What is Greatness?

Is it the deafening applause that continues to ring through centuries beyond? It it the earth shattering deed that etches itself agelessly, across the face of history? Is it, in garnering the unimpeachable servility of a generation, or,

It is in the strength of a nineteen year old, still not out of the gentle clutches of childhood, gearing up to adorn the amour that will take the first bullet; or is it in a forte of a twenty one year old, facing danger and forced to hide from the very foe he dreams of annihilating. Is it in the strength of his love that makes him sacrifice his dream and his calling, being content in the love that warms his soul and not his ego; or is it in his fortitude that lets him forgive that very love when it wrongs him?

Where in lies the greatness, for you, is for you alone to decide. I know where it lies for me.

I am here to just tell in few words, his story.

He is just twenty six, now. He says even before he could begin to dream about anything else, he realized that his calling was already ordained. He says he was born to be a soldier. And so, a soldier he became. He was just twenty-one when he passed out from the Country’s one of the premier Military Training Academies. He was a star GC (Gentleman Cadet), with all the trappings of soldierly stardom. (Sword of Honor et all) Being an Officer of the Indian Army came naturally to him. Bearing the Officer like qualities was no test either. He chose his corp., and he chose the best. He wanted nothing more than to be a Commander of an Armored Tank, and a Commander he made out of himself.

Strangely, for men of his ilk, satisfaction is like perfection, virtually unattainable. The closer they think they come to achieving it, the tougher are the challenges that they throw to themselves. Suddenly, this soldier decides that his backside was getting sore sitting around the Officers Mess of ‘x’ Military Cantonment. The soldier, he wanted more.

Cut to Belgaum. The place where they turn Boys into Men. When he concluded his Commando Training, he lugged a ‘Commando’s Dagger’ along with himself. Mountain Warfare Training in Sonemarg and several alpha results later, this boy, now a man, was selected to serve the Country’s most elite military div., The Special Forces. Suddenly from being a Tank Commander, this Lieutenant had transitioned into a ‘Red Devil’.

One out of a thousand Officers of the Indian Army gets selected to this prestigious Force. Needless to say, it’s a job fraught with danger and, imminence of death. The casualty ratio is very high and the nature of the job, viz; covert operations is risky as hell. In the fewest words that my vocabulary can permit, this job belongs to those who belong to the league of ‘Soldier’s soldier.’

The job of a soldier is not for us to discuss. Let us not digress from our original question. The question about greatness and where it lies.

Events occurred that forced the reluctant soldier to leave in haste to another destination. Roughly put, he was asked to low lay for his own sake.

While he waited in disgust and impatience, an elusive stranger entered his very orderly life. The smell of love filled his nostrils and again, in few words, there was no looking back.

She said she loved him. He beamed. She said she could not marry and stay with a soldier. He stood silent. She said soldiers are good paramours, bad husbands. He said, then he’d become whatever that it takes to be a good husband.

So, the soldier, he changed what was most natural to him. He became an alien, all for love. He gave up his calling, his destiny, his heart, for Love was a calling, a tad stronger.

A good two years spent within the comfortable security of togetherness, when the soldier suddenly realizes that something was hurting within him. That something was his heart. The love for which he had changed and sacrificed, had, ironically changed.

You will ask what is so great about this, but I know, for I was there. I saw a soldier break down, cry and just ask ‘why?’ I saw his soul withering and I saw the image of desecrated faith float in his silent eyes.

Well, he forgave. He hugged, consoled and accepted. The one that he loved was the lucky one, much more than what the soldier was.

They are together now. I see him go about life with his very a soldierly gait, carving out another exquisite destiny for himself and the one that he loves.

Do you miss the soldier sometimes, I ask him.

He looks up at me and remains silent for a while. How can I, he says, for the soldier, he stays within me.

So he fights, sometimes takes cover. He protects his love fiercely. He is in that ‘no man’s land’ between oblivion and greatness, waiting and toiling, a true reflection of the soldier that resides within him.

You can now decide, where greatness truly lies.