In honour of the armed forces’ veterans, lest we forget
Book Title: Thorns and Roses
Author: Edited and Compiled by Brig Baqir Shameem
The quirky draw of this slim volume hits readers upfront, drawing smiles when they see the well-designed olive green cover embellished with thorns, roses, guns and a helmet. An unintended oxymoron, you wonder, as you follow Brig Baqir Shameem’s rather laboured opening remarks about roses being about love, honour, courage and sacrifice; and thorns as symbols of hardship, pain, trauma and emotional scars. Together, they represent the duality of beauty and brutality, love and loss, war and peace, he says.
In ancient Greece, Aphrodite, the goddess of love, was identified with roses. Sufi mystic Ibn Arabi aligns the rose with the beloved’s blushing cheek on the one hand and divine attributes on the other. Allegorically, rose represents a romantic interest with red symbolising passion, virtue and innocence. That said, scientist Stephen Buchmann, in his best-seller ‘The Reason for Flowers’, says in short that “flowers run the world”. One cannot help feeling how Brig Shameem links “unsung veterans who suffered injuries mental and physical in the Great Wars and since 1947 but their stories are unknown” to red roses and thorns. One wonders whether he was implying another flower with true military symbolism: the red poppy.
The 1915 Col John McCrae war poem ‘In Flanders Fields’ comes to mind, a Veteran’s Day symbol throughout western Commonwealth nations. It speaks poignantly of soldiers who lie buried under unending carpets of red poppies covering war-devastated fields in Flanders, Belgium and France. An extract:
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
These sentiments are Shameem’s for sure as the 16 stories unfold, each carrying its own punch and lessons that make the reading compelling.
The stories are nuggets without exception and make the readers go through a myriad of emotions that soldiers experience in their variegated careers, from the joy and adrenalin rush of top achievement to facing near-death situations with yogic calmness and, a quiet thank you to God and destiny.
Many of the writers are of 1962 vintage, a veteran generation whose combat worth we are ambivalent about. Only, you get charged up with pride and respect when you read their stories — quality tales of high-grade toppers, not quite unnamed, unremembered and unrecognised as the book notes, but honoured and awarded because they were deserving.
The writers, mainly graduates from NDA, are Sappers who studied in King George school, Bangalore. Also included are outstanding Infantry, EME officers with benchmarked corporate success, Signalers and ace flying and Submariner colleagues, as also Sapper sailors who circumnavigated the world in a second-hand yacht purchased in London and exploited it for their voyages with varying grades of institutional support.
The humour star cast is headed by Brig Shameem, who started writing books in 2006 and has five to his credit.
Colleen McCullough, in her record-setting novel, ‘The Thornbirds’, spoke for these veterans when she wrote: “Sometimes, doing an ordinary thing in an extraordinary way gives you the edge.” This prescient sentence encapsulates the transformative power of innovation and creativity. It suggests that greatness lies not only in the pursuit of extraordinary tasks, but also in approaching ordinary actions with a unique perspective. These veterans did all of this, the 16 tales offer conclusive proof. They did their duty in silence, not in celebration. It is we who need to celebrate them. Now.
Perhaps there’s a void here. The book makes the reader wonder if we aren’t being societally dismissive of veterans as being irrelevant and therefore equivalent to deadwood. The positive surge of their youth and wellness in heart and soul, even if the body is a bit frail from near-death experiences, makes a parody of how they are viewed institutionally. The Cliff Richards’ 1961 chart-topping song ‘The Young Ones’ is probably an apt epitaph for them. Though in ages 70 to 80-plus now, these writers display they’re on song and have accepted all life has offered with panache and elan.
While ‘Thorns and Roses’ commands compulsive reading, the publishers have been lax with syntax and proof-reading, which the next edition must avoid.