We are Indians and we lived in Kuwait for almost two decades. My husband lived there much longer. We had settled into a life of comfortable complacency till it was upset, first by the Iraqi invasion on 2nd Aug 1990 and later by the American attack of Iraq on 21st March 2003.
After Iraq occupied Kuwait in 1990, we had moved back to India for a year, but it was difficult starting something here, as the system was so different. My husband was so used to working in Kuwait, that he could not wait for the war to end, so we could go back.. and go back we did. Go back despite the burning oil wells, the mined beaches, the thick black smoke everywhere and the large scale destruction. In those early days of course it was the very destruction that meant money and companies came in from everywhere to cash in on this. Cleaning and rebuilding was the mantra in those days. Frenetic activity made sure that things were back to normal as soon as possible.
My husband worked as an engineer in an American company and was involved in many important projects, so life began once again and once again complacency set in, except when once in a while we would be jolted out of it, by Saddam's continuing threats. He hung over us and our new found peace and prosperity, like the legendary sword of Damocles. Every few months, a new threat of being bombed by weapons of mass destruction loomed. Imagining dying with one's family in a chemical attack, is a very nasty thing, especially when one has has seen pictures of the Halabja poison gas attack between 15 March–19 March 1988. The fear of death is a death in itself, and living with it day in and day out is like dying every single day, and so it would happen for a few days and then everything would be calm and normal and we would breathe easy again, till the next time. In such an environment it is but natural that the economy kept rocking and only the best survived.
It was a hard time, yet few people really wanted Iraq to be attacked when America finally took that decision. That year was a crucial year for my daughter. She was giving her 10th standard exam through the CBSE board New Delhi, and that is a very crucial exam for Indian school kids. It was natural to think that if America attacked Iraq, using its bases in Kuwait, then Iraq would retaliate by using Kuwait for target practice and it was not an unfounded fear. So months before the actual attack, a climate of fear set in. Helicopters would hover over the entire country and practise sirens went off throughout the day. I had a maid servant in those days from the Andhra Pradesh district of Cuddapah, and she poor, ignorant woman, was so frightened for her life, not knowing what was happening, that she would sit down and wail each time a chopper passed over head or a siren sounded.
So it was that in such a climate we went through life, a day at a time, trying to be as normal as possible. Soon plane loads of people, of all nationalities began leaving Kuwait, in fear. I do not know about the other airlines but the Indian planes arrived empty and passengers had to pay over double the fare for a one way ticket. The Indian airlines were good at evacuating, as they had had ample practice in 1990, when Air india evacuated over 111,000 people from Amman to Mumbai - a distance of 4,117 km, by operating 488 flights in association with Indian Airlines, during August 13 - October 11, 1990, lasting a total of 59 days. This feat is entered in the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest evacuation by a civil airliner. Though at the time we were expected to pay for it, later this was waived by the government.
As the planes landed in Mumbai this time around, my parents watched on TV in horror, as wave upon wave of traumatised passengers, disembarked. The CBSE board made arrangements for the students of the 10th and 12 to give their exams in India. Teachers from British and American schools left en masse. But many Indians did not leave and we were among them. The decision to stay had been a conscious decision on my part. First of all I did not see why we should get the chance to run for our lives, when my husband for economic reasons, would have to continue staying back. The second, equally important reason was that I did not want my girls to grow up as people who ran at the smallest sign of trouble. We had left once before. but then I had a two year old, whereas now they were grown up and I wanted us to stay as a family and face what was coming with faith in God and courage.
So while people taped up their windows and prepared rooms in the basements, cleaning out supermarket shelves in a mad rush to hoard food, we went on as usual. I remember getting some silver duct tape which is still lying around somewhere in our home in Kuwait, unused. My daughters continued going to school and preparing for their different exams. The teachers of the various Indian schools (there are at least twelve in Kuwait) too stayed back to give moral support to their students.
Then it happened suddenly, without warning, on 21st March 2003, America attacked Iraq. The expected retaliatory attack came almost immediately. The first time, most people thought it was just another routine excercise, to soon learn that it was not and we had been attacked. But the attacks were mild and I must say the sirens were more frightening then the attacks.
Through all this, my elder daughter and all her class mates and other Indian girls of her school year, attended school, went for extra tutorials and studied day and night for their CBSE exams. There were attacks even during the exams though the missiles never came close. But the continuous sirens were enough to unnerve the best. At this trying time the teachers stood behind their students all the way and not enough can be said about their courage and that of their families. It was not for remuneration that they did this, for their pay was very meagre compared to teachers of western schools.
As the tanks rolled into Iraq, sandstorms like we had never seen before, arose and engulfed Kuwait in thick, choking, red coloured sand. On the news one could see that the soldiers in the desert were suffering the same fate. If it was so bad in the city that it entered through the closed windows, one could only imagine how much worse it must have been in the open desert. We watched TV day and night trying to make sense of the death and destruction going on just a short distance away. It was expremely traumatic and made me feel like bursting into tears for the slightest reason. It was at this time I wrote a poem on the death of an American soldier called 'I Remember, I Remember' and a short story on the senseless death due to bombing, of a small Iraqi boy, not yet three, called Ahmed. People were people and they were dying senselessly, unnecessarily. Dying so close to me and in the pain, there was neither friend nor foe, just the great sense of loss. These young people, these promises of the future, lay trampled in that merciless sand and it was heartbreaking and still is.
The planes looked for the missile launchers in the desert but could not destroy all. One evening we had been to the sea-side after the sandstorms had abated. March/April are pleasant in Kuwait normally, as it is spring time and this was the first time we had seen such sandstorms in this season of balmy breezes and wildflower carpets. That evening there were many people on the beaches and life looked almost normal. That night though, a missile hit one of the sea-side malls, 'Souq Sharq' and the first real destruction of any kind took place. Though it was not much, it still made people afraid and after that we rarely saw anyone else on the beaches.
One day there was no bread in the house, so we went to the supermarket and the bakery. There was a long queue at the bakery, people were buying enough bread to feed entire neighbourhoods. Later all that bread was finally wasted, unconsumed. At the bakery at that time, there was a television crew recording the madness, even a fight broke out between some of the people. We headed home after picking up some groceries as well. When we came close to the traffic lights near our building suddenly the sirens began and a policaman frantically asked us to stop and pointed upwards. We were so scared at his gestures that we ran out of the car looking upwards, thinking that he saw a missile coming in.
It was only later that we realised that he just wanted us to gather on an incline away from the road. Much later, when we realised that the direction he was pointing to was the south, and Iraq and its missiles lay towards the north, we really felt rather foolish and laughed at ourselves. But even now when we pass that particular traffic signal a slight shudder passes through me, though we sometimes mention it and laugh.
It was during these days that my father called to ask when we were coming. The entire family used to watch the returnees on TV, as well as the news that Kuwait was being hit and worry about us. I told him we would be there as soon as all the missile launchers that were attacking us were destroyed. It was not then but a couple of months later that we finally visited the family during the summer holidays.
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