2023-12
On the 18th of October, I sat in the church at Lieutenant Amit Shaji's homegoing service, and my mind kept pulling up memory after memory of him. I didn't have the courage to walk up to the altar and speak. I regret that. So this is my attempt to say, in my own space and my own time, what I couldn't say that day, not a eulogy, just the things I remember about Amit Bhaiya.
My earliest memory of him goes back to when I was still in KG. I was at their home, and Amit Bhaiya had just gotten a new game, the kind that had a ton of games packed into one disc. He didn't have to include a kid as small as me, but he did. One of the games was football, and I got handed the second player. My fingers were nowhere near ready for a keyboard or game of that level. He worked out a strategy anyway where he'd play the long ball, and my job was to sprint my player forward and finish it. I couldn't manage it, not really. My fingers just weren't fast enough. But Amit Bhaiya, even as young as he was, didn't get frustrated or leave me out. He saw I was struggling, encouraged me through it, and later we just moved on to another game altogether. Looking back now, even at this young age he was showcasing what every defence aspirant would say OLQ ie Officer Like Qualities, before either of us had any idea about it.
When I changed school during primary, the thing I was most excited about wasn't the school itself, it was that I'd be studying where Amit Bhaiya studied. On my first day, I got lucky enough to run into him before assembly. He was in the middle of playing with his friends, and the moment he saw me heading to my new classroom, he left what he was doing and rushed over to meet me. He'd already moved into the senior wing by then, so we didn't overlap much after that, but I got to spend a lot of that year with his younger sister, who was with me in the primary wing. I only stayed at that school for a year, but that first-day memory of him running over has stayed with me far longer.
When I was in 8th grade, I took swimming lessons over the summer, and Amit Bhaiya had joined the same batch. My father would pick him up and drop us at the pool. We were the oldest ones there and most of the other kids were much younger. On our first day, some kid, probably in 4th grade, was busy showing off how well he could float and we just had a big grin. By the end of 2 week Amit Bhaiya, naturally, was already ahead of all of us in the pool. It's a small memory, but it's one of those ordinary, easy summer days that I still think about fondly.
As we got older, our conversations kept circling back to the same thing, defence, SSBs, and life. Whether it was during Onam celebrations or at a housewarming, it always came up. He wanted to wear the uniform. He wanted that life. He didn't just talk about it either, he pursued it, and became Lieutenant Amit Shaji.
Our trip to Jaipur, after Covid, might be the memory I hold onto the most. I've had what people call a weird taste in music back then, and on that trip I was genuinely surprised to find out Amit Bhaiya had heard some of the same songs I liked. We spent a lot of that trip playing games on the bus, and it's one of those stretches of time I keep wanting to go back to.
Before he joined OTA, he visited our house a month before. I didn't know it then, but that would be the last time I saw him. I wish I had spent more time with him that day, or made the effort to visit him at home during one of his leaves. Afterward, my mom would talk about how thin he'd gotten, or how tough the training at camp sounded. I would just smile, thinking about how adventurous army life must be. I didn't know I was running out of time to see him.
On the 16th of October, my mom was crying at the dinner table, my father sitting beside her. I knew immediately that something terrible had happened, and my mind started running through every possibility, had something happened to her brother or any relative. I had no words and no ability to process anything when she told me the news. As a kid, I had always looked up to Amit Bhaiya as one of my role models. He was someone with a great smile and a spirit that was hard not to notice.
If there's one thing I've noticed looking back at all of this, it's that every single time I met Amit Bhaiya, it turned into one of my happy days. He had a aura/way of making ordinary time feel worth remembering.
Amit Bhaiya was laid to rest with full military honors, as per army conduct. I'm attaching the funeral service video for anyone who wishes to watch it.
Rest well, Amit Bhaiya. Jai Hind!