Hands that rocked the cradle of soldiers
MOTHER'S DAY SPECIAL
Nagpur:
Savita Samrit
was expecting their second child when her husband, Naik Krishinaji Samrit, fell to terrorists bullets at Poonch in 1999. A shattered widow then, she is now a proud mother of an
army officer
. Her son, Prajwal, passed out from the
Indian Military Academy
(IMA).Over 150 miles away from Savita's home, news of the conflict between India and Pakistan makes 70-year-old Lilabai Deshmukh emotional.
She lost her 25-year-old son, Prakash, in 1999, also during a terror attack at Doda near Jammu. He was posthumously awarded a Sena Medal.At Nagpur, Dipti Jaiswal, a tough cop, gets anxious thinking about her son, who is posted at a distant location, as tensions escalate between India and Pakistan.On the eve of International Mother's Day, TOI talked to these extraordinary mothers of soldiers.
One remembers her son's sacrifice. The other hopes for her son to achieve glory. The third holds her emotions in check, looking at the police uniform she dons.Lilabai recalls the day when she came to know about her son's death. "The news left us devastated. He was just 21 years old. It was some terror attack we were told," says Lilabai with a choking voice. "We wanted him to take some other work, but he was adamant about joining the Army. My son was barely 18 when he joined the Army, and 21 at the time of death. Even today, when I see boys of that age, I remember Prakash," she says.As a mother, she has mixed feelings about the Army. She questions why someone should die young but quickly adds that the country needs soldiers. "It was because of my elder brother that we have so much respect in society," says Prakash's brother.When asked if she discouraged her son from joining the army, as she lost her husband in conflict, Savita brushes it off, saying, "It's all your destiny. Life was tough after my husband's death. It was difficult to bring up both the children as a single mother. I took up a job after they were slightly older," she says. "It's all past now, and my son makes me proud," she says.Though Dipti dons the uniform, that of police, she also has a heart of mother. "Initially, there was no news about my son, and each moment my heart only got heavier," says Dipti.
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