let the younger man lead the way.
“Wear your aviators also.”
Samar gaped at him.
“Wear, wear, you are the only surgeon on this base. If you don’t show authority from the starting only then nobody will listen to you, take it in writing from me.” He pushed his own flat cap flatter on his head. “If you need to scold me then scold me also to show them. Lagna chahiye Daaxsaab aaye hai.[11]”
“Where are the other doctors?” Samar pulled out his aviators from his breast pocket and slipped them on. The sun wasn't too harsh for this early morning but the instant switch of light made his eyes squint.
“The last Field Medical Officer took voluntary transfer to be close to his family in Madras. Since three weeks he has been gone.” Singh kept walking towards the barracks — a longhouse in the middle of the most beautiful Kashmiri plains Samar had ever had the honour of seeing. He had visited Kashmir as a child, from school, but only the tourist destinations. This, this was different. Rugged, but still beautiful.
“Who was the medical officer on call in the interim?” Samar inquired, looking around the base. A platoon of this size couldn’t be surviving without a doctor for so long. And that too an establishment as sophisticated as the Special Frontier Forces. He glanced up at the insignia at the helm of the longhouse.
A lion stood unflinching, roaring with a winged parachute above it and two crossed swords below it. The gold of the emboss shone on the red, throwing off the morning sun.
Shaurya. Dhridhta. Karm Nishtha.
Courage. Persistence. Devotion to Duty.
His heart began to beat furiously. He didn't lack in either, and yet, the idea of being active in an elite unit, even if as an attached doctor, was harrowing. He was here to do the harrowing; didn't mean it didn't harrow him. New things always did.
“Where is this hero marching to?” A deep, commanding voice arrested his feet. Samar began to stand to attention, keeping his eyes down and away from the man who sounded like his Commanding Officer, striding down the longhouse in front of him.
“Singh.”
“Sir.”
“You made him put these on?”
Silence.
“Answer!” The voice reverberated. Samar could look at his Commanding Officer from behind his dark glasses but training taught him to keep his eyes away until addressed by his name.
“The sun is a little too bright, isn’t it?” The Commanding Officer came closer. Samar kept his eyes off.
“No, sir.” He answered.
“Then take it off, Jawan!”
