Thanks to the Indian Army and the United Nations, my wife of forty-one years, Mrs Ballie Singha, has celebrated several Karwa Chauths abroad that have had their own dynamics. In 2000, all four of us travelled to the UK where my brother, Lt Gen (then a Lt Colonel) GS Sangha was posted on deputation in Warminster as the Indian Army Liaison Officer (IALO) for three years. From the UK, my wife and elder son Rannvijay went to Ohio, USA, for a few weeks while younger son Harman and I stayed back in the UK.
On the occasion of Karwa Chauth, my wife was at my sister’s place in Cleveland, Ohio, and she had carried her Karwa Chauth paraphernalia along with her. In my sister and her in-laws’ place, no one fasts on this occasion and they had no clue of the rituals. However, they were happy to help and watched Ballie go through the fast and the rituals for the whole day. In the evening, my wife asked the pertinent question: “Which side does the moon rise from?” My sister and everyone around her were clueless. She confided in Ballie that for the last twenty-five years that they had been in the US, they had never seen the moon! Their life revolved around getting up early, preparing breakfast and lunch for the children, husbands, and themselves, and dropping the children off at school on the way to work. They returned from the place of work fairly late in the evening and went straight inside the house, prepared, had dinner, and went off to sleep. Sundays and holidays were spent relaxing and doing errands. In all those years, they had never looked up at the sky at night!
The next Karwa Chauth abroad was in 2014 when I was the Head of the Mission and Force Commander of the United Nations peacekeeping force between Israel and Syria. I had rented a flat in the picturesque town of Tiberius for visiting family and friends. This town is based on the lake Tiberius where Christ had walked on the water. I had my official residences in both the camps on the Syrian and the Israeli sides but the families could not stay there for security reasons. We had a few other families visiting the officers and the men as well as some lady officers during Karwa Chauth, and therefore, everyone looked for guidance towards the First Lady and my wife felt like a VIP. The regimental Pandit Ji (religious teacher) of the Indian Contingent (INDBATT) did the evening prayers with the ladies and explained to them the significance of the festival. That evening, selected Indian officers and men, whose wives were present on the Israeli side, performed serious observation duties with a difference. Instead of observing the Area of Responsibility, they were looking for the moon and each one of them wanted to be the first one to break the news to the First Lady of the moonrise and the direction!
The last memorable Karwa Chauths observed abroad was in 2022 in Ho Chi Minh City when some seventy-odd batchmates and their wives had travelled to Vietnam and Indonesia (Bali) for a course get-together. The ladies had planned in detail and shared responsibilities to carry the required foodstuff from India. While the ladies observing the fast got together in the executive lounge on the top floor of the hotel, the husbands were walking around the streets to look for the moon. Due to the high-rises downtown, the moon sighting was delayed, but we had a sigh of relief when we finally spotted the moon! The husbands were too eager to get over the rituals so that they could have their scotch before the sumptuous dinner!
Besides these three interesting incidents abroad, on many occasions, our wives have followed the ritual in Field Area Family Accommodation (FAFA) in peace stations while their husbands have been deployed on the border. On these occasions, the enthused children took the responsibility of spotting the moon! We all feel very fortunate to have served long years and yet returned home safely. Thanks to the prayers of our wives, we have survived lots of challenging situations. Many brave officers and men have laid down the supreme sacrifice of their lives in the defence of the nation. We as Indians, must always remember these soldiers in all festivals and pray to the God Almighty to bestow on their families good health, happiness, and prosperity.
The author was Head of the Mission and Force Commander of UN Peacekeeping Mission (UNDOF) between Israel and Syria at Golan Heights from 2012 to 2014. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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