I have known him since I was 14. My elder sister, who is now in Canada, and he were classmates and friends. Our home, this house, used to be the hangout, this is where the 'gang' spent all their time -- and as the younger sister, I was pampered by my sister's friends.
At that time, of course, no thought of romance came into my head -- that happened much later, and when it did happen it was very sudden. I mean, we had known each other all those years, but when we actually started dating, in just six months we were married.
He was never the party animal. He had a fantastic sense of humour, not in the sense he told jokes all the time, but because he had this knack of seeing the funny side of all sorts of ordinary things, in Life. I am extroverted, but I am not a party animal either.
He was so unassuming, that is what you noticed about him. He didn't have a sense of who he was, that he was special. That is what you noticed about him, actually -- there would be this roomful of people being loud and having fun, and there would be this guy, very quiet, reserved, he seemed so content in his own skin, you began to wonder about him, you know, noticing him and wondering if he noticed you. Apart from the physical part, of course -- I mean, there was no doubt he was a stunning guy, he stood out in a crowd, very tall, well built, very handsome, even if I may say so myself after all this that has happened. There was a kind of dignity about him, a kind of understated magnetism that was incredibly attractive.
He was a single-minded guy even then, someone whose only ambition was to be a soldier. He was a brilliant student, he could have easily become an MBA. In fact, he got through his IIM entrance and got his seat, but at the same time he also got into the IMA, this was after his BSc degree, and he picked the IMA without a moment's thought. At the time, his friends used to question him about that -- the IIM was so prestigious, the future was assured -- but he insisted that being a soldier was what he wanted to do. He had this sense of duty, of country, that sounds trite when you put it in words, but for him it was something to live by, something he believed in with all his heart.
His mother told me Vasant wanted to be in the army when he was barely four years old, when the 1971 war against Pakistan happened. It wasn't a kid's thing, though, playing at soldiers when war talk was everywhere. I used to rag him about this, actually, during those days when he opted for the IMA and even later, after we began dating, I used to tell him that he was just an overgrown kid who hadn't outgrown that childhood fantasy for guns and stuff. But early on, I realised it was much more -- you use words like vocation and calling mostly to describe priests, but in his case, the army was his calling, his vocation, something that was integral to who he was.
He was a very low profile guy. If you saw him in a gathering, he would probably be the quietest. He never thought he was doing anything great. I could see the difference between the way he thought and the way a lot of the others, his peers, thought, but when I told him that he would say no, we are all the same, I am no different, I am not special. This would bug me no end, because I didn't want him to think that way about himself. Sometimes you can see it in a guy, that he is not ordinary, not average, and at such times his humility, that self-effacing thing about him, would irritate me. He was special, and I sometimes used to wish he would realise that.
He always had a strong sense of loyalty -- in college, in the IMA, and once he became an officer. Everyone who was part of his circle -- you know, his friends, his soldiers -- they all swore by him, because he would do anything for them, he would go the extra mile, all anyone had to do was ask.
His mother and I would sometimes ask him why he constantly put himself in harm's way. After all, he is a commanding officer, he doesn't always have to be on the front line. His invariable response was, "I go where my men go."
And that is how he lived, and how he died. That day in Uri, think about it, the officer next to him was young, with just two years experience. He was a kid. How could Vasant, being who he is and what he is, with his 18 years of experience sit in his office and send that kid out to deal with dangerous militants?
He went himself, he led his men, and he died doing what he had to do.
Image: In June, the couple celebrated their 15th wedding anniversary, never imagining it would be their last. Also seen in the picture is younger daughter Yashoda. Photograph courtesy: Subhashini Vasanth
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