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)
(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)
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