The car stopped at the Lahore station and I peeked out of the window and saw the same college door and wall. The same juicy Punjabi voices fell on my ears and the same shiny shirts and trousers appeared. An unseen force forced us to land in Lahore.
Leaving the station, I realized for the first time that walking in the streets of Lahore is a great blessing. We stayed in Lahore for 24 hours, did we surrender ourselves to Lahore and it felt as if the air of Lahore was washing away our three years of alienation and purifying us formally.
When we reached home the next day, we found the younger ones bigger and the older ones bigger, but the big news of the village was not how we found them but how we found ourselves.
The news became known that the captain has arrived, Muhammad Khan has arrived. How thin he was, now look how young he has become, he has become a master, he also drinks “Sargat”,
Eats in Muscat, job guard is also forgiven.
Leaving the small and big works of the village, they started coming to the meeting. We must have made about a thousand hugs in the first two days, and that was the male population of our village. The breasts began to appear, but the heart got a strange relief. He only ate at home for a few days in a month and at the insistence of his mother to let me see his son wholeheartedly and after seeing him for a long time, he said something that only a mother can say.
“Son, are you the biggest officer in the whole army now?”
I would look at my mother and think, if this figure of love did not exist, would I have the same desire to return home? Answered without hesitation.
“Yes, all but one and a half are subordinate to me.” And the mother’s world was settled.
By the way, the truth was that we needed a lamp and a searchlight to find our subordinates even after leaving not one and a half but one lakh, but what is the use of that truth which hurts mother’s heart?
(Excerpt from Col. Muhammad Khan’s book Bjang Amad)
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