The Midday Candle by Lt Gen Raj Kadyan

It aroused neither curiosity nor intrigue

When you saw him, in his crumpled fatigue

On railway platforms, slurping his tea

Hurriedly from his saucer, and then flee

Shouldering his bag, stomping his feet

To occupy his rum-reserved seat.

Seldom in your mind a moment you spared

Even knowing he was ill-paid and uncared.

Then one day guns at the border boomed

Suddenly on your TV screen he loomed

Humping his load, climbing metre by metre

Along with Jaswant, Jailal, Parvez and Peter

A silent symbol of India, a true secularist

He marched ahead to keep a tryst.

Cold and wet, poorly garbed

Unmindful, his face gritty and barbed

Never the one to question or ask

With a single focus – do the task.

He followed his leader in face of fire

And you suddenly began to admire

His traits of courage, loyalty, sacrifice

His willingness to pay the highest price.

Fighting and falling, and rising again

Forth he moved, oblivion to pain.

Some of him was dead, some was maimed

While your country’s honour he reclaimed.

As the coffins arrived, you filled the air

With slogans and promises for the heir.

But a few lunations later, I and you

We all began to ask, “Soldier who?”

We think of him no more than we may

Of a candle at midday.