Heroes: Yes I regret not sending that email.

Yes, I regret not sending that email….years back. Today when I think of myself I kick myself a lot. If you are thinking that I am talking about my love or beloved, you are totally wrong. This has nothing to do with any of them, its about a stranger, a stranger whom I never met but read about in a newspaper. It’s a small incident. Back in my higher studies days, I came across a story in the times of india about a Suryakiran pilot ( Indian Air Force`s acrobatic team) who had hurt his back/ spine in a high speed ejection and suffered that injury while landing. He was on bed for the past many months and was on the risk of being paralyzed. It was a short story carried out by that correspondent in this case which a newspaper would normally provide to such stories. Those were the days when I was still some years away from starting my own blog or writing. At the back of my mind I knew that I had to write a mail to the correspondent and ask him about the latest update on the health of the pilot... I had to write, which never came due to a combination of factors which included me being really busy in my studies, class schedules, laziness and a few more etc things.

Two weeks after that when I finally got the time to write the mail, I realised that I had lost the cutting of that particular news and 14-15 I had also forgotten the name of the correspondent so the Google couldn’t help me much as I had developed the habit of the deep Google searching only years later.

Even to this day, some 11 years since I had first read that news my guilt of not writing a simple mail it’s me up from the inside. I don’t know what I would have done with the reply if I had even got a reply from that correspondent but how it feels something wrong and even though six years back I had started the exclusive series on the Armed Forces on my blog, this piece of a jigsaw puzzle haunts me at quite frequent intervals. I won’t give any excuses for my laziness, but one reason could be the fact that at that time fighter Jets were my main priority or love. It’s just that when I started the series on my blog and 2013 and started reading about the various things and the contribution of each and every person in the Indian Armed Forces irrespective of their rank or field of service didn’t realise that everyone has its own part in the service of the nation whether they are in the combat role or not. I don’t think I would be able to forgive myself for this. A pilot who had a wife, a three-year-old daughter, confined to bed unsure of his future and life……it just kills me somewhere and makes me think about that one email that I did not send.

This post is dedicated to the Indian Armed forces on the eve of the 1971 war victory.