I was in the NDA (National Defence Academy) when the Kargil war happened, and I was all set to join the Indian Army. But my family was not keen. In addition to that, I got rejected because of my poor eyesight.
When my brother came home from NDA (National Defence Academy), I felt, 'Wow, I should like to wear that uniform.' But I didn't want to join the army.
While we are originally from Mangalore, my grandfather had migrated to Burma from where he returned to join the Indian National Army and settled in Mumbai, where I was born and brought up.
The American Indian was an individualist in religion as in war. He had neither a national army nor an organized church.
I think a draft produces a better Army than the one we would have with all volunteers, because I think you get average Americans if you have a draft. And if it's an all-volunteer Army, you get people who join up because of some problem in their own lives. They don't have anything else to do, they don't have a job, or they can't find what they want to do, so they join the Army. And it doesn't produce the best Army.
We wouldn't have withstood for two years and a half. We would have disintegration of the army, disintegration of the whole institution in the state ; we would have disintegration of Syria if that was the case. It can't be tolerated in Syria. I'm talking about the normal reaction of the people. If it's not a national army, it cannot have the support, and if it doesn't have the public support of every sect, it cannot do its job and advance recently. It cannot. The army of the family doesn't make national war.
When I was in college, the Kargil War had just happened, and I remember going with my friends on a bike to collect empty shells.
We passionately set up a programme that we call the Indian gun programme. I challenged Colonel Bhatia, who heads our defence business, that let's build an Indian gun. There's a belief that Indian companies aren't capable of this, and we want to prove them wrong, as we did in components.
My mother wanted me to join the Indian army, as the army was seen as a decent and respectable career to have. I shocked my mother by telling her that I wanted to be a writer.
Be proud that thou art an Indian, and proudly proclaim, "I am an Indian, every Indian is my brother." Say, "The ignorant Indian, the poor and destitute Indian, the Brahmin Indian, the Pariah Indian, is my brother."
I've never understood why anyone would want to join the army, but that's irrelevant. The fact of the matter is that, as long as we go on voting in governments who are prepared to take troops into an illegal war, that army is a necessity.
We always remember the courage of the people of Kargil! We want to make Kargil among India's most developed districts.
I wanted to join the Army, but my eyesight wasn't good, so I quit school and my job to just focus on fighting. I didn't want to just get deployed. I wanted to get in on the action.
I'm a big supporter of the military simply because I'm the daughter of a Polish immigrant who fled Europe during World War II from Poland and lied about his age to join the Army simply because he was proud to be an American. And who isn't?
The fact that my dad was never around gave me a lot of determination. It really set this fire full of fuel, so to speak. It didn't matter what anybody was telling me, how many times I got rejected, because it was never as bad as being rejected by your own father.
It sucks to be poor, and it sucks to feel that you somehow deserve to be poor. You start believing that you're poor because you're stupid and ugly. And then you start believing that you're stupid and ugly because you're Indian. And because you're Indian you start believing you're destined to be poor. It's an ugly circle and there's nothing you can do about it.
I do not intend to join the NDA. I just want the country to get a stable government.