Our Frontlines Tell Stories Of Extreme Courage And Bravery - So Why Must We Treat Them Like Dirt?

As we gingerly look out of a recreated bunker of the 1971 war at the Longewala memorial, four men run through holding a stick as a machine gun. One of them has not even bothered to put on his pants and is running around in his boxers. Others smell of generous amounts of booze. They scream, shout, laugh and have pretend gun fights on the land of the most historic last stand ever taken in India's history - the battle of Longewala.

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Outside, closer to the memorial, someone has rammed gutka wrappers into the replica of a Pakistani Sherman tank. You'd think this was a misplaced example of nationalism, their way of showing Pakistan who's boss. But it's anything but that. 150 mts away, someone has left their tribute to Major Chandpuri by a plaque in his memory - an empty packet of Brittania cake. The road between the trenches are littered with more empty, shiny packets of Pan masala. There's some Chutki supari too, I suppose we should be thankful for that.

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"Frontlines make everyone emotional, the fact that there is a man on the border who's watching out for us, makes all of us feel a little bad..." an army officer tells me near Tawang. But there is another side to it too. We sympathise, we empathise but as soon as our packs of chips are over, we flit back to our default mode. The one that involves chips and fruit cake and gutka and throwing their wrappers. Others pull up their entire families onto a T59 tank to take pictures, kids get on top of a Willys jeep mounted with a Recoilless gun and take turns at the steering.

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2000 kms away, people who visit Bumla Pass (Arunachal Pradesh) on the Line Of Actual Control (LAC) on the India-China border are bothered only about getting a selfie by a peace rock or taking a short jump across the imaginary line to get a picture in China without needing a passport. Their picture might cause a minor international incident, but ah well, as long as we get a good display picture we are good.

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There is no concern or knowledge of the sort of hardships the army lives in, the fact that they serve in -28 degrees in one and a half feet of snow. Not too many people stop at a small memorial made for the Assam Rifles. Broken tiles await you at the memorial of Subedar Joginder Singh. Our cab driver/hotel owner Sonam Dorji tells us Bumla becomes the 'snow point' much like Rohtang had become. The abandoned war bunkers from 1962 t smell of piss. Once a place of valour for Indian soldiers, made into a Sulabh shauchalaya by our fellow tourists with full bladders.

The scene has played out many times on our trip to the Frontlines in the last 12 days. And that's what makes it extremely sad. What prompts us to travel to places so vital to India's history, and then behave like our worst examples? Tragically, in the fight between our nationalism and lack of etiquette, our lack of etiquette is what's been winning.