“When air sirens captured moment of fear”

Jasmine Kochhar, is a young sports journalist, working in Canada. Hailing from Gurdaspur, she was visiting her family recently, when she, like many, were forced to live the four day nightmare as military escalation between India and Pakistan brought the two countries almost on verge of a flown blown war.

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Daughter of a senior army officer, she spent those four days with her family in Tibri cantonment. Sharing her account of the harrowing time, Jasmine, recounts how her mother proved to be a source of inspiration to her and others living in the cantonment. While Jasmine flew back to Canada after ceasefire was announced but not before she truly learnt the meaning of a mother donning the cloak of an army wife.

“For years, stories of ‘Operation Sindoor’ will resonate in army encampments across the country with pride and honour. Yet there will be no talk about courageous women like my mother who incidentally is also an army wife. Army wives are akin to ‘Shero’. I arrived in Tibri after a long flight from Canada and was looking forward to spending some quality time with my parents. But that was not to be as on the first night itself, I heard the echoes of sirens and air-defence guns. Missiles and drones were flying over the wire-fencing with impunity,” she said.

Witnessing first-hand the difference between real and reel, Jasmine said that it was the theatre of the real. “The blackouts had worsened my fear. To complicate matters, reports started filtering in that a bomb had been found in Pandher village, just adjacent to our cantonment. With a lot of hype surrounding the object, my mother kept on telling me, “This too shall pass.” Indeed, this war taught me that few sounds are as chilling and unmistakable as an air-raid siren. My mother, digging deep from her reservoir of knowledge, said that sirens had been in use since times immemorial and “they capture a moment of fear, urgency, and looming chaos, all in a single sound,” she said.

Her mother extended support and strength not only to her but to other women living in the vicinity too. Of course, in her home, TV was off the information menu. “Army wives are the fulcrum around, which the social fabric of the armed forces revolves. To be honest, I have often wondered what I would have done if I was faced with this dilemma: of being against a war on the one hand and married to a man forced to fight it,” she wondered.