SHRAPNEL AND SURVIVAL : LIFE LESSONS FROM THE LINE OF CONTROL

01 October 1996 - Twenty Nine years ago this day

The First Battalion, The Ninth Gorkha Rifles (1/9 GR for short) to which I belonged, held the Line of Control in the Kargil defended area. Alpha Company ('A' Company) of which I was the company commander, was responsible for defending the Hathimatha Complex.

The Hathimatha Ridge is a tactically dominating feature that provided observation as well as fields of fire onto infiltration routes and potential launchpads. It is key to the defence of Kargil Town and the National Highway 1A that connects Srinagar to Leh. Precisely for this reason, it had artillery defensive fire tasks registered so that any enemy approach could be engaged immediately. Though the defences on Hathimatha would have been considerably enhanced with modern technology in the present day, back then it was heavily fortified with bunkers, sangars, and minefields.

Troops in this sector of the LoC on either side were deployed in what is classically known as "eyeball-to-eyeball posture” - sometimes within pistol range of the other, just metres apart. Sporadic unprovoked firing - mostly small arms and occasionally mortars - had become a routine part of our operational environment, and the sector had been highly volatile for the past few months. It hadn’t, however, always been so. The situation was comparatively peaceful when the 1/9 Gorkha Rifles took over the Battalion-defended area from the last unit - 26 MADRAS. An undercurrent of tension always prevailed, but there was no actual firing. A landslide in the neighbouring Delta Company area changed that.

Before taking over Alpha Company, I had been in command of Delta Company. The 'D' Company defended area adjoined 'A' Company's to the east, and was on the western bank of the Shingo River. The company headquarters was at Post 43 - another tactically important post. Post 43 besides being a defensive deployment served as a contact point for communication between the two sides. It also was a point for the exchange of bodies between Indian and Pakistani forces in the 1999 Kargil War.

In April 1996 a massive landslide on the mountain slope overlooking Post 43 cut off the track connecting Post 43 - to one of its satellite posts, Piffer. The Pakistanis promptly seized the nuisance value in this situation and any attempt by us to cross the rubble by night was picked up in the light and was met with Pakistani machine gun bursts. A tunnel was eventually created to act as a conduit for supply and communication with Piffer - but that is another story in itself See my blogpost The Saviours of Piffer.

The fragile peace that had existed so far had been broken and regular exchanges of small-arms fire became the order of the day. The surge in hostilities in the sector had less to do with tactical imperatives and more with the psychological battle unfolding on the ground. The firing to hamper supply and communication with Piffer was unprovoked and unnecessary. There was a deep sense of betrayal on our side. Some lines have to be respected by both sides, even between enemies. These had been crossed by the Pakistanis by taking advantage of a natural calamity - the landslide. My commanding officer (CO) wanted to give not just a response, but a message - a message that this would not be tolerated. The time and place would, however, be of our own choosing. It had been my company that had been harassed, and the CO wanted me to be the one responsible for delivering that message.

Post 43 and its satellite posts were less dominant than A Company’s sector on Hathimatha Ridge to the west, making Hathimatha better suited to launching a fire assault (a planned, concentrated attack using supporting weapons).

Consequently, I was relieved of command of D Company and placed in command of A Company. A 106 mm recoilless gun was moved to the Hathimatha complex. Battalion and Company - level support weapons like 81 mm mortars, medium machine guns (MMGs) and 30 mm automatic grenade launchers (AGLs) - were re-deployed.


On the appointed day a coordinated fire assault was launched: all Pakistani posts within sight and range of Hathimatha Ridge were subjected to intense, simultaneous fire and bombardment for roughly 30 minutes. Their defensive positions suffered considerable damage. Peace was no longer possible anytime soon. Alpha and Delta Company positions were thereafter regularly harried by Pakistani small arms fire. Over the following months, the scale of engagement intensified, with intermittent mortar shelling disturbing the silence at odd hours - day or night. It was, in every sense, a baptism by fire - a thorough and unforgiving battle inoculation.

The Fateful Day

On the morning of 01 October 1996, I was in the process of handing over command of Alpha Company to Major Raju George - a capable officer who had just returned to the unit after an instructional tenure. He was to relieve me.

Around 0930 hours, a sudden volley of artillery fire landed on one of our satellite posts. Until then, the engagements had largely been limited to small arms and occasional infantry mortars. The intensity and volume of this artillery barrage marked a significant escalation - an unprecedented fire assault on our position.

I conducted a quick tour around the company complex, ensuring that all my troops were at their posts and under cover. The situation was tense. As I returned to the Company HQ, I found it also under concentrated small arms fire, and to my dismay, also under direct fire from what appeared to be air defence guns.

Major Raju was inside the telephone exchange, likely coordinating with the CO at the Battalion Headquarters. At that moment, I observed fresh artillery fire impacting a satellite post on higher ground - accurate and deliberate. The entrance of the telephone exchange was shielded by a breastwall, so I advanced along its length, keeping low, and leaned in through the doorway to report the strike to Maj George. I urged him that we might need to request the Battalion HQ to call for counter-battery fire immediately to take the pressure off our forward positions.

That is when it happened….

The Injury

As I turned to speak, I felt a sharp, blinding pain at the back of my head. My body went numb, and everything faded to black. I would later learn of the hypothesis that a fragment of shrapnel - likely from an air defence shell - had ricocheted at an angle into the gap between the breastwall and the doorway of the telephone exchange where I was at that time positioned and pierced the back of my skull. The fact that it was a ricochet and not a direct hit probably prevented deep penetration and saved my life.

(As I learnt later) I collapsed, face-first, into the exchange. It was only when blood began pooling around my unconscious head that Major Raju and the exchange operators realised I had been hit. I was immediately moved to my bunker. Under telephonic instructions from Maj Setlur, the field surgeon at Kargil Forward Surgical Centre (FSC), the Company Nursing Assistant (NA) - Nar Bahadur - carried out emergency measures. He even had to gently reposition exposed brain tissue and disinfect the wound - a grim but life saving act performed admirably in a climate of extreme tension and pressure.

I drifted in and out of consciousness. Each time I regained awareness, a surge of searing pain in my head hit me - so intense that slipping back into unconsciousness felt like a form of mercy. Enemy fire continued, and the terrain provided no cover. In that exposed and perilous position, attempting an evacuation in the daylight would have been suicidal. There was no alternative but to await nightfall.

The Evacuation

As darkness fell, a party of jawans began the dangerous task of carrying me down the steep mountain trail to Post 43. I was strapped onto their backs, passed from one to another, each step jostling my injured head and sending waves of pain through me. That journey, which took four to five hours, remains one of the most agonising memories I carry - even unconsciousness refused to shelter me during that trek.

At Post 43, Maj Setlur was already waiting. So were the Brigade Commander and the CO. Following a quick examination, Maj Setlur determined that I needed urgent neurosurgical attention. I was moved by an Army ambulance to the Field Surgical Centre near Kargil, which had a makeshift helipad next to it.

The weather the following morning, 02 October 1996, was, as described in Army parlance, 'packed up'. In those days, helicopters - whether Army Aviation or Air Force - had limited night flying capability. Add to that the treacherous terrain and unpredictable weather of Kargil, and evacuation became a daunting prospect. Yet, CASEVAC (Casualty evacuation) sorties are high priority and risk-taking is permitted. Thus it was that a pair of brave Army Aviation Cheetah helicopter pilots managed to land their craft at the helipad next to the FSC to airlift me to Leh.

From Leh, I was flown first to Chandimandir and from there to Dehi in IAF aircraft, where I was taken to the Army Hospital Delhi Cantt (AHDC) — the predecessor of today’s Army Hospital (Research & Referral). There, a pair of skilled neurosurgeons – Brig HS Gill and Lt Col PK Sahoo operated on me and removed the shrapnel that had lodged itself inside my brain. The road to recovery was long thereafter and though I have recovered all my body functions, I still remain dependent on anti-seizure medication 29 years after that fateful day.

Epilogue: Lessons learnt

That day in October 1996 changed my life. What began as a routine morning on a cold LoC post ended in a blur of pain, darkness, and survival against extraordinary odds — made possible only by the courage, skill, and compassion of my fellow soldiers, medics, aviators, and surgeons. Each of them, in their own way, brought me back from the edge.

And for that, I remain eternally grateful.

But there are lessons from that day which I believe every soldier should take to heart:

Lesson 1 - Complacency Kills

The danger isn't highest when a young, inexperienced soldier comes under fire — in fact, such a soldier is often more alert, more respectful of the threat. The real danger is when a battle-hardened, battle-innoculated soldier like I had become, starts taking the enemy for granted.

I had been under fire for so long that I lost my fear of it. That desensitization brought with it a dangerous complacency. On that morning, I wasn’t wearing my helmet — a lapse that nearly cost me my life. A simple act of discipline might have saved me from the shrapnel wound that left permanent scars. Never assume the enemy will do what you expect. Never drop your guard.



Lesson 2 - Equipment is Part of Tactics

Wearing your helmet, flak jacket, gloves, or eye protection isn't just following orders. It's a form of passive tactics. These aren't accessories; they’re lifesaving tools. What looks like routine kit today might be what allows you to fight, or even live, tomorrow.



Lesson 3 - Courage Must Be Matched by Preparation

It’s not enough to be brave. Bravery must walk hand-in-hand with training, procedures, and calm execution under pressure. The way my company nursing assistants handled my exposed brain injury, with just a field telephone and instructions from a distant surgeon, is a lesson in grit, presence of mind, and training drilled into instinct.



Lesson 4 - Leadership Doesn’t Stop With Rank

When you're hit or incapacitated, others will carry the baton. Whether it's Major George who was very new to the environment, the jawans who carried me for hours down the mountain, or the pilots who flew in bad weather, leadership is distributed. Courage and initiative exist at every level.



Lesson 5  - Respect Every Role in the War Machine

The man with the rifle, Nar Bahadur, the medic with cotton and disinfectant, the sapper under fire clearing a tunnel, the helicopter pilots landing blind in a packed-up sky, the neurosurgeon working through the night — every one of them is critical. No rank, no uniform, and no specialty is dispensable in battle.



These lessons aren’t abstract principles. They are etched in blood, bone, and memory. I hope that anyone who reads this - whether soldier or officer, young cadet or seasoned veteran - takes them to heart.

Because on the LoC, or anywhere in combat, the difference between life and death often lies in the smallest choices made before the first shot is fired.

(All the information in this blogpost is previously available on the public domain. No privileged or classified information has been used)

DO YOU HAVE IT IN YOU? I HAD NO IDEA

    The National Defence Academy - a lighthouse that beckons to many a bright-eyed youth today, blissfully unaware of the rocks that lurk under the waves. 

    The chaps in the Directorate of Recruitment (the marketing geniuses in uniform that they are) lob slogans like “Do you have it in you?” and suddenly teenage heads are filled with adventure, romance and dreams of derring-do. Good old-fashioned common sense packs its bags and catches a train to Nowhere-in-Particular.

        I stumbled into the NDA, and thereby into the profession of arms, by what can only be described as a fortuitous fluke. My military destiny was set in motion by a classmate—an industrious chap spotted during lunch break one afternoon, hunched in a corner of the classroom, diligently scribbling away at a form. Upon enquiry it turned out to be the application for the entrance examination to the afore-mentioned NDA. 

    Having no grand career plans of my own, and a healthy fear of being left out of mysterious paperwork, I secured a copy for myself and sent it off. And, with all the deliberation of a man stepping into a muddy puddle while lost in the charms of his smartphone, I found myself appearing for the entrance exam to that fine institution, which, by the way, via a modest signboard along the road leading to it claimed its 8000 acres of hills and woods were a wildlife sanctuary. 

    

    As for the  fauna that populate this wildlife sanctuary, the details were left politely unspecified. I can however confirm that not all were feathered, furred or scaled, nor walked on four legs!

     Call it serendipity or clerical error. I somehow found myself selected. An outcome entirely baffling to me I assure you.  Thus it came to be that on a warm summer day in June 1989, an anxious, apprehensive 18-year-old found himself reporting to the reception counter set up at Pune Railway Station for fresher cadets joining the NDA.  A forbidding looking swarthy heavily moustached giant of a man in the olive-green uniform of the Indian Army presided over this desk.  Add to these attributes a towering presence combined with a voice that suggested a regular diet of high quality iron nails, and it seemed to me that this man would need neither a dab of makeup nor an audition to stroll onto the sets of the TV serial 'Ramayan'  that graced Doordarshan in those halcyon days for a role as 'Ravana'. I was soon to learn that this fearsome specimen was not unique. There were others with such menacing aesthetics at The NDA, and these were known as 'Drill Ustaads' (instructors). The ability to reduce young men to quivering wrecks with with their red sashes, whistles, canes and barked commands was a common talent that all of them possessed. I believe the US Army calls their counterparts - drill sergeants.This particular exemplar of that fearsome fraternity bore the name: Havildar Valmiki Yadav.

With time, my opinion of them was to change. Beneath that granite exterior lay hearts of 24-carat gold. These formidable gentlemen , it turned out, were fiercely proud of their noble calling: to take fresh-faced lads - some scarcely detached from their mothers’ apron strings - and transform them, through a mystifying blend of yelling, marching, and theatrical rage, into officers fit to lead one of the finest militaries on the Planet. It was a task, they performed with a sort of brutal affection, like blacksmiths who secretly adored the swords they forged in blazing furnaces and hammered into shape on anvils.

We first-termers were carted off to  a place called the ‘NDA Wing', a sort of holding area where the first six months of training were to be endured at a place called Ghorpuri,  a few kilometres shy of the NDA at Khadakwasla which was the real deal. The idea was to ease us into the rigours of Academy life. A sort of pre-heating before the roast. This was unlike the present day when cadets, presumably made of sterner stuff than we were proceed directly to the Khadakwasla campus.

The first ritual for a new entrant to the Armed Forces is always the haircut. One watched with incredulity and resignation as one's carefully cultivated and coiffeured 'civilian' locks of hair fell to the barber's scissors going snip-snip and shears which in no time at all turn one's head into an half-shorn coconut (I, alas, have never had anything more luxurious than a close cropped buzz-cut adorn my nut ever since).

And then, after a tea break - with snacks and mercifully free of shouting - we were informed, much to our surprise, that a Hindi movie would be screened that evening in the open-air theatre beside the drill square. This, we were told, was for “orientation purposes,” - though what precisely we were being oriented towards remained a mystery.

We were herded to the open-air theatre in a line - ‘raw’ civilians, still blissfully ignorant of how to march. Excited, homesick, and curious all at once, we chattered like schoolkids. The air fairly crackled with nervous energy - the sort you get when no one’s quite sure of where things are really headed for.

“So far, so good,” I told myself. Hot patties over evening tea, and now a movie show. If the NDA kept this up, I’d manage just fine. All those grim tales about how tough this place was must have been exaggerated. Alas, I was soon to realise that the ancient Greeks were spot on when they asserted that hubris precedes nemesis.

The movie, as it turned out, was a military flick titled Dahleez, starring Raj Babbar and Jackie Shroff. Dahleez is Hindi/Urdu for 'threshold'. It seems a rather  pointy choice in retrospect. One couldn't help but wonder if its selection was symbolic, marking our own hesitant steps across the threshold into a world from which there would be no easy turning back.

And then, cutting through the hum of conversation, a voice suddenly boomed:
“Yeh cadet baatcheet kyon kar rahen hai?”
(Why are these cadets talking?)

It was Havildar Valmiki Yadav - his moustache acting as a bull-horn.

“Abhi fauj mein aaye ho, sabko civilian se fauji banane ka kaam kal se shuru hona tha par ab halat dekhkar lagta hain aaj se hi karna padega”

("Welcome to the Army, gentlemen. Civilian-to-soldier conversion was scheduled to commence tomorrow, but seeing this sorry parade, we’re kicking off the repairs right now!").

"Sabhi drill square mein fall in. NOW!"
(“All of you, fall in on the drill square. Now!”)

That evening we learnt a lot. We learnt what ‘front-rolls’ meant, what ‘haunching’ was, what a ‘fireman’s lift’ involved - and how it felt to be bone-tired, sweaty, and grimy after two hours of all of the above on the drill square.

To this day, I couldn’t tell you what happens in the movie Dahleez after the opening credits.

As thresholds go, my real Dahleez wasn’t on the screen - it was the one marked with sweat stains on the drill square that evening!

WHAM, WELDS, AND A ROAR: A TIGER TALE FROM NAGALAND

 

     You might raise an eyebrow, dear reader – or possibly both - if I  claimed to have come within close range of a royal Bengal tiger in Nagaland. Near enough for the big cat to have rearranged my anatomy creatively. Nagaland, after all isn’t known to be tiger country - at least not in the way places like The Sundarbans, Bandhavgarh, Kanha, or Corbett are. But hold on. I am perhaps getting ahead of myself. So allow me to start at the very beginning and explain how I, ended up well within the ‘oh no’ zone of four hundred pounds of striped feline - every pound in a thoroughly foul temper..

      At the time, I was loaned out by the Indian Army to the Assam Rifles and found myself commanding the largest engineering support unit in the force – a jolly bunch of chaps with spanners for fingers, welding arcs in their hearts and eyes that could pick out a faulty transistor from a sea of them on an inscrutable silicon wafer. The unit headquarters was in Dimapur, the most important commercial and transport hub of Nagaland. One weekend, I was on a quiet, off-duty visit to the Dimapur Zoo - the sort of outing where one expects to see monkeys, bored peacocks and perhaps slurp through ice-cream while at it. What I hadn’t counted on was encountering Obed Bohovi Swu, the Zoo Director.

     Obed, seemed to be on his routine rounds - doing whatever inscrutable things zoo directors do when on rounds which are routine. No sooner had he set eyes on me than he appeared to recognise, with the instincts of a seasoned naturalist, that here was a distinctly non-native species in his zoo. He ambled over with the mild curiosity of a cat discovering a new goldfish bowl on the teapoy. Once introductions had been dispensed with, he graciously appointed himself my guide to the zoo. He was, as I discovered, a sharp, affable man with a challenge on his hands.  One that lay squarely at the crossroads of veterinary care, metal fabrication, and zoo administration.

     A gleam of hope lit up his eyes when I let it slip that my unit had fabrication capabilities. With quiet astuteness, he asked if we could help design and build what he breezily called a “squeeze cage” for the zoo. The term squeeze cage sounded vaguely sinister to me and sent a shiver down my spine. It was reminiscent of the "Scavenger’s Daughter", a medieval torture device I’d once read about. Mercifully clarification was soon made that he meant a contraption used to administer injections to large animals of the particularly vengeful kind without requiring veterinary volunteers of exceptional bravery or suicidal temperaments.

     Think of it as a glorified vet’s chamber - except with steel bars, bolts, and absolutely no patient cooperation. The idea is simple: the animal walks in, one side of the cage moves inward, gently pinning it against the other side, and voilà,  the vet gets a safe shot at the job. Try getting a tiger to roll up its sleeve otherwise.

     WHAM (Winning Hearts and Minds) projects counted for a huge deal with the Assam Rifles - a counterinsurgency force ever eager to get into the good books of the local citizenry and here was this little caper presenting itself as the perfect opportunity to twiddle the right knobs at headquarters and pocket a few of those ever-elusive brownie points. A cage for the zoo, goodwill for the force, and no insurgents involved. What’s not to like?

    Except Obed, bless his ambitious soul wanted a fancier version, a cage with two adjacent movable sides. The cage had to be collapsible along two horizontal axes at right angles to each other. This simple requirement turned it from an ordinary fabrication job into a bit of an engineering brain teaser.

Obed’s guided tour had included an introduction to the zoo’s latest VIPs - Royal Bengal tigers named Mani and Karthika, recently relocated from the Thiruvananthapuram Zoo in Kerala. These majestic fang-wielders, along with some other bearish, wolfish and boarish fellows, would be the primary beneficiaries of the squeeze cage.

Many rounds of brainstorming with my welding boys, and we cracked it. The design was prepared. Not, I might add, with any of your fancy AutoCAD software, but with an empty matchbox. The humble matchbox commissioned into service as a scale model acquitted itself with honour and aplomb. Once Obed and his zookeeper team gave the design an approving nod, the pièce de resistance was ready just in time for a grand New Year’s Day handover in 2018, complete with a neat little plaque that read in noble script:

"A gift from the Sentinels of the North East to the People of Nagaland"

The handing over ceremony done and dusted, all with beaming photographs and a press release from Obed, the squeeze cage was wheeled into a holding area right behind the tiger enclosure —separated from the stripey inhabitants by iron bars. Now, let me reassure you, we were perfectly safe. Those bars were sturdy enough to hold off both curiosity and claw.
Or so we thought. We stood chatting in the holding area in the self-congratulatory manner of men who have wrestled steel into submission, admiring our handywork, our backs to Mani and Karthika who last we checked appeared to be watching the proceedings through the bars with the interest of a bored housecat contemplating a particularly dull and slow-turning ceiling fan. All of a sudden, a loud sound shattered the ambience. Not the kind that one might mistake for an overenthusiastic thunderbolt but something with distinct primal authority.

My mind blanked. Instinct took over. I spun around and there it was.

One of the tigers - my brain far too numb to file an identity - was on its hind legs, reared up against the bars, towering above me like an ill-tempered battle tank on tip-toe. Its face a mere three feet above me, its breath hot and foul, seemed to envelop me.  Not content with the opening performance, it followed up the roar with loud growls that rattled the bones inside my chest and sent shudders into my trousers. For a split second, I was convinced I was about to become a footnote in the zoo’s incident log. As I stared into its canines, a good four inches long, I genuinely believed I was staring into the last thing I’d ever see.

Then reason returned and I silently thanked the workman who had put those bars there, still solid holding off 200 Kilograms of angry muscle, teeth and claws with serious views about trespassers on its territory.

Unfortunately, my knees hadn’t got the memo. They were still very much shivering, threatening to give way under me.

I slowly turned back around to glance at my team of weldboys. They were frozen, wide-eyed and looked like lizards were crawling up their legs. And then a look at the zookeepers expecting signs of alarm. 

Nothing… 

One was picking his teeth, another stifling a yawn. Obed was paying as much attention to the angry feline as a seasoned flyer would to the safety demonstration. Business as usual for them. Just another tiger doing its daily sound check.

Thankfully, our driver had waited by our Gypsy outside the zoo and wasn’t afflicted by the post-traumatic stress disorder that we were suffering from. He could be counted on to take us back safely though he must have wondered why the vehicle seemed to be affected by a certain curious vibration. I am certain that none of us at that moment could have  even rolled a wheelbarrow safely down the road if it were arrow-straight, had safety rails, and was padded with bubble wrap.

The Night a woman fought without a gun

 This was written at an airport on Women’s Day, 08 March 2025, when I had plenty of time to kill. An announcement over the PA system, lauding the stronger gender, stirred old memories—memories that may or may not have played out exactly as I recall them. But they seemed fitting for the occasion.

Kashmir, winter of 1994.

The valley was a frozen silence.

Our unit, a Gorkha battalion, had been operating in the sector for months, hunting down a particularly vicious tanzeem responsible for a series of brutal ambushes. Intelligence had been scarce, leads unreliable—until one of them was captured alive.

The capture itself was unremarkable. A routine night cordon in a village, a slip-up by the hostile, and a swift, professional takedown. But this one was no ordinary foot soldier. He had rank. He had knowledge—routes, safe houses, names. Yet, as he was brought to the battalion headquarters for interrogation, there was defiance in his eyes. He wasn’t going to talk.

Major R, a hardened veteran, had seen that look before. He wasn’t one for patience. Experience had taught him that men like this rarely cooperated, and when they did, it was mostly lies. As the prisoner sat there, silent, staring back with cold detachment, something in Maj R snapped.

"You think we have time for this?" he muttered, drawing his 9mm Browning pistol. "One less rat to deal with."

He wasn’t bluffing. In the unforgiving reality of counterterrorism, hesitation could mean another attack, another dead patrol. His logic was brutal, though not entirely irrational. I, a Second Lieutenant at the time, held my tongue. Subalterns didn’t question field officers’ decisions.

That was when Second Lieutenant T stepped in.

She wasn’t from our unit—just on attachment from the Corps of EME. A woman officer, a rarity in our sector at the time. She wasn’t naive; she understood the stakes. But she also believed in the power of information, in intelligence over impulse.

"Sir," she said, her voice steady in a way mine was not. "Give me a chance. Let me try."

Major R looked at her, his frustration clear. A subaltern—an attached officer, no less—suggesting she could succeed where he could not? But something held him back. He holstered his weapon.

"Fine," he said. "You have one night. If he doesn’t talk, he isn't wasting space here."

No one expected much. But as the night wore on, something changed. My men and I watched her work on the prisoner.

She didn’t beat him. She didn’t threaten him. She talked. Patiently, persistently. She found cracks in his armor, appealed to his survival instincts, played on the very thing that had kept him alive so far—his ability to adapt.

By dawn, he had started to talk.

By the end of the week, we had everything we needed—locations, hideouts, names of overground workers.

Over the next two months, the tanzeem that had plagued the sector for years was systematically dismantled. Raids, arrests, and a few decisive encounters wiped it out. What had seemed like just another nameless, faceless insurgent turned out to be the thread that unraveled an entire network.

Major R never spoke of that night again, but we all knew—if not for that one moment, that one intervention, the story would have ended differently.

And so, in the dead of a Kashmiri winter, a terrorist was spared—not out of mercy, but because a woman had the foresight to see that sometimes the greatest weapons aren’t bullets. They are words.

(Disclaimer: The events in this story happened as described—except, of course, for those that didn’t.)

Our Clean House

 Our house is now neat and clean,
No toys or books scattered seen,

Not an unmade bed, not a misplaced pillow,
No lights are left on and allowed to glow,

No banging door, No muddy feet on the floor,
No tantrums, nor arguments anymore,

No screams, No yells, 
A nest where no nestlings dwell,

A family that's journeyed far and wide,
Weathered storms often a rough ride,

A journey of an  era,
From Ambala to Naushera, 

From Jodhpur to Ranchi,

Often happy, sometimes antsy,

To Bathinda from Dimapur

And yet each place a new adventure 

Dimapur from Secunderabad
Leaving old stations was sad

For postings to field

Hearts were steeled

School admissions, a recurring battle,

Challenges that tested our mettle,

Prepping for school, mornings in a toss,
School-bus scrambles, always chaos,

Yet we never came undone 

Through it all, we had our share of fun.

Trekking, Camping out living in tents,

Sports and fancy dress events,

Teenage tantrums, a rocky ride,
Worry over grades, emotions at high tide,

Yet through it all, we stood as a team,
Our little girls each chasing their dream,

Their mother a pillar of strength and care,
Bearing the brunt, always willing to share,

Ammuma, Appachi andAppacha whose love fill our sails,
Appuppa not in mortal frame, his love prevails,

The home is empty, but memories endure,
Of challenges faced, of love that's pure,

In each station, a story to be told,
Of a family's resilience, shining bright and bold.

Through this moment with 'wuffs' and 'woofs',
 Ginger's around to cheer on the troops,

Can we ever forget Gypsy and Blossom
Childhood companions awesome,

Though now bereaven
They watch this moment from doggy heaven

Through each station, each change of place,
They stood by our side, with wagging grace,

They too miss the laughter, the playful cheer,
The pitter-patter of feet, in its absence now clear,

From across the rainbow's end, 
 Their simple love they send,

Soar in the sky dear nestlings soar,
With wings of freedom, go on to explore,

Venture far, find your way,
In our hearts, your home will stay.

Fly away, find new lands,
Yet our sanctuary always stands

Go nestlings, chase your dreams,
Over new mountains, follow new streams,

Wherever you go, wherever you roam,
Your family will always be your home.

😊

THE MEDITATION HOAX

 

 

Don't all of us – even if only occasionally – succumb to emotions like irritation, jealousy, sadness, and anxiety?

There are nary many of us who wouldn’t like the power to change the way things are in our life – in the world around us! We labour under the belief that it is the people in our life, the objects we own, and our interactions with them that cause negative emotions that make us unhappy. We all seek happiness. We do not earn money merely to buy the barest necessities of life.  Money, to us, is something that can buy us comforts and luxuries that can bring us 'happiness' – either now or in the future. In short, most of us conceive of 'happiness' as a dividend of external factors – possessions, relationships, and wealth – extant in our lives.

This is paradoxical because most people will agree that all the negative emotions that make us unhappy emanate from the mind. While a great deal of attention and energy is devoted to physical beauty, material wealth, and building and maintaining relationships, the mind receives the least grooming and attention.

 

Meditation exists in myriad flavours – each with its technique but all with a common underlying concept. All seek to bring the mind to a single-pointed focus – to stabilise the unstable mind. Such a stable, controlled mind can then be caused to generate controlled thought processes. The individual who was a victim of her/his moods now emerges as their controller.

 

Easier said than done!

Indeed anyone who begins to meditate quickly realises that it is difficult to keep the mind focussed on anything – a form, a name, an object, a sound, the breath – the mind seems to slip away unnoticed, repeatedly, and frustratingly! Sitting down with the eyes closed for even 30 minutes turns out to be far more difficult than it would appear to be to someone who has never tried it. Keeping the mind focussed for even a brief period turns out to be well nigh impossible!

      Daniel Goleman in his book The Varieties Of The Meditative Experience (1977) examines twelve different types of meditative practices – including Sufism and Jewish Kabbalah. There are many more. The spectrum ranges from pop meditations involving visualization or meditation music to intense and serious practices like Vipassana and Kundalini Yoga which need years of sustained effort. Visualisation meditation, meditation music, and other techniques that are available on online platforms like YouTube and Spotify have undeniable benefits. They can reduce stress levels. They bestow a certain sense of peace and calm. They do not demand a great investment of time nor a high level of commitment and can be practised almost anywhere and at any time. And yet, these rarely make any deep impact on one's mind. The calmness and positivity felt barely outlast the period of the meditation practice. The mind stays uncured of its deeper malaises.

 

It is intuitive for human beings to expect great rewards at the end of great efforts. The few who do attempt to get into intense meditation practices - especially those of South-East Asian origins like Vishuddimagga, Kundalini Yoga, or Vipassana - sometimes do so in expectation of states of transcendental bliss, rapture, ethereal experiences, or special powers. A persistent meditator may indeed experience any or all of these as the practice progresses. Yet, it would be a serious mistake to consider these extraordinary experiences as the goal of meditation. It is these experiences that make up the meditation hoax.  They amplify the craving for pleasurable experiences leading to discontentment

 

The state of the meditator who loses himself in the enjoyment of the extraordinary experiences has been symbolically expressed in the mythological story of Sage Vishwamitra who gives up his penance distracted by the charms of the celestial nymph Menaka. The perception of these experiences as 'good' is something that the meditator needs to overcome if he has to arrive at the goal of developing lasting equanimity that gives peace.

Meditation is a hoax if one expects it to bring anything extraordinary. If anything, it should make one content with being ordinary and should rid one of the craving to be extraordinary!

Gulbar

 That evening, Gulbar Choudhary stood firmly in my way in the foyer of the unit officers’ mess. The expression on his face carried an expression of apology tinged with mild amusement. Yet there was no malice.

As the senior steward of the officers’ mess, Gulbar was the oldest member of the officers' mess staff. Gulbar, Hailing from Bihar, he had mastered Nepali, the language that was the very essence of the Gorkha regiments.  He possessed an unrivalled knowledge of the history of each piece of silver that adorned the anteroom and was an authority on the enigmatic realm of 'mess etiquettes’. Three young officers resided in the single officers’ quarters -  an annexe to the officers’ mess - at that time, of which I, the juniormost held the rank of second lieutenant.

 

“Maaf garnuhos sahab" he gently chided, his voice dripping with Nepali finesse, "tara hazurle afsar meys ko lagi uchit dress lagaunu bhayeko chhaina”. My proficiency in the Nepali language deserved no more than a ‘beginner’ rating at the time. Nonetheless, but I picked up the operative words ‘afsar meys’(officers’ mess), ‘uchit’(correct), ‘dreys' (dress), and ‘chhaina’ (not).  My attire - a t-shirt, shorts, and slippers hardly befitted officers' mess etiquette. Entering the mess dressed like that would have been a sacrilegous act, second, only to appearing on parade unshaven! Had any one of the senior officers been present, I would have never dared to such a venture. As it happened on that day, both of them were away, leading me to believe that I held dominion over the mess for the day. I hadn’t reckoned with Gulbar Choudhary. Little had I realised that he would swiftly shatter my illusion. There he stood politely admonishing me for my dress (or undress). The portraits of past commanding officers of the unit that lined the foyer seemed to scowl down at me disapprovingly. Shame washed over me for I had committed the grave offense of violating the sanctity of the premises of the First Battalion of The Ninth Gorkha Rifles Officers' mess with my scruffy attire.

Gulbar was a master of the art of humble confidence. Many officers had come and gone and had been served by Gulbar's capable hands over the two and an half decades that he had been in the mess. I later discovered that  I need not have been unduly contrite over my misdemeanor. I was not the first officer that Gulbar had thus ‘groomed’ in mess etiquettes. Nor was I the last to be checked by him. My redemption came about when Gulbar once dared to counter the commanding officer (a virtual demi-god in an army unit). I shall now narrate this singular episode.

         It so happened once that, a dinner party was hosted by the Brigade Commander. I do not recall the exact occasion, but for some reason, the party was held at our unit officers' mess rather than at the Brigade HQ officers' mess. As the Commander and our unit commanding officer(CO) stood together chatting, Gulbar appeared with their respective drinks in crystal glasses on a silver tray. He offered the tray to the commanding officer first. The Commander was the senior officer of the two and the protocol normally would have been for him to be offered a drink first. The CO furtively gestured with his eyes to indicate as much to  Gulbar. After the Brigade Commander and the other guests had departed, Gulbar was summoned by the furious CO. The CO - who preferred Hindi to the regimental language Nepali - went all guns blazing as soon as Gulbar was in range, “Gulbar tum meri Naukri kharab kar doge kya?” (Gulbar, are you bent upon ruining my career?)” Gulbar standing to savdhan but nonetheless calm and confident, the trademark twinkle never leaving his eyes spoke, “Aapki Naukri kaun kharab kar sakta hain sahab? Aap toh CO sahab ho” (who can ruin your career sir? You are the CO). The officers watched with bated breath. Gulbar had surely gone too far this time. Yet curiosity seemed to have gotten the better of the CO’s fury. To his questioning glare Gulbar went on to expound “Sahab party brigade commander sahab le dinu bha thiyo. Hazur party ma guest hunhunthio. Guest lai pahila drink dinu parchha” (Sir, the brigade commander was hosting the party and you were his guest). Gulbar’s logic was right on the button and the CO burst out laughing. That was the quintessential Gulbar - polite, smiling, and yet outspoken.

         For all his candour, Gulbar had a soft heart. There was the occasion of my dining-in party when I had newly joined the battalion as a young wet-behind-the-ears second lieutenant fresh from the Indian Military Academy. I must explain for those uninitiated in military customs that 'dining-in' is a formal welcome accorded to a newly posted officer to the officers' mess. Just as I had got dressed and was ready to leave my room, a knock sounded on my door. I found Gulbar there with a little covered bowl and the hint of a smile in his eyes. “Yo  khanuhos sahab” (Please eat this sir). In the bowl was a small blob of butter. I must have looked puzzled – as I indeed was. Was this some kind of unit tradition that I wasn’t told about? Gulbar said that the butter would slow down the effects of alcohol – which of course, did nothing to explain anything as far as I was concerned. I was a teetotaller. Running behind time and not wanting to be late, I did as he said. I gulped down the butter - more to get him out of my way than anything else. I wasn’t quite prepared for what awaited me when I arrived at the officers’ mess.

A huge silver cup with a concoction in it. This cup was over a century old and had been presented to the unit by an erstwhile British monarch in the pre-independence era.   The cup contained, I was told, a cocktail of nine alcoholic beverages – the 'nine' being significant for the Ninth Gorkha Rifles. Tradition had it that a newly-commissioned officer needed to ‘prove his mettle’ by ingesting this liquid without separating the cup from his lips. The blob of butter now made sense. Gulbar had tried to fortify me from being ‘hit’ by this halahala. Of course, it only slowed down the rate at which I got drunk that night – as I eventually did before throwing up and passing out.

Gulbar was retiring from the Army. I, like the rest of the officers in the unit, had really grown fond of him.. We invited him to cocktails at the officers’ mess. This was not as per protocol but what the heck! We wanted to do something special for him. We received him, and after he was seated, served him drinks and snacks ourselves. On that day, he was a guest in the officers’ mess where he had served for years. His eyes were moist – as our hearts were heavy.

 

The officers' mess would miss its mascot!

 

The Crime

The Brigade Commander ('The Commander' in Army lingo) gazed at me with an expression that was a mix of irritation and curiosity.

Standing to savdhan in The Commander's office my mind went into flashback for a moment.

On that day three months back . . .

Subedar Munshiram, the senior JCO had the air of a Socrates at his The 'Eureka' moment.

 "Sahab surplus ration ration apne phamily member ko sale karke jo paisa aayega usse mixie le lete hain"

(Sir, let's sell the surplus ration to our 'family members' and buy a mixie with the proceeds).

A 'mixer-grinder' in the cook-house had been a long standing demand from the men. Indeed, I completely endorsed the requirement. The problem was - our monthly allocation of regimental fund from the HQ was barely enough to make ends meet in the sub-unit. A mixer-grinder would cost Rupees 1200 (a small fortune in 2002) and that we did not have. I would have to requisition The HQ for a special allocation for the 'mixie'.

After all the troops of my tiny sub-unit were as much entitled to  their Idlis and Dosas as M Karunanidhi. P Chidambaram  or Amma were to theirs, no?

 I would show my men that their new kaptaan sahib was a real go-getter.

 A noting sheet to HQ complete with 'Background of the case', 'Proposal', 'Justification' and 'Financial effect' employing my best military writing skills was promptly drafted and despatched to HQ. 

As a young captain placed in command of a little detachment of sixty men, I had much to yet learn about military bureaucracy. 

In the three months - that had elapsed since my beautifully drafted noting sheet had first gone to HQ, if there was one thing that soon was clear to me, it was that headquarters have tight purse strings when sub-units ask for funds. The noting sheet had been traversing the channel of Army unit bureaucracy in both directions.

A stream of  'observations' were unleashed by HQ :

"How was the requirement being met so far?"

"How was the cost estimate arrived at?"

"Had a board of officers been constituted to determine the lowest price?"

"Why was the procurement not being done through the CSD?"

"Why had the requirement not been included in the Annual Procurement Plan for Annual Contingency Grant"

It was truly exasperating.

OC would listen to my 'follow-up' phone calls patiently and promise to ". . . do something soon . . . " - which as I learnt soon enough was Army bureaucratese for "I will forget it the moment  you get off the phone"

It was then that Subedar Munshiram, the senior JCO came up with the Eureka idea.

 We had quintals of 'surplus' rice and sugar in the ration store. Our 'family' men (personnel who lived on base with families) would be willing to buy this ration at concessional prices and we could thereby raise the money needed for the mixer-grinder.

I was aware of this surplus that had built up over a period of time. Rations were authorised to all troops as per a certain fixed scale. While the 'family' men took home their authorizations from the ration store, the 'single' mens' rations were collectively issued to the unit cook-house. The quantity of ration that we collected from the supply depot  was as per the scale of rations authorized to each man. An average jawan could not possibly consume all the atta, rice, sugar. dal and refined oil that he was authorised. Thus the accumulation of a surplus of rations that had been charged off the books but had not been actually consumed was inevitable. The rules catered for this eventuality and said that surplus rations should be taken back on ledger charge and less rations drawn to that extent the next month. The problem was that if we did that the local audit officer would demand an explanation for 'not providing the troops with adequate nourishment'.

I was to later discover that such catches-22 abounded in The Army. The auditor who was there to check for correct accounting of government funds and resources did not like it when we followed the rules!!

Munshiram's idea seemed to resolve the conundrum perfectly. Selling off government rations in this manner was 'highly irregular' I knew. Yet there was no ethical dilemma in my mind. What I was doing was 'welfare of troops..." There was no selfish or dishonest motive. Wasn't it my duty to see to their welfare? And after all . . . it was surplus stock . . . not on the books. 

And so the deed was done ... the rations sold and the mixer-grinder purchased! And I . . . was one self-satisfied officer that day . . . convinced that I had lived up to the second line of the Chetwode Credo inscribed in the oak panelling at the Eastern entrance to The Chetwode Hall at The Indian Military Academy :

"The safety, honour and welfare of your country come first, always and every time

The honour, welfare and comfort of the men you command come next

Your own ease, comfort and safety come last, always and every time."

Days passed without event and then one morning an olive-green Maruti Gypsy drove up to the unit gate. The red plate on the front announced that the vehicle bore The Officer Commanding. With the minimum of security fuss, the vehicle was let in and drove in to pull up in front of the main office building. It Lt Col S____ , The OC who was my immediate boss and Capt A___ , The Administrative officer! I was a bit taken aback because The OC had driven down over 50 Km from his headquarters and it was most unusual for him to be coming on a visit to a sub-unit thus unannounced! The OC cursorily returned my salute and walked past me into my office followed by Capt A. There was a distinct lack of the usual warmth and I could clearly sense that all was most certainly not well.

Sitting across from me, OC extracted a sheet of paper from an envelope and placing it on the desk, motioning to me to read. I picked it up and read.

It was a photocopy of a typed complaint addressed to the Corps Commander alleging that

 " . . . government rations meant for troops were being sold in the unit . . ." 

It was signed  "Bahadur Gumnaam Sipahi"  - (Brave Anonymous Soldier). The oxymoron did strike me but I checked myself from making a tongue-in-cheek remark about the bahadur sipahi who was too scared to put his name down on the complaint. I sensed that OC wasn't in a mood for wisecracks. Bahadur Sipahi went on to allege that Munshiram had pocketed the proceeds of the sale. Looking up I met his stern questioning glance.

 I stalled for a moment to consider what to say, but then found myself blurting out, "This is true Sir. I ordered it. However Munshiram has NOT pocketed anything. I have supervised the entire process and the money has been accounted for"

OC was apparently not expecting a blunt admission of guilt and looked taken aback. 

"Why?" seemed to be the only word he could utter. 

Having regained my composure, I explained the matter and took him to the cook-house to show him the 'mixie'.

After this he appeared somewhat mollified but then said I had to accompany him to The Brigade Commander . The Brigade Commander, Brigadier D____ had been asked by The Corps Commander to investigate the complaint - a 'one-man inquiry'. 

I was asked to wait outside and then  after a while was called in. . . 

The tension was so palpable that one could have cut it with a knife. As I stood at savdhan, Brig D __ , 'The Commander' (Army lingo for 'Brigade Commander') - a bluff man with huge whiskers looked at me.

 " Your OC says that you admit to having given orders for rations to be sold. Is that so?

"Yes Sir, That is so but . . ."

The Commander  cut me short : 

"Yes I know about the mixie and I appreciate the fact that you have owned up. That is what an officer is expected to do. You did not have a dishonest motive. Yet your act is highly irregular to say the least. Couldn't you have pursued the noting sheet for regimental fund to be approved?"

"Yes Sir. I could have but then there was also the problem of the accumulated surplus ration that had to be disposed off."

"Well I think it was a bad decision you took - if it was a question of surplus ration why couldn't you give it away to the 'family' personnel for free?"

Once again I found myself blurting out, "Permission to speak freely to The Commander sir?" The Brigadier nodded and then leaned forwards to listen.

"I beg to disagree that my decision was bad sir. Doing what "

The Brigadier looked visibly miffed "You disagree? Do you realise that you are admitting to have committed a major financial irregularity for which you are liable to be court-martialled?"

Then his expression changing from annoyance to curiosity, "Go on, tell me why you think I am wrong. And you'd better think on your feet son"

"Well Sir. The ration was authorised to the 'single' men. If any benefit accrues from it's sale then it is the 'single' men who should get it. Giving away the rations would have amounted to transferring the benefit of the 'single' men's rations to the 'family' men."

The Commander seemed to be mulling over this for a few seconds as he stared me in the eye. I knew I had crossed the barbed wire into the minefield and in all probability had stepped on a live mine. I braced for the mine to explode.

The Commander turned to The OC, his expression inscrutable "Who do you think is right 

S- ? I or this young man"

The OC looked decidedly uncomfortable and was definitely wishing that The Commander's attentions would be bestowed back on me. Without waiting for an answer The Commander turned to me. He stared at me for a long moment and then burst out into a booming laugh.

"Sit down son" he said in an amiable tone, motioning to the chair next to The OC's. It was my turn to be taken aback. I had been preparing for the worst.

"Listen Raja Harishchandraji . . . " continued The Commander looking at me with most of the merriness still on his face.

"I am giving a written report to The Corps Commander that I have investigated the complaint and found no evidence of substance in it, It is an anonymous complaint and as per regulations no formal action is compulsorily mandated on such complaints. The matter therefore will die after I submit my report. "

"But before I do that I must be sure that you will not be a little less honest if you are asked about this by anyone else. No sale of rations ever took place in your sub-unit. Do you agree?" The Commander had an amused expression on his face.

"Nothing like that ever happened Sir" I replied. 

I had told The OC and The Commander the truth. If The Commander desired me to deny it who was I - a lowly Captain to overrule him??

A flood in my heart

The various posts on the Kerala floods, the experiences and inspirational anecdotes , remind me of my own experience  leading an Army  column in the Tamil Nadu floods of 2015.

My column was airlifted from Begumpet Airfield, Secunderabad and landed at Arakkonam Naval Airbase since (Meenambakkam (Chennai) was non ops due to flooding.

The behemoth that flew us to the mission - C-17 Globemaster

        Into the insides of the monster

                                           
                                         

My first flight in a US made IAF aircraft. Found them better than the Russian ones

This monster has a large belly

We operated for 24 days in all - 02 days in Chennai and the rest of the 22 days in Cuddalore District.

Kasi Theatre Area - Chennai

Zaffarkhanpet - Chennai

Briefing

After the rage of nature and the fury of the water had subsided and rescue ops were over we stayed on for relief ops - helping the district administration to get food/water units and medical aid to people in affected areas.

A captive ferry operation across Gadilam river(Cuddalore)

My medical team were real rockstars working tirelessly 

for 9 to 10 hours on end wading through waist deep water

Unloading relief material 

The sights were heart-rending, people were devastated. Pukka houses were standing but their contents had been ruined completely and the morale of their inhabitants shattered. Worse was the condition of those who lived in huts and kaccha mud houses. They no longer had houses. 

The only inhabitants in some houses were dead bodies.

 House inundated in Villupuram, Cuddalore

  Kaccha huts - The Poorest lost all they had

                                            

Children had skin infection ulcers due to prolonged exposure to infected waters

I had a difficult time feeding the troops because we had to find locations away from the eyes of the half-fed people in the villages to have our own food. We didn't even feel like eating , but it was important to force troops to eat to keep their strength up. 

Lunch break

I saw both the best as well as worst of human nature on display.

On one hand we had enthusiastic student volunteers who had harnessed the power of social media and got tons of relief material pouring in from all over the Country. There were young doctors who would plead to be allowed to be accompany my relief teams. There were common villagers who showed great initiative, selflessness and courage in helping others.

Enthusiastic young doctors

                                                        

On the other hand, there were political goons who would commandeer relief material  sent by individuals and organisations from across the Country and abroad leaving in trucks from Cuddalore Port. The perishables in these would be distributed selectively in certain constituencies to secure vote banks. The durables like bedsheets, clothes etc would go to their godowns to be used  in election season. In other places there were miscreants busy looting houses abandoned by those shifted to relief camps.

Later, back at 1 EME  Centre, Secunderabad, I  was asked to draft citations for the entire team.

 I did so - for the members of my team.

As for myself, I had already got my reward

.

.

.

.

. . . When in some of the villages people lined up to clap when the vehicles of my column  passed through while we were de-inducting back to Chennai. The love and appreciation I saw in those eyes were ample reward for me . . .

I may not wear that reward on my chest but I carry it in my heart. 🙏