For many, the fear of war was not restricted to the television screen. It was real.
They stayed up through the nights in complete darkness amidst the sounds of shelling and sirens.
Many from Calcutta were in towns and cities near India’s border with Pakistan. The fear was “up close and immediate”, they said on Monday. They were in cities that were on high alert in the last few days.
“On Thursday night, the siren went off around 10pm for over a minute. The siren was still on when the power snapped. It was a blackout,” said A. Basu, a 28-year-old from Calcutta who works in an architecture firm in Chandigarh.
Calls to his parents in a north Calcutta neighbourhood were short and lasted only long enough to tell them he was alright.
“I wanted to keep my phone charged,” he said.
Basu’s 62-year-old father was tracking the news through the night, anxious about his son’s well-being.
“I was scared for my life. Chandigarh is not far from the border. I wanted to book a train ticket and return to Calcutta,” said Basu.
About 200km from Chandigarh at Sangat Mandi, on the outskirts of Bhatinda, a family spent a few nights together in one room while they heard the sound of shelling at a distance.
“We did not see anything, but could hear the sound of shelling. It was scary,” said a 21-year-old BTech student, who was staying at a house in Sangat Mandi with his parents and grandmother. This was on Friday. Only the night before, the engineering student was in his college hostel in Patiala. He had returned to his home in Bhatinda on Friday.
“On Thursday, we could see the situation changing within hours, and even those who thought nothing would happen were trying to book tickets to their home towns in the middle of the night,” he said.
“My parents wanted me to either go with my friends to Calcutta or our relatives’ place in Delhi, but not return to Bhatinda,” he said.
Parents from Jalandhar, Ludhiana and other cities in Punjab were calling the college authorities and their children, anxious about the situation. “People feared that transportation in Punjab would be impacted,” he said.
On Friday in Chandigarh, Basu, who works at the architecture firm, went to his workplace in Mohali at 10am. But he was advised to return home within an hour.
“There were warnings of an air strike. On Friday, the administration had put out only the street lights, and residents were asked to keep the lights inside their houses switched off,” he said.
The decision to halt military action from both India and Pakistan on Saturday evening brought relief for many like Basu.
“On social media, there were many who were rallying for a war. But they were far from the border towns and cities, unlike where we were. We were in the middle of it, apprehensive of what might happen next, and not knowing what would unfold the next night,” said Basu.
For people like Utkarsh Agarwal, who returned to Calcutta from his college in Patiala on Sunday, the understanding reached between the two nations partially lifted the shadow of uncertainty.
“The fear of war casts a shadow on my future. I was anxious about my exams and semester placement. At least with an understanding between India and Pakistan, that fear and uncertainty have been put to rest,” said Agarwal, a third-year engineering student.