“I believe some officer has been posted to Leh and his wife is extremely excited about it! I want to meet her...” This was the wife of a senior Air Force officer. The extremely excited wife that she’s talking about was ME! 1992. Our postings after the ATC course in Bangalore were out and almost everybody was seemingly happy going to familiar places, but for me...”Leh? Are families allowed? Where will I stay? With in-laws?(no!) Where will we keep our luggage? How in the world will I live without you?” (We had been married for only a year then and hence the last question!)
For the first few hours that the postings were out, my very life was a question mark. Till a few wise and experienced officers and their wives, God bless them, informed that families were allowed and it wasn’t all that bad a posting. “...wasn’t all that bad”...a ray of hope, “... families were allowed”...the ray was positively brighter! The next couple of days I collected whatever bits of information that I could, you see those were not the days of internet and the likes. And with each bit my hopes grew. “It’s kind of barren but beautiful”, “its colder than you can imagine, but it’ll be an experience”, “you’ll have to stay in the mess, no cooking”(yesss!), “there’s dearth of people there so you get to be a radio jockey easily”! And the wife was extremely excited...”Leh, wow, when?!”
But nothing in the world could have prepared me for Leh. I stepped out of the aircraft and felt the cold air, and quickly inhaled breaths of crisp freshness. I looked around and was engulfed in the spectacular scenic beauty. Not your regular Himalayan flora, neither the regular mountains, but awe-inspiringly different. In fact each mountain seemed to be of a different shade. There was mauve, purple, brown and I swear, pink too. My husband too looked more handsome! Must be the mountain air or the fact that I was seeing him after two months! We then left for our mess. En route we passed the famous Kali temple. It’s rumoured that if you don’t pay a visit within ten days of your arrival, you will be posted back to Leh again! I, of course, very religiously, did not!
One cozy room, thanks to my caring husband, and a view to die for, whichever window you peered through, comprised the housing part. Coursemates and unit folk with whom we chatted and dined together every single day, comprised the living part. The food would come from the mess, remember ‘no cooking’. Yet we wives managed to keep the flame alive for tea, coffee, etc. The containers and tins collected there itself were dutifully handed down to the families newly posted in.
The market was colourful, with curious foreigners, eager faujis and contended ladakhis jostling and bustling around. We often shopped for Buddhist curios and Tibetan handicrafts. Besides brocades and velvet the locals also sold the summer bounty, riper, juicier, greener and bigger than ever fruits and vegetables. Truly paradisiacal.
The summer matured to autumn. The picture became prettier still. It got chilly and the leaves shimmered, glistened and gleamed gold. The trees, in fact, became resplendent treasure troves. Besides gold there was ruby, amber, amethyst, red jasper, tiger’s eye and remnants of emeralds. It must have been here that Keats composed his ode to autumn. It was magical.
And the excitement continued. Each glorious sunrise brought with it more unique experiences than the day before. The stunning scenery changed with the different angles of the sun, with the different seasons. The frigid cold of the winters, the icy winds, the frozen Indus, the frost bitten finger tips, the sun burnt cheeks, the kerosene ‘bukharis’ providing the much required warmth, besides the caps, gloves, socks and sweaters we knitted sitting in the sun, are now all part of the happiest memories of one of the best postings ever.
Its experiences like these and more that enrich us, keeping us contended and making us hard core ‘fauji wives’! We become adaptable, adjustable, universal...we may not have the affluence of the moneyed, but we have opulent and rich souls...to the core. Hard core, like I said!
PS - Sorry, but those who haven’t been posted to such inhospitable places will never understand the excitement!
