Izzat (Fiction)

Mera Naam Mohammed Jameel Rather hai, Saab. I still remember, the first time I heard a young voice crying out that name.

I am on some mundane duty at a recruitment rally in Bod Bunguz, an obscure place in the Kashmir vale. I look up to see a spindly youth all of sixteen. A few straggly hairs on his chin, no hair on his chest. “Kids in the Fauj! Bah ”. Certainly in no shape to join the old, honourable, regiment of the Jammu and Kashmir Rifles, I forget about him and concentrate on my most immediate concern; that afternoon balloon of cognac. But come the next day and I see him standing with the successful lot. The staff is impressed. Bahut josh hai ladke mein. After twenty-three years of soldiering, I do not know the meaning of that word, ‘Josh’.

The next year I see him in the battalion; he’s filled out a little. My sceptical self can’t help but notice that intense fire in his eyes. The word is he has a parental claim to the battalion; his father copped a hero’s death in `48. Must walk over to the Adjt and look up the incident.

Jameel becomes quite well known in the paltan. He always tries harder than everyone else. Wins the cross country championship, becomes a boxer; flyweight of course. Pushes himself that little bit more, that extra effort…the paltan buzz is that he’s got to live up to the family name, the IZZAT “Harrumph……that’ll be the day”.

We are still in the vale of Sri Narak. The Bde Cdr is away on some sand model exercise, and I’m in charge. At least everyone thinks so. All it means is that my rheumy afternoons and evenings will be disturbed. One evening I am suddenly shaken out of my brandy-soaked self. The Cdr is on the line. “There’ve been some reports of enemy movement in your area, so blah, blah, …. launch a patrol immediately”. Aha, so Mister Sticky Rules wants to play soldiers. I send for the Adjt who is another eager beaver. He quickly details a young officer. I tell him to sort it out as I switch from a large to a larger. A couple of hours later I am as usual numbed by the alcohol and back to my cynical self.

I am shaken awake. I’d slept off... make that passed out, on the rocking chair. My sahayak is going all yakety-yak. “Saahib, phone bahut der se baj raha hai. Ab to runner bhi aa gaya.” I holler “Gimme a drink” and reach for the phone. I mumble, “Ops room lagao”. The Duty Officer is babbling about the patrol’s sitrep. There was no enemy movement... just a band of bakarwaals. But the patrol stumbled upon a snow leopard’s litter. The furious mother attacked the young Lieutenant. It would have been fatal but for Sepoy Mohammed Jameel Rather. He dashed to the rescue...He was unarmed. Fought the big cat with his bare arms. Saved his sahib bahadur. Bleeding like a stuck pig, he blurted that it was all about family IZZAT. Unfortunately he ....

They give his mother a sewing machine. Ha! old crone couldn’t even see it. But it’s SOP. The same SOP they followed when they gave me missus a mimeographed letter of regrets; when the Army Commander’s convoy ran over my teenaged daughter. She blew her brains out on the brown rug, the one we bought from SOS village in Leh, it had those funny little yaks embroidered in a pattern. I soaked mine (brains, I mean),

It’s been some time about all that now. Jameel is bloody history, Bacchus continues as my saviour and I am at the Regimental Centre as one of the old farts in charge of the Registry. Life becomes a comfortable routine of stupor, haze, slumber and more. Unfortunately, my sahayak changes; he is from Jameel’s village and is eager to serve and please. Y‘know.... live up to the village’s traditions, the land of the brave. Some thing clicks and I ask for the dusty old records to be brought. I rummage through the CsOI and I hit upon the Inquiry into Jameel’s father’s death.

I am suddenly cold sober. Naik Murtaaz Ahmed Rather was shot for cowardice. He attempted to flee when Durga Post was attacked by the enemy in a charge in 1948.

My hands shake as I hold the lighter to the file.....must get back to the Mess double-time, huh.