The light breeze that blew felt like a kiss on her forehead; she felt as if his hands caressed her when the breeze blew her hair mildly. The sparkling cold droplets of rain-water from the tree made its way from the tip of a leaf to her cheek and then reached the soil but it surely made its way through the corners of her lips…!

That lucky tiny drop finally managed to wake her up. She opened her eyes to see a full-moon through the illuminated wet leaves of the tree under which she had dozed off. Twenty two years of her life had passed in this insanely huge house in a tiny remote village in the outskirts of Mysore. And most of those years were spent under this huge banyan tree that majestically stood in their backyard. It was almost midnight and she had forgotten to even lock the front door and tie the cows inside the shed. There was no one in the house today which usually would be crowded with a million people.

She hurried and finished the chores. She was alone today and no… she wasn’t complaining..! After-all she could do whatever she wanted to do without anyone’s unnecessary interference…! But there was just one thing she fancied… take an elaborate dip in the Kaveri River which flowed just in their backyard next to her favorite banyan tree…!

Her eyes bloomed with joy as the lengthy drapes of her saree flew all around the house as she ran towards the backyard and sang her way to the moonlit Kaveri that was more gorgeous than ever because it had just rained to make it swifter. Moon light can make even a puddle of water on a road dramatic… but this was the ever-mighty Kaveri herself. On this full-moon day, Kaveri looked as if the moon melted and chose to flow in her backyard.

She touched the river with the tip of her feet and this sent cold shivers down her nerves. Within no time she had stepped into the water neck-deep…! Water looked more like mercury with all the moonlight and when she took out her head slowly from water, her eyes looked like two stars rising out of that melted moon…! Her wet skin glowed like never before in that moonlight. She came out of the river completely drenched and her dripping saree had never suited her better… ever…! It was all like a fantasy… just then she heard a deafening thunderous blast and turned around.

He woke up in shock as his fellow soldier yelled out to him “Looks like we are under attack… there’s a bomb attack… get up and get your stuff… hurry…! Lieutenant has called for a code-red alert… Hurry…!”

Thousands of miles away from Kaveri, up in the very North of India, in Kashmir, he woke up from a dream of his wife Kaveri, whom he had married in the 4 days of vacation that he was allowed 7 months back. And he could remember her face just by a single photograph. He had to actually cut out a negative film from the wedding camera and get it developed near his camp in Kashmir. He couldn’t stay for more than 2 days in his place after the wedding.

When reality strikes, that too after a dream too pleasant, it’s much worse than any bomb. As the whole battalion got ready to strike back and attacked the terrorists who had cowardly bombed a military camp when the whole country slept, he couldn’t help but continue thinking of his newly married wife. As he shot at the intruders, he could see them run away or shooting back; but the images that actually flowed in his mind were of his newly married wife and his family who lived in a tiny studio apartment back in Mysore with a small 15 inch television and 3 huge carpets as the only furniture. He shot at them with more anguish when he knew his wife would have skipped a meal or two to buy his ill parents a dose of medicines. He wiped his sweat on the forehead knowing his wife would be doing the same as she would be cleaning up the house, not just his house but of the whole building to add some extra money to their almost non-existent savings !

Back in Mysore, all the way down south, away from all the fantasies, Kaveri had just finished daily chores of her house and almost 6 other houses. She dragged herself to get some rest and switched on the television. She preferred news channels these days because she felt there is something huge going on in the country. Young and old of all the homes where she used to work were getting ready every morning with their faces painted with our national flag, some of them took her help in getting big banners done, so she knew something was happening around the country. They all wore a sticker which said, “I am Anna”, which actually introduced her to a person who was sitting somewhere up north near her husband and was not having food since a long time to fight for a cause.

Just the same morning, one of her friends who worked at a multinational company as a house-keeping staff, and whose husband also was in the same battalion as her husband, had said that there were many people from that company who were taking out marches and shouting slogans all over the city throughout the eight hours that they were to be in office, from the past 10 to 12 days…! She had also complained to Kaveri about the extreme crowd immediately after 1 in the afternoon in the cafeteria of the company because she had to clean vessels and tables of all the people together at once, which was not the case when they were in office…!

She had mentioned one thing just casually which had caught Kaveri’s mind. She had wondered if all these people who are fighting for something important would support all the families in military who are risking their lives for saving their nation every single second of their duty in defense. Would they rise to the occasion and protest to get the defenses more equipped and increase the chances of the military men to safeguard the nation without worrying if their families had their meal? Even a cook at the military camp is at more risk than a CEO of a Multinational company, because if the CEO screws up or goes negligent, he might get fired or at most, could result in financial losses for the company. But if a person in military slightly deviates from his duty, he is risking not just his life, and not just the lives of his fellow military personnel, but also prides and lives of a nation…!

As she wondered, she saw breaking news in almost all the news channels that night “Victory for Anna” and the whole country cheered with him. They all sang our national anthem and a crowd of thousands and thousands sang with him with pride. She didn’t really know much about what it’s about, but she felt a sense of pride anyway. But then her eyes caught different small tiny news that made its way in the ticker section much below the Breaking News, which ran very fast for her to read. All she could read was that a military camp in Kashmir was attacked and most of the personnel in the camp were seriously injured from this attack. It wasn’t big news to cover as no lives were lost. She had no reason to believe that it would be the same camp as her husband’s, but it did not have enough information anyway and then again, she also had no reason to believe that it is not her husband’s camp. She suddenly felt an immense fear but didn’t really know what else she could do, so she just slept with moist eyes.

All she could do was pray and cry her heart out for that day, because for the next day, Kaveri had to earn her part of the daily bread, even as most of the youth in all the cities would celebrate the Victory of Anna.