“Papa is on duty in Jammu… he will be back soon. He is in CRPF. He is there to get some money for us…” says 5-year-old Gurparkash, the son of CRPF head constable Jaimal Singh who was martyred in the Pulwama attack on February 14.
Perhaps toddlers don’t have the language to express how they feel about loss, nor the understanding of death, but they do pick up on the anxiety or distress of close adults or others around them.
Gurparkash was clueless about what was going on in his home as he saw his mother and grandmother crying and mourning. All that this innocent kid knew was that he will be admitted to a new school once his father is back from Jammu.
The driver of the bus, 44-years-old Jaimal Singh was also martyred along with 43 others, when the convoy was blown up by Jaish terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama district using 350 kg of explosives.
Singh who could not study in a good school had only one dream for his son. He wanted to provide him with the best of education and was planning to shift from Moga to Chandigarh by the end of February, this year.
Martyr Jaimal Singh joined CRPF to support the education of his siblings and his son. His sister, Harwinder Kaur said, “My elder brother was the only one who had fought with my parents when they discontinued my schooling after class 8. We were a poor family. He joined the army to support us, to feed us.”
While talking to Indian Express, Singh’s wife Sukjit Kaur said, “We were moving to Chandigarh later this month. He wanted to get our son admitted to a new school from class I. Our son was born after 18 years of our marriage after several complications and miscarriages. The only person whom he loved the most in the entire world was our son. I do not know how Gurparkash is going to live without him now.”
On Saturday, at Singh’s native village in Ghaloti Khurd, of Dharamkot sub-division in Moga district, Gurparkash lit his father’s pyre amid full state honors.
May you all get the courage to conquer life once again.