The attack that hit the soul of Army Schools worldwide

When headlines poured in from Peshawar about the deadly attack on school children on Dec 16, I was catching up on the many messages I had missed on a whatsapp group of my High School mates. It’s a group of men and women in their mid-40s getting ready for a reunion. A group that thirty years ago had soaring dreams, go-getter attitudes and high-ceilinged ambitions. We were all once sons and daughters of military personnel in a school in Hyderabad, India, identical to the one in Peshawar, Pakistan. The world stood before us – to conquer, to create, to contradict. Here we were now in cyberspace – humble and unassuming of our achievements and oblivious to apparent graying cells - reliving with love and laughter minute details of the bygone days. A chill ran down my spine as I connected the two screens. That was us three decades ago - and this was not the way it is meant to be. The kids in Peshawar were meant to grow up, aspire, laugh, succeed, fail, learn, succeed again - conquer, create, contradict.

And they were meant to have reunions.

It is important in my profession to be detached. But I wept as scores of red headlines crossed the wire. These young dreamers were thrust with something their beautiful minds had no room for – fear. What kind of a reunion could they have many years later? What was there to laugh or rejoice about? It was not just lives but their souls that had been attacked.

We, the middle-aged teens flying from all parts of the world for this reunion in Hyderabad grew up embracing the army life we were born into with pride. We didn’t question when asked to pack our bags and “black trunks” each time our fathers announced a transfer. Our mothers would get busy sorting items according to the numbered trunks (Trunk No. 36 was the one that carried “toys” for us). We graciously welcomed new friends, no matter which “Army School” we ended up in and we respected the flag that hung at the gate, signs of patriotism seeped early as our toddler years were spent connecting the uniform with the Dad. “Army kids” were synonymous with being adjusting, accommodating and adaptable to change. We could tell an army kid in a social circle (I still can) just by the way they bent forward with respect while talking to the elderly or the confidence they exuded while talking to an authoritative person. We sought each other and we looked after each other.

That is the child that graduates from every army school in the world. That is the child that was deprived existence last Tuesday.

Thirty years later, we are still looking out for each other, ensuring safety, accommodation and comfort for all those coming for the reunion. Some of us have lived our dreams, some have gone on a tangent, but we have accepted and loved life for whatever it has presented to us in thirty years because we grew up in schools in an atmosphere that taught us to appreciate and value every small thing in life. But that may not be the kind of individual who will emerge from the hospitals in Peshawar.

“I’m a physics student but now I don’t want to be an engineer,” a wounded 14-year-old survivor shot in the hand, leg and back, told a Reuters correspondent in the hospital. “I want to get out and take revenge for all the deaths.”

When Taliban militants gunned down more than 130 uniformed proud youngsters in Peshawar, they eliminated the childhood innocence of many enterprising, ambitious and spirited lives, a promising bunch of individuals who would have made the world proud. 

As Pakistan reels with anger, grief and destroyed childhoods, we would hope the inherent values inculcated to all those children will resurrect and return to provide solace to many others. “I want to be an eye doctor. I will fix my brother’s eyes and mine,” told another child to Reuters. “Jibran wants to be a pilot and, you see, you need perfect eyesight to be a pilot. So I have to fix his eyes.”

When the batch of 1986 in Hyderabad will meet and greet uniformed teenagers eager to learn more about their future, it would be hard not to remember those talented counterparts lost on the other side of the border. May their souls rest in peace.