• Why am into this....

• • A sound of huge thud much louder than a cracker that disturbed the serene curfew night at Kanpur, one of the most communally sensitive place in the state of Uttar Pradesh, was like a shocker for me. It was only a few days after the controversial Babari Masjid was demolished and I,  as a platoon commander of CRPF was sitting on a roadside verandah ensuring the night curfew has been carried out in its true letter and spirit. Suddenly there were chaos erupted in the area. An eerie, weird sound which resembles yelling of a thousand honey bees could be heard from those dark bylines.  No one was visible but all were awake behind those partially opened windows. Thanks to strictly imposed curfew, nobody had the courage to come out. With a browning pistol firmly gripped in my right hand, I tried to be brave.  I edged through the dark bylines without much personal safety to find one dead body of an ill-fated youth in a pool of blood in the upstairs of a shabby house. His face half vanished, fragments of spilled up brain stamped up in the roof as hot blood still gushing out from the gash. In one corner of the room sat few of his relatives crying loudly. Their screams and shouts were a matter of concern for me.  As a police officer I had to give orders to my men to make them shut up their mouth, though in dismay, to prevent several other parents face the similar fate that night. A sudden upheaval of communal violence was my immediate concern…
•     “Among the mutilated bodies” is one such narration I wrote a few years back describing how devastating a bomb blast would be on a busy railway platform or a market place. I was standing only a few yards away from where an extremely lethal suitcase bomb was placed by terrorist and detonated later on in one of the busiest railway station in the north eastern part of India. Several died in that incident; several got seriously injured. In a few minutes I found myself standing among the mutilated bodies, searching for my friends who were there at the same spot a few seconds before. They were to board the same train to Delhi….

• It was well past midnight in a remote village in Chhattisgarh, central India. Less than a couple of minutes earlier, just after dispersing the last patrolling party that came inside the makeshift camp, I was just into bed after a hectic day of combing and patrolling duties. My residence, an abandoned edifice in the threshold of an imminent crumple, quavered vehemently as a powerful RDX bomb went off few meters away. In ‘half-uniform’ I ran out of that building with an AK-47 in my hand to find a nearby transformer station was  put on flames by dreaded Maoists.  Devastated by a high explosive bomb planted by naxalites with an intention to attack my camp, it took the state electricity board almost one month to repair the transformer and restore power supply in that region....    That was a welcome gesture...
  

• While handing over the wet and half frozen body of a sixteen year old boy, just retrieved from the depths of a wild pound by the brave men of my Rapid Action Force company, I looked at them, his yelling parents. The boy was drowned accidentally while bathing. His parents were inconsolable. Their scream in pain pierced my heart. But I had to obtain the signature from that hapless father as a token to have been received the body of his son as it was an obligation necessary in departmental system….. I was helpless....

• I ordered my men to form a human chain from roof to bottom of that three storied building in the outskirts of Hyderabad. Wreckage of one of the flying machine – a Surya Kiran aircraft-HJT-16 of the Sagar Pawan aerobatics team of Indian Navy which was just been crashed into that building has to be removed. We the RAF men were assisting the officers of the defense forces in  retrieving the remains of one young pilot of the ill fated plane who was still buried in the debris. When the charred remains of the pilot were recovered at last, it was just a mass of flesh and bones and nothing else….

• Several such incidents in my almost twenty years of police service made a lot of changes in me. At an age when many of my friends were discussing about the next course of higher education or the beautiful love letters they wrote to their dear ones, I was grappling with dreaded terrorists doing anti-terrorists operations with Special Task Force under the unified command in the turbulent valley of Kashmir. Terrorism was at its peak in Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir during early nineties and I as a member of the world's largest Para-Military force responsible for anti-terrorist operations in these two states, still remember the hard times I came through all those years. It was a process of transformation. It was a slow but hard process of a personality alteration from a twenty one year old soft civilian to a tough trooper at the cost of sweat, blood and tears. And twenty years later, after scaling many of those barbed terrains, Iam still proud to be called a Cop.     
•  Anywhere in the world, Para-Military officers are constantly engaged in dealing with unpleasant situations and thus get little opportunity to take few moments out to enjoy. Incessant duty hours, daily conflicts, incidents and most important, uncertainty in life makes them vulnerable to trauma and other stress related problems. Constant exposure to these problems may cause serious health and mental illness like anxiety. Few unlucky ones may lead to more severe type of anxiety called post traumatic stress disorder which may at times demands medical assistance. When the stress becomes too much, it may even lead to severe impact on their career and will definitely affect the family life as well. Most of them end up in substance abuse like excessive drinking or engaging in other problematic entertainments as a way to get rid of this.
•  Keep your head calm is one way to get rid of this problem. There are several ways to keep your head cool. To be in the world of letters is one such option which not only improves your wisdom but also makes you relax. Free writing is the one which I chose as a valve to release my tension. When I share my experiences with my friends, I feel much relaxed. Iam sure, with their comments and opinions, I may be able to create an environment of togetherness which I always cherish.