Wedded to the Olive Green
I never thought I’d see war in my lifetime. Not really. Not up close.
Growing up in Mumbai and living a fairly privileged life, it was easy to believe that the world’s messes were elsewhere. War, conflict, extremism were headlines, not realities. Our everyday battles are about traffic, deadlines and roads that are always a work-in-progress. There is no time, no space, no silence to pause and think about what it means to be part of a country like India. Mumbai moves too fast to allow reflection. Even our grief doesn’t get to linger. While there have been terror attacks in Mumbai in the past - the city is forced to recover instantly. Life HAS to go on. It is too expensive to stop. We don’t process. We function. I used to think this was resilience. Now I know - it’s just exhaustion. So I stayed distant. Neutral.
Unbothered. Not religious. Not nationalistic. Not particularly attached to any label. And how convenient and privileged that was.
Until October 2024, when I married an Army officer!
It was a life I had only ever seen in Bollywood films like Border, Major Saab, Lakshya and so on, and suddenly it became my own! I remember thinking how courteous, rooted, well spoken, fit and sharp he was when I first met him - like a relic of times gone by, the type of man most women secretly crave for.
Our courtship was deceptively ordinary. He was in Pune, pursuing an academic course. We ate chaat, went to the movies, and laughed like any couple might. But after marriage, I followed him into a different world - a cantonment nestled in a forest where wild elephants wandered free. It is magical. Peaceful. A far cry from my hyper-wired Mumbai life. It is as non-Mumbai as it can be and I LOVE it.
The first six months felt like a dream. I watched him live a life of commitment most of us will never understand - waking up at 4:30 am every single day, training hard, strategising for the security of a billion people, and still coming home to pull me into a dance in the kitchen as we cooked together! It felt like I’d walked into another era - one where honour, dignity, discipline and love coexisted without irony.
And then, Pahalgam happened. This time, regular tourists were targeted for their religion. This time, it felt personal.
Suddenly, the prospect of war wasn’t distant anymore. Friends were being posted to forward areas. Equipment was moving. Anxiety was building. The nation was holding its breath for India to respond. I didn’t want to ask, “Will my husband benext?” But the question screamed silently in every corner of my brain. I had to stop myself from falling into a pit of anxiety and put all my energy into constantly replacing worry with positivity - “even if he does, it will always work out for the best.”
On the 7th of May, at 6 am, he leaned in and whispered in my ear, “India is now at war” And I just...froze.
He left for work like it was just another Tuesday. But I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. I sat glued to the news, scrolling endlessly, trying to find meaning, a timeline, an answer, anything. The worst part - I had to leave him the next day. I was flying back to Mumbai.
We had planned for him to join me a few days later. That wasn’t happening now. It took EVERYTHING I had to not cry - because, what right did I have when there were people we knew, already at the border regions, who were doing their duty and I could not even deal with my pre-mature anxiety!
But my heart felt like it was being crushed from the inside, as if the blood couldn’t move past a heavy, invisible stone. A fear I had no vocabulary for. That night, he held me close and said, “We’ve got this. We’ve trained for this. I’ll be proud to go if I’m called.” And just like that, he reminded me how to be brave.
Over the next few days, I was back in Mumbai, in my childhood home, surrounded by the old comforts that now felt like another life. Things escalated intensely over the next 3 days. It was painful to be separated for whatever little time I could have been with him. I counted every minute, every news update, every “I’m okay” text. I found it hard to think about any thing else or focus on my work but I went about my life back in Mumbai. I feared that the chances of more forces being deployed grew higher with every day the conflict continued.
And then, on the 10th of May at 17:00 hours - A ceasefire. Operation Sindhoor had succeeded.
Witnessing the ethical and moral restraint of our forces, our technological capability, our preparedness, the precisely calibrated response, management of information and above all - the decisive nature of both our government and the armed forces - I felt proud to be an Indian and wedded to the olive green.
The pride I felt wasn’t the chest-thumping kind. It was something quieter. Deeper. Fiercer. I had seen, firsthand, the grace under fire. The professionalism. The calm. The sheer ethical steel of our forces. We saw what India is capable of, beyond the headlines, beyond the politics.
I understood, finally, what it means to be Indian. To belong to a country so complicated, so chaotic and yet, so full of heart. Where 1.2 billion people speak a thousand tongues, pray in different ways, live in entirely different worlds and still rise, together, when it counts.
I used to wonder if I should have moved abroad. I know now - this is the land I’m proud to call home. I used to hesitate to say “I am Hindu” because I didn’t want to be misunderstood or align myself with extremism. Not anymore, because this it is not a dictatorial religion but a philosophy born out of an intelligent and ancient civilisation, that allows for multiple paths, offers room for doubt, for debate, for disbelief, for being atheist even!
It’s not perfect. Neither is this country. But there is an unmistakable, untouchable gentleness in the soul of India. A belief in goodness. In duty. In protecting what matters. And that’s what I married into. Not just a man. But a legacy. A promise. A uniform that stands for something far bigger than both of us.
This will remain one of the most defining chapters of my life. And I will live it with all the strength and softness it asks of me.
Jai Hind.
Forever wedded to the olive green.
- Vinda Dravid (Vinda is Sakhee Collective's social media manager, an entrepreneur and a proud army wife.)