IN MEMORIAM

Moved by the grand tribute the US pays to its soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery, Anita Limaye wonders why India hasn’t got anything comparable

   Sightseeing usually means happy experiences, but I would classify this one as memorable, a little saddening and definitely heartfelt. More so as I am a soldier’s daughter and a soldier’s wife. My visit to Washington DC, began like any normal trip to the US. My mother and I had our own itinerary of "places to see" and "things to do" and we were pretty excited about it.
   It was the beginning of spring, which meant a profusion of cherry blossoms all over the city. The delicate pink and white blossoms covered trees lining the streets in Washington and neighbouring districts. The buds actually resembled small tufts of cotton as they clumped up in a bunch on bare brown branches. The best view of these trees was around the Potomac River Tidal Basin Area, with over 1700 trees!
   Eventually we reached the Arlington National Cemetery, via a ‘tourmobile’ which is the best way to see Washington. This cemetery and national memorial is located across the Potomac River, towards the state of Virginia, and is the resting place of over 250,000 American soldiers who died during a war or in service to their nation. Among the other famous Americans buried here are the family of John F Kennedy, the crew of the space shuttle Challenger and General John Pershing.
   The Tomb of the Unknowns is an awe inspiring place where the names of all the soldiers who lost their lives during the First and Second World Wars, the Korean War and the Vietnam War, are engraved on a circular wall. All the medals awarded posthumously to these soldiers are on display in the Arlington Memorial Amphitheatre, directly behind the Tomb. Further up, at the top of a hill, stands Arlington House which gives a bird’s eye view of Washington DC in general and the Memorial Bridge leading up to the Lincoln Memorial, in particular.
   As we looked downhill, we saw thousands and thousands of graves, all uniformly in neat rows, marked in white, marching into the distance. Most people are just struck speechless by the sombre yet serene sight. Some weep, some sob gently, but nobody goes away untouched by welling emotion. I too stood there silently, and then suddenly, out of nowhere, I felt a tear trickle down my cheek. I was taken aback as I am not so easily prone to public displays of sentiment.
   Here I was, a stranger in this land, an outsider really, staring at the graves of soldiers whom I had not even met in their lifetime, crying at their loss. Then I realised that I was touched more by the laudable effort made by the American people to commemorate soldiers who have lain down their lives. By any account these men and women, their engraved names too far away for me to see from my perch, are true heroes who deserve to be remembered and revered by their nation instead of mindless adulation of entertainers. Kudos to them!!
   As a fauji daughter and wife, I can’t help but wonder why we have not found space for a grand national memorial for our soldiers? Then not only will Indians spare a thought for those brave souls but others will also look, commemorate and salute them.
   We have the second largest army in the world and have lost — and are still losing — so many soldiers; much more than the Americans. We probably have more uniformed men (and women if you count those in the paramilitary and police) who put their lives on the line for their country every day than any other country. But where is the space to remember them? While we do have India Gate and the ‘Amar Jawan Jyoti’ in New Delhi, and it is a pretty big tourist draw, the fact is that it was built by the British, not us.
   It commemorates the 90,000 soldiers of the erstwhile British Indian Army who died fighting for the Indian Empire in World War I and the Afghan Wars; only later the memorial to the Indian soldiers who died in subsequent wars was added. And I wonder whether most of the people who throng it spare even a moment’s thought to the Amar Jawan as they picnic on the lawns or simply enjoy Lutyens’ grand central vista now called Rajpath.
   There are local memorials in places like Rezangla (Ladakh), Kargil, Kohima, Pune and Agra which commemorate soldiers of a particular state or regiment, but there is no central memorial for the ‘Indian Soldier’ anywhere, even 60 years after Independence. We need a place in India where we can stand proudly and remember our martyrs; a place where we can salute them and let our patriotic spirit soar. And if Indians feel the way I do — and I know there are many — any such place will become a tourism draw, just like Arlington.
   We left Arlington with a heavy heart. It seemed as if the surroundings too were feeling the same way! As we noticed, all the other monuments were also white, as if mirroring our bereaved state of mind. From the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, Jefferson Memorial and Capitol Hill to the Smithsonian and of course the White House! Only the cherry blossoms provided a hint of cheer. And hope.