"You know why I didn't shoot you ".
"No. I said no.
"Ah, because I knew you truly believed what you wrote on that banner and was not subterfuge". He was referring to the days when I had knelt with the banner in front of his station.

Jamail Asheri Ibrahem had genuine regard for Indians and India and found us fascinating people for the way we approached life despite all, having found a democracy in it's truest sense, the freedom we enjoyed , the tolerence and acceptance of other religions ,the courage and power to build a nation where poverty stared in it's most visible form. He was no sentimental fool like me, but a volunteer,a battle hardened soldier ,a leader of men who had fought in some of the fiercest battles of the century .When Iraq launched a brutal attack on Iran in late eighties, towards the end of the war to recapture some of the territories they had lost in the initial stages of that war, he had led from the front and some times , when time permitted, over a glass,he recounted some of his heroics and would grab me by my collar and shake me to death and say "you are my friend".

For him,Kuwait was a cinch. He was a commandant in RGFC,the elite republican gaurds, and his motorised infantry division , The Al Faw ,was the first to stream in and establish control over the northern part of Kuwait.Besides war, he loved to listen to Hindi film
music- the soulful pining of lovers seeking solace with unforgetable haunting lines of poetry set to lilting melodies that tugged at his heart strings,he said.

" Ah wah,wah" marne tho, aisa he marna " in hindi,.....he wanted to die listening to them.

I told him that I wanted to go.But he would brush me away
I insisted and one day he said that I could go. Proir to that ,I had one more job to complete, take the money out. I lied to him that I had left my passport at my place on Jahra roard. He put me on an army jeep and Jahra road simply didn't exist. Not in the real sense, the entire area was taken over by the Iraqi army as the highway was strategically positioned. Most of the residents had been driven away and houses converted into army barracks. The gaurd at the entrance to the street , questioned the driver and asked us to fuck off.

Well, I did that and this time I travelled in the comfort of a military vehicle to Baghdad, and then to Amman. I had very little money with me, a few thousand dollars that I had taken on the day we moved it from from the safe for the great trip home with our bags of money. It didn't happen, and I was careful to keep the amount in the belt lining of my jeans. The funniest part of the whole war was the kuwaiti dinar.One of the world's most stable currencies was now worthless and you could use a pile of big notes to wipe your ass and still feel not contented. Good thing was ,it could be exchanged for Iraqi money, which was useless elsewhere, but good enough to pay a taxi driver a ransom to take me to the Jordan border. I reached Amman, but the war had got into my veins and in Amman I found a job as a civilian help at a temporary base in SaudiArabia near Jeddah. The money was four times my previous salary and the assigment was at a army dump, where the Americans were setting up a logistics base for troop supplies coming through Red Sea.

On a January day, at the end of UN mandate to Saddam to disappear, the American forces started their offensive and bombed Iraq to rubble, strafing strategic targets with such precision that somebody joked the last big blast was actually saddam's mighty fart. Then a month later,in February,the combined UN forces moved in from south and routed the Iraqis in the ground war, slaughtering them on Jahra road, 'the highway of death' as it became famously to be known, while the defeated army tried to flee with their loot. Iraq was humbled and made to pay in many ways. Even now ,as I am writing this.

I remember a moment which seems poignant now. When I told Ibrahem to let me go, he asked me.."
"What for,why? this is Iraq, your land, we need you all to run this place and how will we do that if you run away"....."We will make this place just like Bombay with lots of fun and pretty girls" and gave me a sly wink. Kuwait was theirs,forever.

You will be surprised when I say this, the republican gaurds respected women and trangressions weren't tolerated unlike the regular army, who were mainly conscripts and for them civilians were just slick holes to whet their sexual appetites.These guys were different and seasoned fighters and could have taken the battle to the Americans, if only the hadn't hesistated in taking Saudi Arabia. This strategic lapse gave the American and UN forces the time to set up bases in Saudi and that spelt the end of Saddam's Kuwait campaign.The Iraqis were thouroghly routed in the ensuing onslaught,but I am conviced that man to man , these republican gaurds could have put up an even fight, but for the massive fire power of UN forces from air that destroyed their ability to react.I felt sorry for Ibrahem, a warrior, a man and a friend whose duty was to fight and die fighting.