My Father, My Hero!

Children of martyred soldiers want to serve the nation in whatever way they can. Their fathers’ deaths, they say, shouldn’t have been in vain

- Anjuly Mathai

Neha Dwivedi, 31, has an unfading childhood memory. Whenever her parents fought, her father would play a Bollywood song about a couple fighting. Although he knew nothing about dancing, he would twirl around goofily, trying to make her mother smile. Her mother would still be moping, and Neha would think to herself: How can she resist his charm? When Neha was 12 years old Major C.B. Dwivedi was martyred in the Kargil War. She would never see him dancing again.

It was July 2, 1999, and Neha was feeling on top of the world. She was at her uncle’s house in Delhi and had just returned after having had icecream with all her cousins. She heard whimpers from a room and went to investigate. All the elders were huddled around her mother, who was sitting in a low chair, her head held in her hands, hair spread all about. Then she knew that something was terribly wrong. She went around shaking everybody and shouting: “Tell me, tell me: why is mummy crying?” She knew her daddy was out at war and she thought to herself: I know it is bad news, but please God, don’t let it be the worst. Then her eldest cousin hugged her and said: “Beta, your father has got martyred.” The first thought that crossed Neha’s mind was: “Oh no, now who is going to teach me maths?”

For it had always been her father who had taken care of her studies. “After his death, every time I sat down to study, I would miss him because the only way I knew to study was with him,” she says. She never used to get worried about her exams because she used to think it was his headache. If she did well, then good for him. If not, he needed to up his game.