character sketch of Tarun
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Captain Tarun is a thirty-four-year-old realist who sees through the absurd romanticism of war. Furthermore, unlike the aristocratic volunteers who are untrained, amateurish idealists, Tarun is a professional soldier, trained in waging a war in a highly efficient, businesslike manner. These methods allow Prateek to refer to his ability to wage a war as being low-class commercialism, devoid of any honor and nobility. Tarun would agree with this appraisal since he sees nothing romantic about the violent and senseless slaughter of human beings, even though it is his profession.
Being a professional soldier, he adopts a practical and wise view. Given the choice of being killed or saving his life by climbing up a balcony and into a lady's bedroom, he chooses unheroically not to be killed. Practically, he knows that a dead professional soldier is of no value to anyone; thus, he saves his life by the most expedient method available — he hides in a lady's bedchamber. Likewise, given the choice of killing someone or of not going hungry, he chooses to eat rather than to kill. Thus, he carries chocolates rather than cartridges, a highly unromantic but very practical thing to do.