'Diary Of A Soldier- 22' an English translation of Gautam Rajrishi's 'Fauji Ki Diary' (फ़ौजी की डायरी -२२)

 yeh vidaai hai yaa swaagat...?
(Is this farewell or welcome...?)

Another new year...uff ! Who knows why this darned time is always in such a rush. Only recently, the year two thousand and eighteen had stood here... in all its vastness...just here, by the side! And now, as if in a blink, the year two thousand and nineteen has arrived with its gigantic mouth open wide... a mouth so gigantic, it's as if it will gobble down your whole existence! Trembling with the thought I look out of the peep hole in the bunker and find the layers of snow to have grown more and more thick...as if they too are in a competition with the vastness of the new year. Head thrust over the clouds and covered in these thickly layered white sheets of snow, the deep-in-meditation-mountain is as if totally unconcerned with the comings and goings of the years.
From where is one to acquire the deep meditative stance of these Icy mountains ? Shouldn't a fully accomplished soldier also be trained to the extent of becoming so deeply entranced in meditation, as to be completely oblivious of the passing of time ? It is only after reposing all its faith and all its freedom in us that our beloved country, spread all across below the mountain, is today celebrating the arrival of new year with such abandon and  attitude. The dedication of each soldier posted at the border ought to be...to speak the truth dear diary...as unwavering, as unfaltering and also as uncaring of the vagaries of the weather as these tall mountains...only then would the sovereignty of this beloved country remain intact for all time to come.   
The country is changing. The people in the country are changing. Only yesterday there was a message on my mobile, from a friend who had attended the last rites of a colleague after his martyrdom ...listen my diary, to what this message sent from the cremation ground says...

...I am confused! Is this a farewell or a welcome!
Should this have been a sorrowful closure or a joyful reception?
There are beautiful banners all over with pictures of smiling soldiers...
The roads are adorned with flowers and rangoli - decorative patterns...
An assembly of over five thousand people, more than a thousand kilograms of flowers, hundreds of policemen and soldiers in their shining uniforms and one dead body...
The bedecked army vehicle arrives, the wrapped-in-the-tricolour-coffin alights and settles on the strong shoulders of the ones in green uniform... with a natural grace.
Each wave in the sea of humanity present there, wishes to touch the coffin, to carry it on its shoulder ... but not everyone has this good fortune.
The green-uniformed shoulders advance slowly in step... the coffin is heavy, the heart heavier.
The crowd is surging. Many have climbed over the high water tank, many others on terraces, a few also on trees.
Such a spectacle had so far only been seen either for a cricket match or a film shooting.
But neither was the case over here...I am confused.
Any number of cameras...here, there, everywhere...each seeking a better angle. A few relatives stand nearby...stunned. Is this breaking news or a broken family !
I am confused !
The martyr's wife offers flowers and holds on to the coffin for a long time...like a mother holding her newborn...his little daughter comes and gives a salute...a totally tight salute!
My eyes, holding back till now are flooded.
And along with the flood, hundreds of young pairs of eyes flash with the resolution to join the forces. Hundreds of mothers concur silently. What is this - the death of a lion or the birth of hundreds of cubs!
I am confused!
His closest friends stand in a group close to the lit pyre for a photograph...is this an occasion to mourn or to celebrate?
I am confused.
Everyone is now gradually taking their leave. The darkness of the night has descended. There is a cold breeze. I am standing alone by the pyre-fire. Is this the glow of a sunrise or the simple silence of a sunset?
I am confused!
This may be something strange, but I am feeling completely at peace now. I feel a surge of love for my friends. I am falling in love with people. I am falling in love with my country. Again...over and over again.
Was this a farewell or a welcome!
Tell me my friend if this was an end or a beginning?

Going over the message again... and again... and yet again, I feel the flood released from my friend's eyes has now begun to fill the two eyes peeping out of the hole in this bunker on this mountain standing deep in meditation... holding its head high above the clouds.

-x-   

Diary Of A Soldier -21, an English translation of Gautam Rajrishi's 'Fauji Ki Diary' (फ़ौजी की डायरी २१)

Barsaat kaa baadal to deevaanaa hai kya jaane.
(the rain cloud is a crazed, how would it know)

"Kaise ho Gurnaam Singh ?" - How are you Gurnaam Singh?
"Kuchh to bolo Gurnaam !" - "Say something Gurnaam !"
"Tumhaaree beewee milne aayee hai tumse Gurnaam !" -"Your wife has come to see you Gurnaam!"

...The ICU chamber of that big army hospital in Udhampur had been echoing the past few days with more or less similar calls. During an encounter in the interior of Kashmir some days ago, a bullet fired from an AK 47 - after brushing past soldier Gurnaam Singh's bullet-proof patkaa - had entered and got wedged inside his brain. The brush with outer edge of the bullet-proof must have slowed down the bullet, the reason why soldier Gurnaam Singh was still alive. The helicopter, arriving immediately, had promptly transported injured Gurnaam to this army hospital in Udhampur. The very sight of a helicopter during all such encounters bolsters manifold the will power of the injured soldiers and the expert team of doctors and nurses on duty twenty four/seven in the military hospital does not delay a second to show their wizardry. After the seemingly unending surgery, the doctors had managed to extract the bullet lost in the mysterious labyrinths in the brain... but Gurnaam had slipped into a coma immediately after.

He had regained his senses a few days back but was neither able to recognize anybody nor say anything yet. His being alive after that fatal encounter was, in itself, nothing short of a miracle... and now his recently regained consciousness was adamant on a miracle too. The constantly-gazing-into-the-vacuum eyes of soldier Gurnaam Singh, who lay on a bed in that ICU surrounded by miscellaneous monitors and instruments, were also waiting in tandem with his consciousness for some miracle to happen. His parents and his new bride, who had arrived from a remote village in Punjab, were too awed by the grandeur of the military hospital and shining uniforms of the doctors and the nurses and feeling too tongue tied to be able to speak much. The thin and slender bride, her head covered with a dupatta, sat quietly by Gurnaam's bed or outside in the corridor... head bent, shedding tears.

Meanwhile, hit by the terrorists' bullets in another encounter two days back and admitted in the same ICU, lieutenant colonel saab, now lying in a bed beside that of Gurnaam's, was fearful that though he had escaped the enemy's bullet, he and all the other soldiers lying in that ICU chamber were sure to drown now and die in the flood of tears raining down the bride's eyes.

It must have been five or six days since Gurnaam Singh had regained his consciousness but not his memory, when one Khanna ji, a childhood friend of lieutenant colonel saab, came to visit. Khanna ji, somewhat short in height, prided himself on his booming laughter and Punjabi culture. Like any other average Indian Khanna ji was more interested in the stories of his friend's neighbours rather than in his friend. Having taken a full account of the injured soldiers lying on all other beds in the ICU chamber, Khanna ji's focus now turned to Gurnaam Singh. The moment he came to know of his details, Khanna ji got carried away and started off in his typical Punjabi...

"Hore bhaya, tera naa kee ai ?" - "So, bro, what's your name ?"

With a few short guffaws Khanna ji carried on...

"Oye, Gurnaame kidda ho? hah hah hah... yaar, tu kuchh bolda kyun nahin... kuchh to bol tu...hah hah hah !" - "Oye Gurnaam, where are you from?... why don't you say anything my pal... say something..."

...and suddenly, to the amazement of everyone present, it was as if a divine voice descended from heaven... as he lay on the bed, Gurnaam Singh's lips moved...

"Mera naa Sipahee Gurnaam Singh hai, te tussee kaun ho...hore kitthon aaye ho ?" - "My name is Sipahee Gurnaam Singh, and who may you be...where are you from ?"

It was as if joy itself had come at the time to that ICU chamber of eight beds to perform cartwheels and somersaults. Lying on his stomach on the adjoining bed, the lieutenant colonel saab screamed in excitement. The feet of all the doctors running from all the wards and corridors of the hospital had, as if, wheels added to them. All paths in that huge hospital led, for the time being, to its only ICU chamber. The hurriedly assembled doctors around Gurnaam, besieged by a mix of joy and amazement were voicing their respective opinions. All of Gurnaam's 'vitals' were perfectly in order. The conclusion that all the doctors reached was that it was the current of his mother tongue that Gurnaam Singh's adamant semi-consciousness, caught in wait of a miracle had actually required.

Meanwhile, the fear in the lieutenant colonel saab of drowning in a flood had suddenly reached its zenith, for the sobs of that thin and slender new bride, like clouds bottled up fora crazy one long, were now bringing down an incessant torrent of tears.

...and in that fear, the lieutenant colonel saab was reminded of a couplet by Nida Fazli...

"Barsaat kaa baadal to deewaanaaa hai, kyaa jaane
Kis raah se bachnaa hai...kis chhat ko bhigonaa hai”

(The rain-cloud is a crazed one, what would it know
which path to avoid... which terrace to pour down on)
               

Diary Of A Soldier - 20, an English translation of Gautam Rajrishi's 'Fauji ki Diary' (फ़ौजी की डायरी -२०)

   Kitnee Srishti mein kitnaa prem...
(So much of love in so much of the world)

So much of distance ! Distance... so distant ! So much of pain that... uff... enough of it for now please ! So much of noise that it turns the voices deaf ...  so much of quiet that it can make the silence voluble ! So much of fatigue that even sleep would fail to fall asleep... ah, so much of sleep that one could forget all the fatigue ! So much of sorrow that all happiness just craves to come into being... so much of happiness that sorrow is nowhere to be seen ! So much hatred...uff, so much of hatred that it becomes difficult to make even a mention of love and so much of love that the very presence of hatred astounds ! So much difficulty that everything seems easy... so much of ease, it's like facing a storm of difficulty ! Such chill that one could embrace the entire sun... such heat that even the Himalayas will not be enough !

A pain-like pain... so much of pain in these burning soles that taking off these heavy boots after a long patrol, one can't figure out whether the soles are still there or have peeled off along with the soggy and wet-for hours socks ! So much of something that seems unsaid that there is no justification of saying anything... so much has been said it's as if nothing now remains unsaid ! So many bullets fired from so many guns that it has riddled the very soul of a nation... so many wandering souls that the guns in the entire world have run out of bullets ! Such a large number of martyrs that that there is a dearth of land for pyres... such large stretches of empty, barren lands that the hunger for martyrdom is never satiated ! So many of coffins that there is no tricolour available now to wrap them up in... so many tricolours being woven, for the coffins do not stop coming! Such valour that there is no sign of fear... so much of fear that it makes valour disappear !

Someone calling out from the opposite bunker across the border... 'have you gone to sleep, sir'... evokes laughter on this side... "Shut up you rascals ! Losing even to Bangla Desh... and you have the cheek to play cricket" and again loud guffaws. The embarrassment in the silence on the other side begins to fill the cold air with a strange warmth. So many words...aha, so many words to weave stories to revel in... so many stories that words begin to play hooky ! The resonance of so many... so many guffaws that the flow of tears loses its sound and so many tears, that the resonance of the guffaws gets drowned !

A guffaw had resonated that day too. Not one but many guffaws... together. In that month of October. The October of nineteen years ago. The war of Kargil had ended two months back for the country. But only for the country... not for its army...

After the formal declaration of victory at the end of July, combing operations were still being carried out from bunkers occupied on high mountains for any remaining enemy till much later. A small search party of dare-devils from a battalion of the Indian army under one such combing operation had reached near a cave in a high mountain following leads. The search party consisted of two officers... one major, the leader of the party and one lieutenant, the second-in-command...along with twelve brave soldiers. They had confirmed intelligence ... the informer had, by pointing towards the cave, announced there were seven to eight enemy hiding inside the cave before them. Having given a once over to each and every detail of the plan to attack for the last time and with the party seated before him, the young major saab, the leader of the party was holding a spirited 'briefing'. Contrary to its name, the 'briefing' was stretching on and on...

'Kaalikaa mata kee jai - victory to mother Kalika ! Love you all ! Let's do this !'

Actually, the major saab -pointing towards the haunt of the enemy - was becoming a bit emotional. They didn't have an exact idea of the number of the enemy and the mission had to be completed before darkness descended. For some reason, major saab had this premonition that some of the members of the party going with him on the attack may not make it back in one piece after the mission and therefore his emotions were  surging up again and again in sentences like 'I-love-you-all' during this briefing of the action of the mission.
      
The second-in-command of the team, a little younger than young lieutenant, was now becoming a little exasperated with this long stretching 'briefing' of the major.  He wanted only to advance now, explode on the enemy hide-out and return to his base-camp. One more of 'I-love-you-all' from the major robbed the young lieutenant of all his patience and before exploding at the enemy hide-out he exploded at his own team commander...

"Arre, be done with it sir ! What will happen at the most... either those bastards will die or we will ! If they die we'll go, have beer in our camp... and in case we die, one or the other road will be named after us !"

Along with the rock-melting resonance of the laughter of all the team- members, the shout of 'victory- to- mother- Kalika' became engraved on the mountain for centuries.

"kitnee srishti mein kitnaa prem
ki kehnaa na pade
mujhe prem hai tumse
aur kitnaa prem 
ki karne ko poorie umra bhee kum ho jaise !

kitnaa main 
ki tum aao
kitnee tum
ki main na rahoon !"

(so much of love in so much of the world
that there is no need to say
I love you
and  love you so much
that an entire life would seem short
to fulfill it !

so much of me
that you should come
so much of you
that I no longer remain.)

Diary Of A Soldier - 19, an English translation of Gautam Rajrishi's Fauji ki Diary (फ़ौजी की डायरी - १९)

Dard thaa diyaa gayaa ki har dukhee ko pyar doon
(I was given pain so I would give love to each one in distress)

Winter is beginning to make its presence felt on these high mountains. The days still have the comfort of the cover of an angelic balmy warmth, the evenings however are gradually falling under the terror of the ghouls of cold. If all goes well this winter would be the last for this battalion on these merciless mountains. The impatient wait for the next summer may make this winter somewhat easier, for having completed its tenure, the platoon would have left by this time next year for some city in the centre of the country. Meanwhile these mountains have handed over to us a pile of countless stories...such strange stories that will take a life time to be told to the civilization spread under these pre-historic mountains, and even if told - who is going to believe them dear diary !

The commanding officer of the neighbouring battalion told an extremely interesting story over the phone yesterday...

...pushing and shoving out the month of August, September has somehow made its advent. One of the many important tasks allotted to the battalion is to keep the main roads of Kashmir used by Army convoys safe. It is normal for the terrorists to stealthily put mines under these roads... this is something you are well aware of diary mine. Of all the main roads, the most important is the one that leads to Leh and has maximum traffic of army convoys. The task is performed by various companies of the battalion by dividing the road in many segments. Each segment of the road is kept secure by one company of the battalion by dividing it further into small pickets. Each such picket is manned generally by four to six jawans. Each company usually establishes, on the roadside at a fixed distance, fifteen to twenty such pickets named Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta etc. according to the English alphabet. The story is about picket Charlie.
       
The daily, long convoy of army vehicles going from Shrinagar to Leh had just crossed the stretch of twenty five kilometres of the road allotted to one company of the battalion to enter the area of its neighbouring company. The moment this news was confirmed on the wireless, the company commander - a not-so-tall but decidedly dark and handsome captain - had heaved a sigh of relief. Having instructed all his jawans posted at each picket in that stretch of twenty five kilometres to stay watchful, he was about to return to his company base when an anxious message coming over the wireless touched not just his entire being but seemingly also the air around with a thousand watt current.

"Charlie picket for Tiger, over ! ...come soon otherwise Kehar Singh will kill this woman...over!"
Coming down his ears, the anxiety in the voice of the wireless operator had begun to course through the Captain's veins when he ordered his driver to turn the Gypsy back towards picket Charlie. Picket Charlie was hardly ten minutes away and during these ten minutes Captain saab ran Havaldaar Kehar Singh's entire bio-data tens of times in his mind. Plain and simple, totally disciplined, father to two children, a little on the heavier side but totally fit physically... what crisis could he have brought about ? The Captain's anxiety was as if racing against the speed of the Gypsy on the winding, meandering road.

There was a quite a crowd collected over there when the captain arrived. He could see from afar through the windscreen of the Gypsy four jawans surrounded by local Kashmiris from a settlement next to the picket. Full of apprehension, when the Captain stepped down preparing himself to face the worst, he saw everyone from the settlement giggling and laughing and Kehar Singh - sitting with a Kashmiri doll of about ten years on his lap - feeding her puris from the packed lunch in his Tiffin. The way the story unfolded, the Captain - who had feared the worst - couldn't stop laughing out loudly...

...the mother of that Kashmiri doll was thrashing her black and blue in rage over goodness knows what reason and the little girl's wailing was reminding Havaldaar Kehar - standing on duty nearby - of his own daughter. He pleaded three or four times with the woman to leave the girl alone and when she did not pay heed the enraged avatar of Kehar Singh first pushed the woman aside and then picked up the little girl in his arms. As the furious woman lunged at him, things went beyond his capacity to control. The people from the settlement told Captain Saab how havaldaar saab, carrying the little girl in his arms, had brought down an unending shower of blows. Amongst the group from the settlement, the first to  support havaldaar saab was the father-dear of the girl, saying the insolent woman deserved what she got... this was what she did to the children every day... she would now come to her senses.

Making his return after a moment, the Captain saab had an interesting story to share with his life-partner over the mobile that evening and I am reminded of a verse from a famous song written by late poet Neeraj...
         
"Haath the mile ki zulf chaand kee sanwaar doon
honth the khule ki har bahaar ko pukaar doon
dard thaa diyaa gayaa ki har dukhee ko pyaar doon
Aur saans yoon ki swarg bhoomi par utaar doon"

(I was given hands so I could smooth out the locks of the moon
my lips opened so I would call out to each blossom and bloom
I was given pain so I would give love to each one in distress
and breath so I should bring the heaven down to this earth)

                                                                               --x--

Diary Of A Soldier-18 an English translation of Gautam Rajrishi's 'Fauji kI Diary' ('फ़ौजी की डायरी- १८)

Bhay ko dekhna ho nat-mastak...
(to see fear with its head bowed...)

Just a few days back I received from a reader - entangled in a very disorderly page of the diary - an extremely orderly call. I talked to him at length but his list of queries related to the pages of the diary was so long that eventually I had to tell him that answering all his questions was like scaling the vertical climb of this high, snow-clad mountain. His laughter, coming in fragments from the other end of the mobile,brought  some solace too that these disordered pages of the diary were, more or less,  getting their meaning across properly. There was one question in particular - asked generally also by friends and family - which kept lingering for long in my mind. A question that has brought back with it a flood of so many indescribable memories.

As they make their way towards a certain death, how do soldiers feel ?

To tell you the truth dear diary I do not have words apt enough to enable me to weave even one  proper sentence in reply !  I am reminded of that battle of nineteen years ago. A mission... ere embarking on which the commanding officer of the battalion had made each member of our chosen team write a brief letter addressed to our families in case we didn't return safe and sound ... ! It's another matter that the letters were never despatched... the entire team had been called back from midway as cease fire had been declared. There were countless such letters however, that did reach so many homes in the country... to grieving, wailing families. Many of these letters reached home along with the bodies of the martyred soldier. In fact there is an old tradition of making soldiers write a letter to their families before leaving on a dangerous mission during war.

...so how does it feel moving towards a certain death?

Come dear diary, let me - in answer to this question - read to you the last letter of a brave soldier. Had that war of nineteen years ago not happened on those icy heights of Kargil, Nimbu saab would have turned twenty-five that July Of nineteen years back. Nimbu Saab... Captain Neikehakuo Kenguruse of the Rajputana Rifles... honoured posthumously with Mahavir Chakra... who, bare foot and holding a rocket launcher, climbed a height of sixteen thousand feet to free a cliff captured by the enemy, was well aware of his destined death. The letter written by Nimbu Saab before leaving on that last mission has the capacity to melt the driest of sensibilities...

Dear Mummy-Papa                                                                                                              20 June 1999

I had never thought I would ever have the need to write this letter. But it appears necessary today to share my last message with you.
The Pakistanis had captured some of our region by infiltrating and we have therefore had to move to the Drass and Batalik sector of Kashmir. I know that I have God on my side and that he will protect me... but if God wills a supreme sacrifice by me then I may not have another opportunity to address you.
I am feeling very sad. Just the thought that I may never see you again is so hurtful. My dear mummy and papa, I love you a lot. I have always tried my best to provide good care for you and have always wished you happiness. But perhaps I have failed in my purpose in this short span of my life.
I know I have embarrassed you many times and caused you trouble. Please forgive me my mistakes. You two have given me so much love and have taught me so much that I have remained a good leader to the last moments of my life. I am so grateful. Thank you very much.
My dear papa, thinking about my young siblings I want to cry. Please guide them well to become good human beings. Tell them that I loved them a lot. Tell Grandpa and Grandma also that I loved them a lot. Give my regards to all my friends and family and ask them to forgive me if I have ever hurt them. 
Even if I ask you not to cry when I am no more, I know you will because you love me so much. But please be happy thinking I will live on in your memories. Write to all my friends whose addresses are there in my diary.
Papa-mummy, I want to share something very personal with you. I have a girlfriend... and you also know her. The two of you may not like her. But I love her very much and she loves me a lot too. When I'd come last on vacation in May, I had asked for her hand and she was willing to get married to me. In case I do not return, please look after her also. She's a true friend of mine. We used to share all our problems with each other. I know she loves me truly. Do something for her if I fail to make it back. This is my humble request to you both.
May God always bless you. I wish you both good health and peace.
Your loving son
Neibu"

...so how does it feel moving towards a certain death ? No, I do not have an answer. A fear... a subdued, head-bowed fear...of parting...of not being able to see one's loved ones again... and also, amid all this a hidden 'guilt' that one has not been able to do enough for life... for one's people. It feels...as if everything is getting left behind ! An excerpt from a poem by Neel Kamal comes to mind...

"Bhay ko dekhna ho
natmastak, kar baddh
to dekho us aamee kee aankhon mein
jise maloom hai
zindagi kee ultee gintee"

"To see fear
with its head bowed, hands folded
look into the eyes of a man
who is aware of the count-down of his life"       

                                                                               -x-

'Diary Of A Soldier' -17, an English tranaslation of Gautam Rajrishi's 'Fauji Ki Diary (फ़ौजी की डायरी-१७)

Toofan se ladne mein mazaa aur hee kuchh hai
(fighting a storm has a thrill of its own)

This is about something that dates back not hundreds or thousands of years ... but only one year. The August of last year, proud of and pleased at its own existence but somewhat piqued at the same time for it was at the peak of this month some seventy-one years ago that the independence of a great nation... as also the birth of a new nation had been declared. The same new nation which was to become a thorn in the side of this great nation... the same new nation whose coming into existence compels the likes of us to stay put on these high, icy mountains, away from home, family and all civilization.
Ah well, the story is of the August of the year gone by. River Kishanganga was fully swollen... the same river Kishanganga that flows meandering below this snowy mountain of ours and is called river Neelam  by those across the border. The snow from these same mountains, after melting, was charging up the veins of the river. Making an angle of about sixty to sixty-five degrees on the southern, that is on our side of the river bank, this mountain rises up to approximately thirteen thousand feet and, housing enemy-bunkers on the lower three-fourth and our own soldiers' bunkers on the upper one-fourth of its slope, has been - with its hands on ears - quietly thrashing its own head... who is to say since when... why, of course since that August seventy to seventy-one years ago ! In fact its ears, rotted completely from hearing the daily steeped-in-insults war-of-words, are virtually on the verge of dropping off into the depths of the Kishanganga. it's been a dozen years since ceasefire was declared in this section of the border, so instead of bullets, insults are exchanged full-on between the residents of bunkers situated a stone-throw away from each other. Janmaashtamee that year was perhaps in August. When, on this pious occasion of the birth celebrations of our deity, the representatives of bunkers across the border had teased the representatives of bunkers on our side saying, "Sir, you take rest tonight, celebrate your festival, we shall stand duty... " the barrage of the choicest of expletives from bunkers at our end had kept tickling the Kishanganga flowing below us for long.
As the thin and wiry major, the boss of the bunkers on our side celebrated Janmaashtamee - the birthday of Muralidharee Krishna  on the thirteenth of August that year, he had himself arrived on the twenty eighth rung of his age. The major, as per rule, shouldn't even have been there on those bunker on that height. One of the bullets received during an encounter in the jungles in Assam during his previous field posting was still hurting... craving frequently for shots of pain-killer injections. Overlooking orders by the Doctors, the thin and wiry Major had come here as he was... what is it that they say... yes, head over heels in love with his battalion. He had received a surprise from his commanding officer late in the evening of that thirteenth of August in the form of a five pounder Black Forest cake ordered from the famous 'Mughal Darbaaar' bakery in Srinagar... with special instructions to "remain extra alert today, as it is the fourteenth of August tomorrow."
Putting each other to test in a war-of-words as always the night, of course, went by somehow... but the next morning arrived bringing with it a very interesting spectacle. As the brilliant rays of Sun-god - having wrapped themselves around the Kishanganga - moved up to embrace the highest peak of the mountain, the thin and wiry major saab, getting up to prepare for sleep after staying awake through the night, witnessed those in the bunkers on the other side - resplendent in their uniforms - busy in preparations for their independence day celebrations. Postponing his sleep for a while the major paused and watched as the green flag with the white strip and its undulating moon and star went up the tall pole and began its flirtations with the wind. The major took a deep yawn and was about to turn his back when his sharp eyes sent a message to his brain that something was amiss... turning again he stared at the white moon and star on the green flag... the crescent moon with the star in its curve was definitely facing downwards. The flag was flying up-side-down.                   
"Oye Kameeno - you rascals - at least today you should be flying your flag the right way... or should we come over and fly ours." Laughing loudly, the major shouted out to those in the bunkers across the line. The other side of the border was as if rocked with an earthquake of sorts. The choicest of insults which the boss of those in the bunkers across the border - one havaldaar saab - (The officers in the army on the opposite side do not, as a custom, live at the border) used to throw at us were now directed at his subordinates. After the flag was taken down, straightened and flown again, the havaldaar sahib from the other side, approaching the major on this side, thanked him in an extremely sweet voice along with the appeal...janaab - sir - please do not report it anywhere...
A silence of sorts prevailed in the bunkers on the other side for a long while after this. The newly invented barbs, phrases and slurs thrown from this end with an intention to provoke and incite went unanswered for months on end. The Kishanganga carried on with its tickling as per practice... the river Neelam however, stayed a little dispirited those days.
A famous couplet comes to mind...

"Saahil ke sukoon se kise inkaar hai, lekin
toofan se ladne mein mazaa aur hee kuchh hai"

(no one's saying no to the solace in the shore, but
fighting a storm holds a thrill of its own)

                                                                                               -x-   

Diary Of A Soldier - 16 English translation of Gautam Rajrishi's 'Fauji Ki Diary' (फ़ौजी की डायरी)

khoon se lathpath haree vardee naye shringaar se...
(the coated-with-blood green uniform... was adorned anew)

The summer arrives, at last, on this high mountain. The snow has melted and a convoy of vehicles has arrived only yesterday with fresh vegetables and packets of milk. This actually is a proper halleujah moment for the taste buds in one's tongue, living in terror of frozen potatoes and canned peas for the past seven momths..

Beyond this joy however are memories that turn back repeatedly to look towards that bleak summer... it feels like centuries have passed. The season of summer that year was bent upon breaking all its records of heat. The winter, lurking still  in some such remote, northern corner of the country, had been  startled by the sudden boom of explosions. The summer, beginning in mid-May, seemed to have resolved to bring on by the end of July, a rain of blood - not of sweat. The small patrolling party of the Jat regiment, led by Captain Saurabh Kalia was surrounded on that fifteenth of May by the enemy in large numbers... and its tragic outcome was to keep the days to come all shaken up for centuries...  the summer of that year was... is... to be remembered in the history of the Indian army as the most fierce one.

The Bofors guns posted at the border had opened its powerful jaws !

Nineteen years ago... the year nineteen hundred and ninety nine... the summer of ninety nine !

That year... the summer had as if got caught on the snowy summits of Kargil, Drass and Batalik. The rogue was refusing to leave. Before the final decision for declaration of war was taken in the corridors of power in Delhi... war had started already for the soldiers a fortnight back.

Captain Amit Bhardwaj, another young officer of the Jat regiment had gone out with his team to look for the missing patrolling party led by Captain Saurabh Kalia. After the end of Kargil war, people remember the names of just a select few heroes... whereas many bravehearts such as Amit, Vishwanathan, Nimbalkar and Adhikari have remained hidden behind these talked-about names. Amit had returned just that April... having completed his training from the commando school in Belgaum. He had been with me... in my team... during that training. The way he used to walk alongside during the drenched-in-sweat route-marches of the long, unending nights and requested to hum together songs by Kishor Kumar is still wedged like an ache beneath the layers in my chest. His most favourite song was - ye naina, ye kajal, ye zulfe, ye aanchal. I'd had no inkling then that I would never meet him after the training. It was perhaps on the seventeenth or the eighteenth of May when Amit and his radio operator had the last contact with their battalion. Later... much...much later.. after the formal declaration of the end of war, the badly mutilated bodies of Amit and his radio-operator were found... with marks of bullets fired from close range on their faces and chests.

During that freezing summer....lurking still on those high mountains, Indian soldiers were, as if, in a contest to set new examples of bravery. When, in the beginning of June, the Prime minister eventually admitted in his formal statement that there was a "war-like situation" in Kargil, the word "like" had forced thousands and thousands of soldier to burst into laughter. Beyond that laughter however, towered the Tololing and and Tiger hills with their heads held high at sixteen thousand feet, mocking as a difficult 'challenge'. It was necessary that the mountains be freed from enemy-occupation, also because the peaks of these mountains looked over the Srinagar-Leh national highway and this road was extremely important for the movement of the army's own convoys.

The story of Vikram Batra and the Tiger hill has become very famous. But the truth about Tololing is as much a matter of honour as it is of pain. It was perhaps for the first time after twenty eight years... after nineteen seventy one... when the Indian Army was making a planned attack on the enemy. The last night in the month of May and the first two-three nights in the month of June of nineteen years ago, were about to join the list of the most dangerous of challenges in all the wars in history. As per a pre-decided plan, the grenadiers and a team of soldiers from the Naga battalion began to make a concentrated attack. Sitting behind large rocks and in dug-out bunkers, the enemy was not an easy target. Due to heavy army firing, it became very difficult to advance after reaching as close as thirty meters. Teams led by Major Rajesh Adhikari and captain Nimbalkar had taken position behind a huge wall of snow.

Captain Nimbalkar (now colonel) narrates the story of those three-four nights in a very interesting way. In between the exchange of fire with the enemy, there was also a full and free exchange of expletives. The cannon-shots from the bofors guns positioned below were as fatal for our own soldiers as they were for the enemy. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Vishwanathan, second-in-command of the grenadier regiment was leaving out nothing in attacking the foe despite being injured. When, in the process of evacuating the  injured soldiers, Lieutenant Colonel Vishwanathan realized that his return would be futile as his death was imminent, he ordered for the less injured soldiers to be evacuated first. How valiant of him was this ! A number of enemy bunkers were destroyed and the Indian army had lost over sixty of its warriors including Lieutenant Colonel Vishwanathan, Major Adhikari, Subedar Randhir, havaldar Madanlal, havaldar Ram and Captain Ashok. The month of June was not yet half over and the target of Tololing was still far away. It was to be achieved only at the end of that summer, the story of which will be told another time, dear diary. Such valiant warriors and their unbelievable stories ! I had written something once...

"Cheed kay jungle khade thay... dekhte laachaar se
golian chaltee raheen... is paar se, us paar se
jism to chhalnee gira dhartee pe, lekin saj uthee
khoon se lathpath haree vardee naye shringaar se"

(The Pine forests stood... watching helplessly
as from this end and that... the bullets flew
the body, riddled, fell on the ground... but
the coated-with-blood green uniform... was adorned anew)

'Diary Of A Soldier - 15 , English translation of Gautam Rajrishi's 'Fauji Ki Diary' ( फ़ौजी की डायरी)

Diary Of A Soldier - 15

Battees Saal Bahut Se Sawaalon Kee Umra Hotee Hai
(Thirty Two years is the age of many a question)

Indra jit... lance naik Indrajit Singh is no more. My prayer to Ma Bhavaanee, to enable me to take back all the soldiers of the battalion safe and sound after the two and a half year tenure over here, went unheard. Today is the fifth day... when the sixteen officers and the eleven hundred soldiers of the entire battalion have been unable to take in even a single morsel of food. A soldier's death during encounter with the enemy does become acceptable somewhere, in some corner of the mind with the passing of time. But death because of the ferocity of weather or delay in the arrival of medical help owing to the difficult terrain causes lifelong pain.

It was after midnight... must have been after two a.m... when the wireless set recevied a message from the operator. It was partially the concern in his voice and partially the fierce weather outside... the dreadful mix of the two together were creating in the mind a certain air for the making of a disaster. The group of  thirteen soldiers, back from leave, had started this way at seven in the evening. By all reason the group should have arrived after a climb of seven hours. It is always safer to travel after sunset on snowy mountains as the risk of an avalanche is minimal during night. We generally receive the weather forecast of this region each morning with an accuracy of 99.9 per cent, directly from Delhi. But this night, perhaps, came in the category of that 0.1 per cent. When the group just back from leave had asked for permission from the base to start their climb towards the battalion, the weather had been completely clear. The half-moon had arrived with all its brilliance along with hoards of stars. It was just an ordinary night...which, unknown to anyone, was going to bring in an unforgettable flood of pain by the time it ended. A message from the group of soldiers just after two hours of the start of their climb had said that Indrajit was experiencing a mild chest pain. They had also received my order to return immediately to the base. But Indrajit had insisted... it is nothing... let's go up. The chest pain grew terrible midway. First aid did bring his breaking breath somewhat to normal but lance naik Indrajit closed his eyes forever a few moments before the break of dawn. The on-alert helicopter pilots, ready to pick up Indrajit any moment to carry to the hospital, didn't stand a chance against the cruel whipping of the weather.. Even in these advanced times of science and modern technique, we have failed to bring helicopters to our country which are capable of making safe flights in such foul weather.
       
It must have been perhaps three in the morning when finally my restlessness, despite the best efforts of the subedar major and the other officers of the battalion to stop me, compelled me even in that blizzard to rush down towards the base. When somehow, after a thousand... ten thousand years... I reached my soldiers stumbling and faltering, Indrajit had passed on... leaving us behind.

There were so many memories associated with Indrajit. Prior to the tenure at Pithoragarh, he had been with me for three years, here in Kashmir... in the jungles down below over there. He had been with me  so many times while patrolling, in so many ambushes and operations. Always with a smile... and singing, every now and then, songs from Haryana.

The post mortem report said he had, during the climb, picked up and swallowed a piece of snow which then went to settle in his chest and proved fatal. During the four week training prior to posting on these high mountains, we had been told thousands times never ever to swallow snow to quench our  thirst when tired. Ever since I have received this information, the waves of sorrow and pain have been joined somewhere also by a wave of anger.

Being a soldier you cannot be careless even for a moment... a soldier just can't afford to be careless... and carelessness against instructions given during training has especially proven to be fatal more often than not. A small mistake has not only brought the life of a young soldier to an untimely end... it has also robbed the country of an able army man. Those left behind are his wife, his four year old daughter, his old parents and we... his colleagues and comrades.

The most difficult moment in a commanding officer's life comes when he has to inform the father or the mother or the wife in the family of a departed soldier. With a sobbing heart and trembling hands, I have no idea how I was able to break it to Indrajit's father over the phone. The wail rising from the other end has, as if, rendered me deaf for life. How I wish no father would ever have to hear the news of his young son's demise... and no commanding officer in the armies of the entire would ever have to inform the family of a soldier in his battalion of his death.
 
This is all that I pray for ! Is it too much ?

Words are failing me today dear diary.  Such bizarre, delirious bits of intoning are rising from the pit of my chest. A portion of a poem by Babusha Kohli puts wet bandages on these scalding bits of intoning late at night on these icy, smouldering mountain. Listen my diary :-

"Aasmaan kehta hai ki kisee ko itne ratjage na do
ki pakkee neend kaa pataa dhoondhe
aasmaan ke paas aankhe hain par haath nahin
zakhmee gardan par tamage taange gaye
uskee neend kee mittee par ugaaa diye gaye gulaab ke phool

aakhir shaanti aur sannaate mein koi to furk hotaa hai na

dar-asal mere dost !
sannaate na torre gaye to jamhaai aatee hai
ki battees saal bahut se sawaalon kee umra hotee hai... "

(The sky asks not to give so many wakeful nights to anyone,
 that one has to go looking for the address of sound sleep
the sky has eyes but not hands
medals were hung down the wounded neck
rose flowers sown over the soil of his sleep

after all there is a difference between peace and silence

the fact is my friend !
that silence, if not broken, brings on yawns
that   thirty two is the age of many a question..."

... Indrajit would have turned thirty two in June this year !


                                                                               -x-

Diary Of A Soldier - 14, English translation of Gautam Rajrishi's 'Fauji Ki Diary' (फ़ौजी की डायरी)

Aaye jo ashq aankh mein, hum muskura diye
(when tears welled up in my eyes, I smiled)                                                                                                                                                                 
The Rajdhani from Howrah was running late beyond all reason. The restless crowd sitting in wait at the Gaya station included the two youths who sat weathering the humid, miserable night, their ears trained at the announcements on the platform . The Rajdhani, that generally arrived by ten-thirty was late by an hour and a half.

"You are coming for no reason Arvind. It is too hot, and the train is also late.  I would reach Delhi comfortably sleeping on my berth." Wiping the sweat dripping down his brow with one hand Sudesh said.

"Cut it out ! Don't act over smart by repeating the same thing over and over again. The promise to show you round the city of Gautam Buddha was mine and in any case I was only looking for an excuse to go with you to Delhi during this vacation. What would I do sitting at home !" Arvind responded a little impatiently.

The simmering-with-heat night was also having a big impact on the gigantic clock hanging on the platform and its needles were bent upon setting a world record for moving at the slowest speed. Sudesh was beginning to look a little stressed now... the heat-induced sting in the foot was slowly going beyond endurance and the craving for a cigarette was held in check by the difficulty of walking a distance out of the platform. Taking pity on the collective hue and cry of the sting, the endurance, the craving and the difficulty, the night seemed to surrender and the clock, adamant on making a world record, had begun to show just a little past midnight when the Rajdhani, puffing, pulled up at the platform. Arvind picked up Sudesh's bag too. Bogey number A-three had stopped a little away from its designated spot. The tickets bought from 'tatkaal' - urgent slot - had allotted the two friends the same bogey but different berths. Sudesh had got the lower number three berth close to the bathroom. Arvind's upper berth on the side was a little further down at number twenty-four. Arvind reached the gate of the bogey and waited for Sudesh who followed just a little behind with a slight limp. Climbing up with the support of Arvind's hand, when Sudesh reached his berth he found a middle-aged man already sound asleep on it, snoring softly. A somewhat thickset woman lay on the adjoining berth and on the berth right above hers, a boy. Slipping Sudesh's bag under the berth, Arvind said with irritation "Wake up the gentleman, I'll be back after I check out my seat" Sudesh, with his inherent politeness shook up the sleeping man with some hesitation, "Bhai saheb, please get up ! This is my seat."

"What happened ? What is your problem ?" The cranky tone of the half-prone gentleman definitely held an elitist arrogance.

"Sir, this is my seat !" Showing his ticket even in the semi dark coupe, Sudesh said.

"Get lost ! TT has given me this seat. Don't you dare bother me!" The man's sharp voice was cutting into  the sting in Sudesh's foot.

Arvind popped in just then with his bellow of a question, "What's the matter Sudesh?" Familiar with Arvind's short temper, Sudesh, covering his reply of "nothing to worry" in a smile, asked him to go get the TT. Meanwhile the woman in the adjoining berth and the boy on the upper one had woken up by the man's voice. It became clear in a split second that the three were of one family and now the woman and the boy together were spraying arrows of sentences in halting English mingled with Hindi. The arrival of the TT. immediately set aside all the confusion. Looking at Sudesh's ticket the TT apologised to the man saying, "The seat belongs to him only. You will have to return to your upper berth... I had allotted this seat to you in haste." The three pronged bombardment of a mixture of Hindi and English seemed to have been stunned into silence. Arvind had this golden opportunity to give vent to a taunt but Sudesh sent him tumbling to his berth and mustering all his will-power began patiently to wait for that person to vacate his seat. Suddenly a voice coming out in a mumble from under the silence was pleading with Sudesh... "Bhai saheb, if only you would take the upper seat... actually papa is suffering from lower-back pain... so it will be difficult for him to climb up !" The boy on the berth above the woman's was imploring Sudesh.

"Sorry, I can't !" The smile on Sudesh's lips stayed on... "He will have to manage somehow. I have to sleep on my own seat. I am really sorry !"

Hearing this the grumblings of the woman on the adjoining seat began afresh... grumblings coated in phrases such as... "the youngsters today have no civic sense" etc. etc. and appearing oblivious to all this Sudesh was busy taking off his boots. The boot on the right foot took substantially longer to get off than the boot on the left foot and forgetting everything the instant he lay down on the seat, Sudesh stepped into his own peaceful, calm and carefree world.
       
With the arrival of morning another kind of silence descended on the tongues of the co-passengers of berth number three. It was actually difficult to say which - the surprise in the eyes of the co-passengers or a guilt of sorts on their whispering tongues - was greater. The passenger on berth number three however was fast asleep lying flat on his back, oblivious of that surprise or the said guilt... his right foot boot, placed in the isle between the two lower berths was much larger than the left foot boot, its height reaching the knee... an exact replica of the leg below the knee. The blanket covering the passenger lying flat had slipped and was about to fall revealing half his leg, amputated at the knee.

Just then, with two earthen tumblers with tea in hands and a wakeup call to the progeny of 'Kumbhakarn'- Arvind came and sat down, put the tea on the table-tray and covered his legs with the blanket. With a mumbled plea of "let me sleep some more" Sudesh turned to the other side. The silence of the three co-passengers sitting on the opposite berth was finally broken by the boy... "what happened  to him ?"
     
Arvind just sat for a very long time staring at the three sitting before him and then spoke out in an absolutely impassionate voice, as if chewing out each and every word...

"He is a war hero ! He was injured in the Kargil war... had a narrow escape from death but he is more alive than you."
 
The clickety-clack of the train coming in through the window-glass of the AC coupe was providing a strange background music to the silence come to sprawl in the aftermath of the statement. The middle aged man, coated till last night in the arrogance of a pseudo elitism, threw up his question mixed in a little hesitation or some confusion...

"Oh, you two are from the army ?"

"Yes... I am Major Arvind Sinha and this one... with one leg and a half... is Major Sudesh Singh, Vir Chakra... who had single handed defeated an enemy post and had later gone and gave up his leg in the minefield set up by the enemy." Arvind's voice held a strange kind of anger
.
"Hey, give me my tea !" Sudesh's voice rose just then.

"We are really very, very sorry... for yesterday ! We had no idea that you..." The man was still speaking when Sudesh butted in...

"Sorry for what ? Sorry that I am an army officer or that or that my leg is amputated ? Would you still be  sorry if there was another person in my place ? If not then this sorry has no meaning, Sir !"

And just a second later Sudesh and Arvind could be seen bursting out in a laughter over something... a laughter in complete synch with the clickety-clack of the train.

Who was the poet who had said...

khud apnee hee bekasee kee udai hai yoon hansee
aaye jo ashk aankh mein hum muskuraa diye

(Thus have I mocked my own helplessness
when tears welled up in my eyes, I smiled)                                                                                                                                                             

                                                                             ---x---

Diary Of A Soldier - 13, English translation of Gautam Rajrishi's 'Fauji Ki Diary' (फ़ौजी की डायरी)

Chote kee har tees ab to ik nai siskee hui
(each sting of the wound turns now into a new sniffle)

Knock-knock...knock-knock ! The month of March, sounding a new knock of age, drenches the entire being in a shower of such weird and wondrous feelings each year! Birth-day is probably the one occasion when we celebrate the loss of something. Does age increase or decrease ? As a child when I saw grown-ups around me I often thought how amazing  life over forty must be, when one would be free to take each of one's decision. Ha, ha... free ? I had no idea then that with each increasing year the said freedom  becomes increasingly enslaved ... to circumstances, ...to needs,... to family-ties and bonds,... to time,...to one's profession,... responsibilities,... extra labour being put in to stay alive,... enslaved to life itself,...! This new 'philosophy' is also perhaps a special gift from this over-forty age.

Out of the layers of this newly earned philosophy has emerged a new wisdom these days. The wisdom to turn a blind eye,... the wisdom to ignore,... the wisdom to deliberately overlook. The facebook posts engaged in debates, the whatsapp messages making a noise, the little tweets on twitter creating a ruckus, the  news channels working up a cacophany... to pass over all of these, to develop a devil-may-care attitude towards them all is a special achievement of this increase in age, believe you me diary dear. The practice in the social media to present events catering to arguments, convenience and to the advantage of a particular class, a particular ideology and a particular interest is becoming dangerous. What surprises is when a whole class of educated people, without putting to use its own maturity of mind, picks and chooses its own respective share of the truth. It  would still have been okay, had the matter rested with making a choice but the people then begin gradually to take their choice as the absolute truth and then start the exercise of thrusting upon others their own choice of the truth... this is scary.
             
Ever since I have learned to be blind to all this, I now see peace around me, peace in the country, peace all over. I wonder why, dear diary, do I not find more such people amongst my friends who can be blind to all this ! Shouldn't  this ability to be blind be, in a manner, the concept or the basic idea of having a perspective ? I wonder if the forty third rung of my age is making me a little too wise...!

This age of forty three years is also so weird... isn't it...when size thirty is tight on the waist and size thirty two, too loose. These darned jeans-makers do not keep any option for size thirty one!

There has been a halt in the snowfall for the past few days . But the white layers are piled so high that it makes one jittery to think ... how is all of this going to melt ? The ability of the faint lamp-like flicker of the Sungod is, for the time being, under a curtain of doubt, which will lift when it will. Till that time the terrible terror of this snowfall and bone chilling cold may well keep the spectres of jihad hidden inside some cave or the other, and its outcome is a stamp of approval from the brigade commander saab for a month's leave for me. I am going home after thirteen months. If the weather remains clear like this tomorrow too, I will reach Srinagar comfortably by the helicopter that brings in provisions. Otherwise, a seven hour trek down these high mountains... then a five to six hour journey by jeep on the snow-wet roads till Srinagar... and only then a flight to Patna.

Chhutki, my little girl, has grown older by one more year without her papa... she is ten now. A page from an eight year old diary flips open... with details of an eight year old leave... a yellowing page of the diary...pointing out the wound received from the enemy bullet and the smile of a two year old Chhutki.  Something like...

"The distance from Srinagar to Patna by a floundering Air-India plane, even though it has to fly over the mountain ranges of Pirpanjal, is covered only in four hours and a half hours... the five hour distance from Patna to Saharasa however is not coming to an end even though it is now close to nine hours. The speed of the train is motivating me to get down and start jogging by its side. But otherwise the chair in this train, which is moving with the speed of a turtle, is a relief after two and a half months on a white sheeted hospital bed. I do not have a reserved seat in the only AC chair-car in the train... but Kundan Singh ji knows me, properly, by my name. Kundan is the TT appointed for this only AC car and is quite perturbed over the fact. He is startled to hear my name and moving a sage-like baba from the seat by the window... the window on the left side...so my plastered up left hand doesn't have any problem, assigns the seat to me. As the AC in the chair car is on its full swing, the bone in my left hand has begun to sting... desire for a pain killer... opening the door I come near the toilet. Even 'Wills' manufactuerers wouldn't be knowing what an effective pain killer they've created in king size which goes by the name of 'Classic' !  Kundan Prasad ji is lurking around. I guess what he wants and offer a king size pain killer to him also. His hand, a little hesitant, extends and our conversation starts with the first drag. He wants to hear from me the story of this encounter of mine. 'You will not be able to digest the truth and it won't be possible for me to tell a lie'-  this weighty dialogue from me proves to be counter productive and inspires him even more to hear the story ! During this time I also come to know from him that a few local newspapers have, projecting me as a hero, printed a fully spiced up version of the the encounter. I get to hear again the clichéd phrases ... you people keep awake so we can sleep etc...etc. I feel nauseated to hear these phrases... my pain increases and the mobile rings just then... thank god... I get a repreive from Kundan Singh.  It is two-thirty at night (or in the morning?) when the train reaches Saharasa. Ma's tears are still awake. Why does God bestow upon each mother tears that are insomniac ? Papa tries, unsuccessfully, to laugh on seeing me. My wife is somewhat perplexed whether she should look at my face or at my plastered up arm and Chhutki is sleeping under the mosquito net surrounded by pillows. I make a noise and wake her up. She stares for quite a while with her eyes screwed up and then smiles... uff ! Why does the moment not stand still ! She smiles again. She has recognized me even though it's been six months since she saw me last. Ya hooo!!! She smiles...I smile...infected, the life smiles. The fatigue from the long journey becomes an absconder and the pain in the plastered arm no longer needs that king size 'Wills' pain killer....
                    
"Dard saa ho dard koi to kahoon kuchh tumse main
chote kee har tees ab to ik nai siski hui

(I would tell you of my pain only if it qualified as pain
each sting of the wound turns now into a new sniffle)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

_________________________________________________________________________________

Diary Of A Soldier - 12, English translation of Gautam Rajrishi's 'Fauji Ki Diary' ( फ़ौजी की डायरी )

Mere saath hee saath barra ho gaya hai mera dar
(Along with me my fear has grown bigger)

The pranks of the wanton youth of  new year had gone so out of hand that the weather has had to don the mantle of its guardian. Covering these dried and parched, green and brown mountains in spotless white capes, the weather, in this serious avatar has as if turned them into so many yogis practicing pranayama - yogic breathing. How these mountains, looking  so severe and formidable two weeks back, have begun to look like becalmed ascetics deep in samadhi - a meditative trance ! Snowfall did have a delayed start but now that it has started, is showing no signs of stopping, breaking -  like the famed pole-vault athlete Sergei Bubka - its own record of the previous year. Eighteen feet in just three weeks... whoa ! The barbed  fence has, as if, ceased to exist. It's white all over from this side to that. The territorial division by the border holds no good for this white sheet of snow.
           
... and the temperature, falling below zero due to snowfall, does not discriminate between anyone either, doling out cold in equal measure to both ... the border security and the mad jihadists ! The security personnel have, any way, not been given an option by their green uniforms... they have to carry on with their duties as always. Yes, all the spooks and the ghouls of the said jihad, scared and shivering in the bone piercing cold are crouched cowering under blankets, clinging to a 'kaangaree'- a small pot filled with lighted charcoal - to take in its warmth. The said pledge etc. taken by them and their handlers across the border for jihad to free Kashmir seem to be on casual leave for the time being. There is not even a suggestion of a jihad visible in the endless expanse of this white sheet spread out far and wide !
  
Meanwhile, the snowfall piling up in layers has, in a sense, provided some relief as one is no longer required to be on the alert each moment, but the problems now are of a different kind... the problem of continuously  clearing out the snow falling down the roof and windows of the bunker lest the roof gives way under its weight and rifle barrels are unable to point at the enemy because of blocked windows... the problem of cleaning out the path from one bunker to the other after every hour or two so that the regular patrolling on the border and unhindered supply of rations to the bunkers remains possible. Each bunker has, of course,  been provided with tea-making ingredients in plenty, hoards of maggie packets, barrels of kerosene oil etc. Many a time during blizzards, it becomes difficult to cover even the distance of seventy to a hundred metres from one bunker to another. But the greatest of all problems and fears comes from the possibility of an avalanche on the freshly fallen snow. Even though all jawans in the battalion have become fully trained in dealing with this crisis... an apprehension of sorts always lurks  in the mind. Its impossible to sit relaxed inside as long as even one of the patrol teams is outside the bunker. One sits surrounded by a strange anxiety... and in this strange anxiety , the initial 'kirr-kirr' coming before each wireless message makes the heart-beat leap up high until the ''oscar-kilo-over" coming straight after that 'kirr-kirr' reaches the ears. Taking pity on my jumping-every-now-and-then heart-beats, I have issued this standard order making it imperative to start any message with an 'all okay, over' before coming to the main message . Now, of course, it has become the trend.

Just see diary dear, how in the past one and a half - two years, I seem to have turned into an image that is forever engulfed in apprehensions, unease and unknown fears. No one will ever know how this colonel, constantly talking to his junior officers about ardour, vigour and valour, is always so anxious within him, with regard to the safety of these same jawans and junior officers. Goodness knows why there is this fear... this dread ? And why after a certain stage in life, this fear, this dread is less for your own self and more for those your own ? This fear too comes in so many different forms. Changing its veneer as per the time and the occasion, the fear appears in its many different and overpowering avatars. I recall an incident in Premchand's novel 'Seva-Sadan'. When Sadan had to go out of the village on an important errand in the dark, he didn't want, even if he wanted it, any thought of a ghost or a spirit to come to his mind. But the same thoughts, even if unwanted, keep invading his mind... and then, on his way, he comes across the infamous peepal tree, known in the village as an abode of spirits. Sadan's mental state at the time ! Height of fear and dread ! And then in a state of some kind of mental aberration, Sadan goes round the tree at first and then grasping the tree trunk, shakes it with all his might. And this is where Premchand writes, 'Fear, at its height is courage.' If my memory is correct, Premchand has repeated this line time and again in his stories and novels. But where am I to find the height of this unknown, undefined fear of mine ? Where has the rascal sprung up from all of a sudden ? Is it that it has has it been growing silently with me from childhood ? Some day... yes, one day I am definitely going to write a few such stories of this fear... this dread, never before heard or told till now...

hurfon kee zubaanee ho bayan kaise wo kissaa
likkhaa naa gaya hai,jo sunaayaa na gayaa hai 

(How to tell in words the tale
never before written nor told)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        i
A poem by Naresh Saxena raises its head suddenly in the middle of this cold and freezing night...

Hawaa ke chalne se
baadal kuchh idhar-udhar hote hain
lekin koi asar nahin padataa
us lagaataar kaale padate jaa rahe aakaash par

mujhe yaad aataaa hai bachpan mein
ghar ke saamane taaron par latakaa
ek mare hue pakshee kaa kaalaa shareer

mere saath hee saath badaa ho gayaa hai mera dar
maraa huaa voh kaalaa pakshee aakaash ho gaya hai


(The blowing of the breeze,
moves the clouds hither and thither
making no difference however
to that increasingly darkening sky

reminding me of the blackened body
of a dead bird in my childhood
that had hung down the wires before the house

Alongside with me, my fear has grown bigger
that dark, dead bird has become the sky).


______________________________________________________________________________

Diary Of A Soldier - 11, English Translation of Gautam Rajrishi's 'Fauji kI Diary' (फ़ौजी की डायरी)

Dolate Calender Ki Ei Udaas Taareekhon
(O Sorrowful Dates In The Swaying Calendar)

New dates make me sad now. They didn't, earlier. Back then, in the gone-now-like-a-dream-childhood,... I had wanted to fast forward the clock needles, turn the calendar leaves quickly over to see what all the future years had in store for me in their books of account and now... for some reason arrival of the new year fills me with an undefined despair. The year two thousand and eighteen...seeming more formidable and daunting than these sky-kissing mountain ranges... where I have been seated  watching over the border for who knows how many centuries... is filling my whole being with an nameless foreboding. Will this new year... strutting happily for now on its arrival...  squealing joyously at its being... still be strutting and squealing thus, by its end ?

New year celebrations are on with full gusto in the civilization below. I find the congratulatory calls and whatsapp messages appearing on my phone to be distressful. The congratulations and photographs of friends being posted on facebook are causing more pain than joy. However, there was a good surprise from across the border.  An officer from their side had come to the post in front to convey their best wishes and congratulations. Their officers, unlike ours, are not generally present on these forward posts... so it was a 'surprise' of sorts for me when I got the message. The tall, lean and fair major was shouting out his best wishes. He didn't tell his name when asked. He said, "Sir our commanding officer sends his regards and best wishes to you and your entire battalion." When I asked why he hadn't come himself the major said, a little hesitantly, " He is a bit busy, sir." I liked his hesitation. This hesitation on the part of the major from across the border was a sign that the shoulder to shoulder presence of our army officers alongside our soldiers at each front as against the absence of their officers who stayed far behind the frontline, gave our army an 'added advantage'. Meanwhile Lance Naik Mahipal Singh, sitting beside me in camouflage with a sniper asks whispering, "Saab, should I shoot him down ?" My response of 'shut up' to the query put so innocently by Mahipal Singh dampens somewhat the enthusiasm of the jawans at the post on January, the first, which I have to make up for later by accompanying them on dholak and harmonium. The fixed barra khaanaa - feast - at the langar - community kitchen -, included delicacies like Kashmiri pulao, puris, alongwith 'rista' cooked by Irshaad Ahmad Vani, the favourite porter of the jawans, also wazwan and gushtava.  Aha... had all the hands of these kashmiris, instead of picking up AK47, exhibited these 'wazwans' and 'gushtavas' this said paradise of earth would have been seen heading the best food-tourism in the world !

Anyway, what happened after that delicious feast was that in the urgency of reciting a poem written by me on the jawans' request, I failed to remember anything written by me and immediately a poem by a very dear friend on facebook appeared on the screen of my mobile phone to the rescue of my failed memory. You lend a ear too, diary dear, to this truly genuine poem by Neeraj Dwivedi...

Jis vaqt samvidhaan ko kheese mein daal aur
loktantra ke chabootare par baith
netagan sab de rahe honge lambe lambe bhashan
Marx aur Lenin ke larraake
kar rahe honge kaagazon par kraantiyaan
moonchhon par taav dete facebookiye kavi
likh rahe honge tutahee rachanaayein

Main, ek sipaahee...
aath bai aath ke tamboo mein baith kar
dhoondh rahaa houngaa
tumhaare prem mein doobee
apnee ek bataa chaar kavitaaon kaa nayaa arth
aur
jorr rahaa houngaa apne jeevan kaa haasil


(At the time when, putting the constitution in their pockets
and seated on the platform of democracy
all political leaders would be spewing out lengthy speeches
the warriors of Marx and Lenin
stirring up revolutions on paper
twirling their moustaches, the facebook poets
wrting their broken down poems

I, a soldier
sitting in an eight by eight tent
would be looking for a new meaning
in my soaked-in-your-love, one by four poems
and
adding up the gains of my life
                                                                                                                           
And while, listening to the poem, everyone this side gets lost in the memory of his beloved... the Jhelum on the other side, under the company post... right under it across the road, meandering and rustling, squeezed in between its closed, crushed shores, gazing at the sky with a strange sourness, asks it... 'chille kalan* has since started, why aren't you starting your shower of snowflakes ?' The expanse of the sky is adding a little more enigma to its mysterious silence while the whole valley has been squirming with exasperation at this arrogant air of the sky. The sky is showing attitude thinking if the darned clouds do not have the time why should this be any of my concern. Engrossed in their play with the sun, the clouds are oblivious of this exasperated squirming of the valley as also the sourness of the squeezed-in Jhelum. The issue is one of ego-confrontation between the sky and the clouds and it is the global warming that is getting blamed for the delay in the snowfall that is increasing each year. Snow had fallen twice already by this time last year. This delay in snowfall will affect the crop produce and the blush on the apples in the valley below on one hand and impact also the frequency of infiltration by jehadists on the other.
Do make the snow fall now, O weather gods... so the water in the Dal and the Wular lakes becomes fragrant with the scent of saffron at the right time... so the banks of Jhelum and Kishanganga can carry on their wazu - their morning and evening ablutions - with the juice drippng down from the apples... so these alert-each-moment border-sentinels can have access to nights to get a little peaceful sleep... so the faith in your godhood remains intact, yes, the same faith which just now, in the year just gone by, came very close to losing its existence !
Notwithstanding all this, the occasion of new year has brought to my bunker an unusual, unknown warmth - all due to Deepika padukone's one thousand watt smile. Such is the impact of my well renowned obsession with regard to Deepika that the 'youngster', back from leave, has brought me a beautiful new year calendar in which Deepika appears with all her charm in different poses on the leaf of each month. Such a huge contrast, isn't it... distressful dates along with Deepika's radiant smile ! A few couplets of a gazal have come to form just this instant...

Chhoo liya jo usne to sansanee uthee jaise
dhun kee guitar kee nas-nas mein abhee-abhee jaise

jaise-taise gujra din, raat kee naa poochho kuchh
shaam se hee aa dhamkee, subah tak rahee jaise

tum chale gaye ho to wusate simat aayeen
ye badan samander thaa, ab huaa nadee jaise

dolate calnder kee ei udaas taareenkhon !
raunakein mere kamarein kee hain tumse hee jaise


(The instant of her touch set me all astir
like a melody strummed on each guitar-string - as it were

somehow the day wore out, don't you ask about the night
landing up in the evening, she stayed till the morn - as it were

your going away has made the expanses close down
this body, that was an ocean, is now a river - as it were

O, sorrowful dates on the swaying calender !
my room owes its radiance only to you - as it were)                                                                                                                                           

* chille kalan -- The fiercest part of the Kashmir winter that lasts forty days, starting generally from the 21st or the 22nd of December to the 30th or the 31st of January.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Diary Of A Soldier - 10, English translation of Gautam Rajrishi's 'Fauji Ki Diary' ( फ़ौजी की डायरी)

Kuhre Kee Mustaid Jawaanee Jaise Sainik Roman... Uff
(The youth of the fog stands alert like a Roman soldier... uff)                                                                       

The autocracy of the fog is on. Finally, the conspiracy of December to challenge the power of the sun has  come to fruition. The darned December has no idea how by challenging the sun it has increased manifold, the challenges faced by the people living at the border. If only words could describe how, as against the infiltration by a few mad jehadis at the barbed wire on the LOC, the inability to see just a yard ahead makes things so much more difficult for soldiers standing on alert twenty-four hours at the border...  how these razor sharp ranges and its jagged ups and downs make difficult the posting of security forces covering - chappa-chappa - each handbreadth of the land. And... oh, this mention of 'chappa-chappa' has brought to mind a very interesting episode.

Information about suspected infiltration received from region falling under the neighbouring battalion a month or two back had created some sort of a furore in the valley down below. Intending to do away with the hypothetical and preposterous news stories being put out by the media, the local police proposed to call a press-conference. The SP city was deputed to answer the questions put up by the journalists . A very lovable young man from distt. Samastipur in Bihar, appointed as SP city, has come here... with passion and fervour in his eyes and in his heart... baskets full of resolve and purpose in his grip. He calls often to enquire about the situation in the upper region and has therefore become a good friend.  As he was going through the list of probable questions a little before the start of the press-conference to keep ready his answers, SP saab got stuck on one question. Experiencing the natural nervousness of conducting the first press-conference of his career and looking for an apt answer to that absurd query he, for some reason or the other, thought of this friend from the high mountains . In a somewhat excited voice he first, as a preamble, apprised me briefly about the press-conference and then repeated the sticky question . An absolutely absurd question... one that could cause the blood rushing through the veins to boil... "How, when the army is posted at each handbreadth - chappa-chappa - of the land, does infiltration become possible ?" How does one explain to  these news-people the many hurdles the terrain poses in this place ! If only we had the freedom to make them stand here with their cameras at the chappa-chappa of the land, I would have countered them then by asking what all their camera, with its zoom lens, was able to cover ? Any way... the SP was anxiously waiting at the other end of the phone for a befitting reply. It made no sense to go into the details of the hurdles faced at the line of control, the hazardous ups and downs in the narrow mountains and the ferocity of the weather. The answer to this nonsensical question had to be given at the same wave length but making full sense . As the SP repeated his question words tumbled out on their own from my mouth...                                                                                                                                                                                         
"Between chappa-chappa, there also happens to be a hyphen"

The ear-splitting laughter ringing from the other end of the receiver after a moment's silence on the SP's part on hearing the reply had given the reply the stamp of being a foolproof one. It came to knowledge that the press-conference had been a colossal hit and a few local newspapers had used the statement about 'hyphen' as their headline.
News headlines however cannot be used as a cure for the 'hyphens' present along these razor sharp ranges, nor do they have any hold over the misdeeds of this brutal December. But then, December always brings with it certain special memories also... memories of the Passing out Parade. It's been twenty years now. Twenty four, if I also count the training period at the Academys...uff ! It is not just an era that has passed by during this period! A lot has changed during these twenty four years. In the country... in the army. To think that  the boy who had - even after clearing post-twelfth the IIT entrance exam respected reportedly throughout the country - opted for the National Defence Academy at Khadakwasla had, at one point,  dwelled in this very frame makes me laugh now. And the credit to make NDA an obsession goes to no other but a darned film. Years back... I must have been in class nine or ten at the time... could anyone have thought that watching such a very ordinary film as 'Vijeta', on the black and white screen of that small Uptron TV in the house would leave so extraordinary an impact on that teen-age mind ! The journey of 'Angad', the film's protagonist, from an average youth to an exceptional warrior was so intriguing and invigorating that the fourteen-fifteen year old boy, staring as if spell bound at the screen of that small Uptron TV, had wanted to become the live Angad on that screen... to be the cadet Angad undergoing rigorous training in the enormous, grand premises of the NDA... right there, right then. The world changed for that boy after watching the film. He had as if become obsessed by this passion that chanted  'NDA- NDA' each moment and then ... when the entrance exam conducted by UPSC and the qualification to sit for it was still more than three years away, he had begun to prepare himself to become 'Cadet Angad' in real. Is this called fate... destiny ? The film had released seven years after his birth, he had seen it seven years after its release and that too on the shimmering black and white screen of a fourteen inch TV, and this 'seeing' had turned the earth around on its axis for him in the opposite direction. Yes, perhaps ! This is destiny... laughing out loud in its most magnificent avatar ! Govind Nihalani Saab, the director and Shashi Kapur, the producer wouldn't have any inkling whatsoever that one of their films has transformed the entire life of a boy.
Now... after all these years I wonder if I had not viewed that film that day, would I still have been sitting here like this, keeping an eye on the border on this high mountain ... devising ways of making a mince of the conspiracy cloaked in the December fog !!!
The one way of arresting this wilfulness of the fog is by snowfall... only. However, there is no way the snow would fall before chille kalan... the time from the latter half of December till January end... when the winter is at its cruellest in the Kashmir valley... and it is still at least two weeks before chille kalan starts . Till then the alertness on the part of security forces demands to be at its peak. I had at some point written a few lines on this darned December. Will you listen to them, my diary ? Here goes :-

Thithuree raaten, patla kambal, deewaaron kee seelan... uff
Aur Disambar zaalim us par phuphkaare hai san... san uff

Boorhe sooraj kee barchhee par jung lagaa hai arse se
Kuhre kee mustaid jawaanee jaise sainik Roman ...uff

haanph rahee hai dhoop dinon se baadal mein atkee-phatkee
shokh hawaa ei ! tu hee isme daal zaraa saa ab eendhan...uff


           
(Freezing nights, flimsy blanket, wetness on walls... uff
And at that the dreaded December makes hissing calls .. uff

The dagger of the aged sun seems to have been rusted forever
the youth of the fog stands alert like a Roman soldier... uff

The sunlight has been panting for days, in and out of clouds in a duel
O pert wind ! Its for you now to add to it some fuel... uff)

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Diary Of A Soldier - 9, English translation of Gautam Rajrishi's 'Fauji Ki Diary (फ़ौजी की डायरी)

Mujhse ek kavita kaa vaadaa hai milegee mujhko
(I have the word of a poem, it'd be there for me)                                                                                       

The evenings are growing chilly. This darned September... stuck here since who knows when... was refusing completely to make its exit. It seemed the month had become so enamoured of these sky-kissing heights of thirteen thousand feet that it would not give way to October. But in the end October did arrive... breathing hard from the slope far down ...shoving September away. At times it feels as if I've been here, encamped here on this mountain... for aeons. Did I ever exist anywhere else before this? Or is it that I've been here since the beginning of creation ? Who do I ask ? There are times when even this enormous family of twelve hundred jawans and fifteen to sixteen officers seems to fall short in filling up this vast loneliness stretched all around. There is perhaps no job more lonesome than leading a large family ! Each phone call coming from the bunkers, each message received on the radio set, unless it begins with an 'all okay' ... invariably makes the heart miss a beat at first. What if, in this utter desolation, this damned, anxiety ridden heart stops beating ! What a futile death would it be ! This clammy death-smell clings so close to the body during the month of September! The month has become a little too saddening in the past eight years... extending the desolation more and more with each year.

It was a moment that the gloom had struck... it is the load of a century that lies sprawled. Eight years have passed already since bidding farewell to Suresh. Yes...eight years ! Suresh... Suresh Suri... Major Suresh Suri ... whose very existence defined valour in motion... but whose exit had been pre-ordained somewhere in it's list by destiny in order for me to exist. Everything becomes so easy, doesn't it, when we assume that it had been so written... destiny ! And death, when it occurs, is complete destiny in itself. The other day when captain Rakesh, at the mention of Suresh, had asked me, "how does it feel sir, in those last moments of death"... I'd almost laughed. Last moment of death ? How can any moment of death be its last ? Life... it is life that has a last moment . Death has just that one moment, isn't it... whether its first or its last.

All the officers had wanted that day to hear from me the story of that September of eight years ago. I had again put it off and in lieu, had been lobbed that poser... how does it feel in the last moments of death ! It had almost evoked laughter, but it had disappeared in a blink - the laughter... alarmed that it had dared to appear when it was Suresh who was being discussed ! In these past eight years he comes alive almost daily, courting death again and again on the cruel canvas of memory. Mulling the thousands and thousands of options such as - had that happened,  this wouldn't have happened or had this not been done, it wouldn't have come to that - the mind brings Suresh to life each time and then kills him again. There was probably no moment for him that could be called his last...whether of life or even of death.  That last moment eventually has remained stuck only to my 'self'... as my destiny. When I think of Rakesh's question now, I recall the nature and number of thoughts assailing the blood-soaked body on the day. The first being that Suresh is alive... everything will be fine in a moment...that this is a mere nightmare and will disappear immediately on waking up. And the second about how my Chhutki - my ilittle girl - would grow up without her papa in case I did not survive ! And some other pointless thoughts... the anger on this unexpected turn of an absolutely well planned operation... anger on the blood drops dripping from the body... anger on the about-to-run-out bullets. In those last seconds, perhaps only anger was the foremost emotion. Something like life flashing before eyes in the fashion of a moving reel ... ha ! Perhaps that happens only in films .

Would it be poetic or realistic... to say that the bullets that are stuck in the body do not give as much pain as do the bullets being extracted from that same body by the doctors' scissors despite the administration of anaesthesia...? This dialogue had made all the officers laugh for a long time that day and this laughter of theirs had brought, for the first time, solace even in the month of September . May be... it just may be that the pain is finally accepting the might of destiny ! Many a time I feel like calling up Suresh's place... to have a long talk with aunty... tell her of all these realistic or poetic thoughts assailing my mind. She perhaps is the one person on this earth who may be able to reach to the bottom of all this turmoil. But then I can't muster the courage ! Something begins to pound deep down the chest... somewhat like the pounding rising in the chest on the day when bullets had begun to boom suddenly from all directions.

Right now...right at this instant, sounds of fire coming from far afar out in the space are as if providing a  background music of drum beats to these sad memories making a march ! 'Sad'... 'Suresh'... 'September'... why do all these begin with an 'S' ? September, the 'sadist'... ha ! what a cliché !!
   
Brings to mind a verse by Gulzar...

Maut tu ek kavita hai
Mujhse ek kavita ka vaadaa hai milegi mujhko

Doobati nabzon mein jab dard ko neend aane lage
Zard saa cheraa liye jab chaand ufak tak pahunche
Din abhi paani mein ho, raat kinare ke qareeb
Naa andhera naa ujaalaa ho, naa abhi raat naa din
jism jab khatm ho aur rooh ko jab saans aaye
mujhse ek kavita ka vaadaa hai milegi mujhko  


(Death, thou art a poem
A poem has given me word, it'd be there for me

When in the sinking pulse, the pain begins to slip into sleep
When the moon, with its pale face, makes its way to the horizon
When the day is still in the water, the night, nigh the shore
Its neither dark nor light, neither day nor night
when the body ceases to be and the soul begins to breathe
A poem has given me word, it'd be there for me)



September 2017

   
                                                                             --x--