Zarvan
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Major Dhruv Yadav. (File photo)
No parent should have to bury their child. It doesn't matter that the child has signed up to die for his country, and it doesn't matter that he died with his combat boots on as he prepared to serve and protect his country.
That's just what happened to Major Dhruv Yadav who died in a freak accident during a training exercise in Pokhran, Rajasthan, last month. Reports say that the Major, a former instructor at the Indian Military Academy, was all of 32 years old, and that when he died, he was a month away from becoming a first-time father.
Major Yadav's death has left a crater-sized hole in the heart of his mother who's poured out her anguish in an open, deeply-heartrending and poignant letter to her dead son.
"That you laid down your life during a combat exercise, that the sun set on the Pokhran ranges while our son breathed his last, that you bashed on regardless to be taken away by a cruel act of God, has left a big hole in our hearts," she writes.
Major Yadav was struck by a splinter, either from a misfired round by a tank behind the one he was on, or from an artillery shell, during a fire power demonstration in the Pokhran desert, in which Arjun tanks from the Army's 75 Armoured Regiment were being used.
"I took your life for granted Dhruv. You were meant to be by our side, through the years. Hold our hands while we grew old. You deserted us that day as the desert blew up. It seemed as if every flower that bloomed on the desert was woven into those beautiful wreaths placed by the officers and men while you were draped in the tricolor," she writes.
In her pain, Major Yadav's mother cannot help ponder the 'what ifs.'
"If...... If only you had gone to the Congo on the UN Peace Keeping Mission....., if only you had ducked....., if only that shrapnel had grazed your shoulder. You would have been home by our side. I cannot comprehend why God indulges in acts that make no sense at all. Why did he have to pick on our son who lived every moment like a hero," she writes.
Major Yadav's mother is grieving deeply but even in her grief, she's a proud mother.
"... I felt so proud when you were given the salutations of a 'shaheed'. That you were referred to as 'Brave son of India' who laid down his life with his boots on, firm on top of his tank - 'Sahasam Viajayate'. I wish we had told you how infinitely proud we were of you, my son. I wish we had told you that you would have made a super father. I wish we had told you that you were the best son in the world. I wish.....You were the Kohinoor in my crown."
"My dearest dearest Dhruvee, …": A bereaved mother writes - The Times of India
