Falling in love with men in uniform had to turn into ‘married to olive greens’ one day and thus it did.
I am a software engineer by profession, learning new things by choice and married to an army officer by destiny.
First of my experiences…
I was both excited and nervous at the same time when I and my husband were heading towards the unit when we were expected to reach on a Friday evening as he had to be “on parade” the next morning. Since the time we started our journey from Chandigarh, he was continuously updating the Unit Officers about our whereabouts and our expected time of arrival in the unit location. In no time of his telling 45 minutes, we reached the Officers Mess gate where all the officers were already standing to welcome us with mischief twinkling in their eyes.
As we approached the gate, his fellow officers swarmed our car and asked us to come out of the car and one of the officer’s came around and said very politely “Ma’am we‘ll now be changing your ride for a while”. Before I could map those words with anything, I saw a vegetable cart right in front of us decorated with flowers for our welcome. I was supposed to sit on the cart and my husband was to push it forward. It seemed a bit embarrassing but I did try my level best to enjoy until we reached the Officer’s mess. It is said that every regiment has its own way of welcoming the new members to the family and theirs was unique too.
As I was still trying to come to terms with the fact that all the other officers were addressing me as Ma’am, and there comes the Mess Havildar who says “Namaste Memsaab”. Now this was a lot for me to take in one go. I wondered, what did I just do overnight that I was being addressed as “Memsaab”, that was too much respect to handle, well then I realised that I was married to his “Saab” and hence this.
The next shocker (albeit an expected one) was being addressed as Mrs. Shaurya, Really? Did I just lose my identity in a jiffy? What happened to my first name and last name that I was being addressed with for the past 25 years of my life. The words that rang another bell in my head were “Good evening, Aunty” which came from a kid and then a condolence for my facial expressions were on its way. ‘As soon as you get married, no matter your age… You become an Aunty!’ and I accepted the fact gracefully.
The next morning my husband had to report at work. Oh! The first alarm was at 5:30 am, time for PT and that came as a happy realization to me of being an army wife and getting up early morning. The next proud moment of the day was when I saw him dressed up in his uniform. It was overwhelming to see the stars on his shoulder in reality other than the pictures over the years. My heart felt the real happiness from within for that moment and made me proud of being an Army Wife.
After a while he left, there is a knock on the door and here comes the steward from the mess saying ‘Memsaab, breakfast le aun?’ That felt like some special treatment, and yes for somebody like me who doesn't like to cook, nothing could go better than this for sumptuous meals on day one.
After graduating from college, I never saw a circular at my workplace as we were very well acquainted with the mailing lists and all the announcements went through the same. There comes a jawan at the doorstep with a register in his hand which had a circular pinned on it and I was expected to sign it as an acknowledgement. So, there was a circular being rolled out for any announcement or orders for the ladies with the time, venue and purpose. All I said after signing that was “acha, aisa bhi hota hai! “ and I go on to look forward to more of new experiences…
