KRIEGSANGST (Satis Shroff)

KRIEGSANGST: PREPARING FOR THE WORST (Satis Shroff)
Kriegsangst in 2022 of the Sino-Indo conflict of 1962 when I was a teenage school-kid in the foothills of the Himalayas.

Fear of war on the faces of the Ukranians,
100,000 Rusians in the border.
And urban warfare if the Russians do invade.

The training of civilians for real war has begun
‘Ukraine is not the Nato,
Our resources are limited, says a Kiever.
‘Our will to fight the aggressor is there,
As in the past, he adds.
* * *
I remember a similar fear in 1962.
I was in an Irish school in Darjeeling.
When the Chinese troops attacked Indian soldiers
Near Nathu La I Sikkim,
We, schoolkids, received training
With Enfield . 303 rifles,
Relicts of the Second World War.

We were taught how to hold and load the guns.
Had to learn how to crawl
Between the tea-bushes,
Because it was a tea-plantation region.
No trees, only monotonous, monoculture
Of Thea sinensis imported from China
By the British colonialists in the days of the Raj.
Even local Gorkhali girls had to do rifle-training.
We were obliged to fire forty rounds of ammunition
On the final day.

A field day for us teenage hill boys.
People didn’t speak openly
But you could sense the fear in the air,
Whispers of uncertainty, speculations and rumors.
There was Blackout in the evenings.
Although it was winter people came out of their houses
And went silently for hurried walks in the dark.
The atmosphere was charged with tension
India was beaten badly by the Chinese.

Their troops were prepared for the winter,
Well-equipped and armed with automatic weapons.
Till then we’d seen war only in American movies:
The Normandy landings and Dunkirk.
Now we were about to face unknown enemy,
Heartless, merciless commies.
* * *
Whereas our school was run by Irish Brothers,
Victoria school was run by an ex-Indian Army officer.
He ordered that trenches be dug
Around the school compound.
It was National Cadet Corps at school level.
Other schools with civilian headmasters
Didn’t bother with such paramilitary measures.