Why didn’t Rishabh Singh Sambyal get married? Retired major about ‘personal sacrifice’ to be president’s ADC | Today’s news
Days after taking early retirement, Rishabh Singh Sambyal has revealed the most challenging aspect of his career as a former aide to President Droupadi Murma – he had to put his personal relationships and marriage on hold.
After serving 12 years in the army, Sambyal appeared on the Raj Shamani podcast. In the episode that aired on September 10, the “national crush” discussed his close relationship with the president and how his ADC training made him more alert.
“The Greatest Sacrifice”
Rishabh Sambyal admitted that he gave up his childhood to become ADC to the President of India.
“I am not married. So there is a clause for ADCs (for the president) that they cannot marry,” Shamani said. “I have to stay away from my family and I think that’s the biggest sacrifice.
Sambyal said that as an ADC, he has no life outside. “That’s the cost I paid. When I served with the president, I couldn’t go out like a normal person and enjoy life.”
Was it lonely?
Rishabh Sambyal told Shamani that the role didn’t really make him feel lonely – even on days when he did, he said he enjoyed that loneliness.
“It gives me space and time to think about myself, my thought process, my good things and my bad things,” he said. “So yes, I feel lonely, but I’m turning that loneliness into something positive.
Sambyal said he likes to be alone for at least an hour every day – “like every day away from everyone. Nobody should be near me. I want that hour’s space.”
“I can do anything in it. Maybe do nothing, just sit, but I need to be alone because it gives me that solitude and emptiness that gives me space to evaluate,” he added.
Rishabh Sambyal had no plans to become an ADC
Rishabh Sambyal also shared that he was clueless about the role and his journey to finally bagging it. “I never knew there was such a thing as an ADC. I never wanted to be here.”
He said he was on an exercise with soldiers from another country in India and when his commanding officer told him he had been shortlisted and asked him what he wanted to do. “My first response was not, ‘Yes, I want to go.’ My first response was that ‘I want to go here, here and here, but not here’.
However, after talking to others and getting their opinions, he realized that it would be a good learning experience and that he should try it. So he told his commander that he wanted to try.
But his commander firmly told him that he couldn’t just ‘try it out’; it either works or it doesn’t. “If you fail, it will be hard for you. I will be merciless to you,” said his commander.
