Ajay Ahuja’s wife recalls son’s heartbreaking question, how he wrote their names daily

Speaking to News9 Live, Alka recalled how she knew the risks of being married to a fighter pilot but was never prepared for the moment when that possibility became reality.

“I am a soldier’s wife, and somewhere in my heart I always knew that the uniform I was so proud of could one day take him away from me. But nothing prepares you for the moment when that fear becomes a reality. I remember the day the news came that Squadron Leader Ajay Ahuja was no more. In that one moment, the life I knew with him — being beside him, waiting for him to come home — changed forever. I lost my husband that day, but I never lost my pride in the man he was,” she said.

Life after Ajay

In the days that followed, Alka said she was unable to make sense of what had happened. But grief was accompanied by a more immediate concern: her son was still very young, and she had to figure out where and how they would build their future.

“Initially, I wasn’t able to understand anything. But there was also this tension that Ankur was very young, and we had to settle down in one place. I kept wondering, ‘How will it be in the future?’ That was the biggest concern,” she recalled.

Her family stood by her, and the initial plan was for her to settle in Delhi. Around the same time, she was offered a PCS job by the Punjab government in Chandigarh.

“I told my father that I would go and join that job there. I had also got a job at F.S. Bal Bharti School at that time. My father told me to continue with that job and take up the petrol pump.”

The petrol pump was part of the assistance offered to the families of Kargil martyrs. Alka, however, had never imagined herself running a business.

“I told my father, ‘No one has ever done any business in our house. How will I handle this?’ I went and joined the PCS. My father completed all the formalities regarding the petrol pump, and I continued with my job.”

Alka completed her training in Chandigarh and was eventually allotted a flat. But just when she appeared to be moving towards some stability, her father died.

“The day I was allotted a flat there, I got the news that my father was no more. My parents were supposed to shift with me. So again, I was at the same spot. I wondered, ‘Now what do I do?’ I couldn’t shift with my son because he was only five or six years old at that time.”

Once again, she had to figure out what came next.

“Within a week of losing my father, I received the letter for the petrol pump. After about a year, the petrol pump was ready, and I decided to come back to Delhi.”

Alka was eventually provided a petrol pump under the policy for the next of kin of Kargil martyrs and moved to Delhi.

ALSO READ: ‘Air Force is my first wife’: How Ajay Ahuja prepared his wife Alka before his final mission

Ankur was more attached to his father

While Alka was trying to rebuild her own life, she was also watching her young son deal with a loss he was initially too young to understand.

“Ankur was more attached to his father than to me. Initially, he didn’t understand anything because he was a small kid. He used to go to different places with me,” she said.

One day after they returned from Kota, Ankur suddenly asked the question that made Alka realise he was beginning to understand his father’s absence.

“When I came back from Kota, suddenly he asked me, ‘Mom, Dad will never come back?’ That’s it. After that, he stopped talking about Dad. He never used to speak with me because he knew that Mom would get disturbed.”

Alka said Ankur rarely spoke about his father, but he had his own way of keeping his memory alive.

“When he used to come back from school, he used to get the paper from his bag. On the paper, ‘Ajay, Alka, Ankur’ used to be written. Every day. That’s it. But he never used to talk to me.”

Alka recalled that Ajay had been particularly close to his son and they had their weekly rituals.

“He was like a friend to his son. Ankur was more attached to his father than to me. Every Sunday, we used to take him swimming. Wherever there was a zoo, we used to go there. He was a very nice person. Everything is still very fresh.”

More than two decades later, Ankur has built a life of his own and is now working in the US.

‘I cannot forget a single moment with him’

Alka also spoke about their marriage and said they had an unusually peaceful relationship.

“We got married in 1989. Before that, there was a five- or six-month gap between our engagement and marriage, and we used to write letters almost every day. I can’t forget that. I cannot forget a single moment with him.”

She said they rarely fought, and even when they did, she made sure their disagreements never carried over into Ajay’s flying duties.

“We used to fight very rarely. You may think it’s very odd, but we never used to fight. Ajay used to tell me, ‘It’s been a long time since we fought.’ And I used to tell him, ‘Don’t say that,’ because on that day we would fight over some small issue.”

But she was conscious that Ajay could not afford to carry personal worries into the cockpit.

“The next day, I used to make sure that before he went flying, he should not feel that we weren’t talking to each other. He had to go tension-free; he shouldn’t have anything on his mind while flying. So our fights never lingered beyond overnight.”

About Netflix’s Operation Safed Sagar

The Netflix series is inspired by the Golden Arrows squadron and the Indian Air Force’s role in the 1999 Kargil War. Siddharth plays Ajay Ahuja, while Jimmy Shergill plays Wing Commander B.S. Dhanoa. The cast also includes Abhay Verma, Dia Mirza, Prajakta Koli, Adil Hussain and others.