The whistle always rings the bell. The Israeli missile in Southern Lebanon that targeted friend and journalist Steve Sweeney reminded me of that major from the Kargil war.It was four in the morning on that day in 1999. There were 60 kilometres between the town of Kargil and the high altitude brigade headquarters at Drass. Thrice in that space we were told we are in the shelling zone – meaning, Pakistani gunners can see us and we might be shelled. After 40 minutes, we were let through. The shells went into a bluff over our heads and buried into brown scrabble without exploding.Illustration: Pariplab ChakrabortySteve, too, detected the whistle of the missile that Israel aimed at him. He has survived. It is a familiar story by now but it was new to me that year.The saying goes: “You will first hear the blast. That is the noise of the shell being fired. Then you will hear the whistle, The whizz through the air as the shell cuts through it, and then you will hear that explosion as the warhead blows up. If you can’t hear the whizz, it doesn’t matter.”Covering war for journalists is fraught with risk. Every journalist wants to be a war correspondent. For the romance of it, for the pleasure in finding that your byline is read in a flight from Tehran to Damascus where everything below is afire.Twenty years ago, on March 21, I was at the Delhi airport. Flight delayed, as George W. Bush unleashed “shock and awe”, the blasting of Baghdad, Iraq’s capital, civilisation’s cradle. My editors assigned me to cover the war.They estimated it was a two-week assignment. I too agreed. The lure of the byline from a war zone being my bribe.In Kuwait, too, the flight had a delayed landing. And the doors were not opening because Iraq’s Scuds (scud missiles) had taken a toll bypassing the PAC-2 (Patriot Air Defence missiles).Back to Steve. He has survived for now the shelling from Israel. If you gotta be a journalist, you have to be in the line of fire, never mind the takedowns of The Wire.Sujan Dutta is an independent journalist.We’ve grown up hearing that “it’s the small things” that matter. That’s true, of course, but it’s also not – there are Big Things that we know matter, and that we shouldn’t take our eyes, minds or hearts off of. As journalists, we spend most of our time looking at those Big Things, trying to understand them, break them down, and bring them to you.And now we’re looking to you to also think about the small things – the joy that comes from a strangers’ kindness, incidents that leave you feeling warm, an unexpected conversation that made you happy, finding spaces of solidarity. Write to us about your small things at thewiresmallthings@gmail.com in 800 words or less, and we will publish selected submissions. We look forward to reading about your experiences, because even small things can bring big joys.Read the series here.