MAJ SHAITAN SINGH - 1962

BRAVE PVC STORIES (1962) - MAJOR SHAITAN SINGH
It is February 1963.

A few months after the war with China is over, a Ladakhi shepherd grazing his herd in no-man’s land finds his way to Rezang La in Chushul, quite by chance. The destroyed bunkers, empty shells and used gun Cartridges scattered around tell him that he has stumbled upon the location of conflict. And then he notices the bodies.

These are of dead soldiers in uniform, some still holding their weapons, faces twisted in pain. The extreme cold has preserved them in the moment that death claimed them. Their vacant eyes stare across space and time, a mute witness to their dying moments. These dead men speak of the terrible carnage that befell them. Speechless with horror, the shepherd runs down and informs the closest Indian Army picket.

JADUNATH SINGH - 1948

BRAVE PVC STORIES - Jadunath Singh
Tain Dhar, Kashmir
6 February 1948

Dawn has not broken, but all signs indicate it is going to be a cold and grey February morning. There is frost on the grass, masking the green with translucent white fluff. A swirling mist swept in through the night and a dense fog still hangs over the slopes of Tain Dhar Ridge, where the ten men of 9 Platoon, C Company, of1 Rajput battalion, sit guarding picket Number 2. They have just finished making tea in silence and are now, over steaming enamel mugs of the milk powdersweetened brew, exchanging their concerns with each other in hoarse whispers, their voices still gruff from another endless, stressful night.

CAPT SALARIA (UN)

BRAVE  PVC STORIES  (UN)  -  Capt Gurbachan Singh Salaria
Elizabethville, Katanga
5 December 1961, 1.12p.m.

Sixteen small, slim Gorkha soldiers stand quietly in the shrubbery, their olive green combats blending in. In their hands they hold their. 303 rifles and between their teeth, their khukris, blades glinting dangerously in the afternoon sun.

The soldiers are still1500 yards from Roundabout, the location they have been ordered to close in on. They were to approach from the airport side, along with a troop ofSwedish armoured personnel carriers, and block the gendarmerie’s withdrawal route. However, they had run into an ambush and now have enemy fire coming at them from a subsidiary location. Just a little way ahead stand the

  

PAWAN PARAMESWARAN - IPKF

OPERATION PAWAN -   1 9 8 7 -9 0  (IPKF)
IPKF - SRI LANKA

The strained relations between the Sinhalese, in a majority in Sri Lanka, and the Tamils, who constitute less than 20 per cent of the population, was the reason for the Sri Lanka crisis. In the 1970s, the Tamil United Liberation Force, a separatist Tamil nationalist group, started demanding a separate state of Tamil Eelam that would give the Tamilians more autonomy. When all peaceful initiatives failed they resorted to violence.

KARAM SINGH - 1948

BRAVE PVC STORIES - 1948
Karam Singh 
Richhmar Gali, Kashmir
13 October 1948

The Sikh soldier peering out of the trench looks worried. ‘Dushman nedhe si. Assi tinn see, tey chautha tu—hun kee kariye?’ (The enemy has come close. We are just three, and you are the fourth—what do we do?) he whispers to his section commander Lance Naik Karam Singh, who is standing beside him, still and ramrod straight. Karam Singh is a handsome Sikh, more than six feet tall. A proud upturned moustache and dark beard lend him a dark, brooding appearance. He is holding a. 303 rifle. His trousers are soaked with blood from the injuries he has been subjected to in the earlier gunfight. He and his men have been able to beat back the first attack from the Pakistanis,

  

SUB MAJ BANA SINGH - SIACHIN

BRAVE PVC STORIES (SIACHIN) - Bana Singh

In the tiny village of Kadyal near Jammu, in a small house surrounded by mustard fields, an old Sikh gets up at 4. 30 every morning. He has a big glass of chai before heading to the neighbourhood gurudwara for ardaas (prayers), returning only at 8 a. m.

After a hearty breakfast of makke ki roti and sarson ka saag, he takes out his tractor and heads for the fields. It is the same routine through the year—the only thing that changes, with the seasons, is the crop: wheat in winter, sugar cane in summer, rice in the monsoon.

BRAVE - RACHNA BISHT

PVC STORIES INDIAN ARMED FORCES
THE BRAVE (ABOUT HER BOOK)

Rachna Bisht Rawat is a journalist, writer, mom to a precocious 12-year old, and gypsy wife to an Army officer whose work has taken the Rawats to some of the quirkiest places in India.

You can reach her at  www.rachnabisht.com  Rachna is a 2005 Harry Brittain fellow and winner of the 2006 Commonwealth Press Quarterly’s Rolls Royce Award. Her first story, ‘Munni Mausi’, was Highly Commended in the 2008-09 Commonwealth Short Story Competition. This is her first book.

KARGIL MANOJ PANDEY

BRAVE PVC STORIES  - THE KARGIL WAR 1999

Of all the wars India fought none caught the imagination of the people as much as Kargil. This was the first war fought with constant media coverage. Indians until now obsessed with film stars got to see for the first time what real heroes looked like as television sets beamed right into our bedrooms images of armed soldiers and gritty young officers bravely climbing the peaks of Tiger Hill and Dras to flush out crafty intruders.

The Tricolor was eventually unfurled on every peak but many of these brave men never returned from the war. We were left with images of coffins being saluted and parents, spouses and little children weeping quietly at funerals that made every Indian realize the terrible loss that every conflict results in. Attacks were launched at heights above 15, 000 feet in subzero temperatures.

SUB JOGINDER SINGH 1962

BRAVE PVC STORIES  -  Joginder Singh

About 45 km from Bathinda, across the lush green fields that are ripe with wheat, is a small village called Chehalanwalan. There in a large brick house is an eclectic mix of people and things: a shiny tractor, a lovingly polished Gypsy, an old cell phone with a loud Bollywood ringtone, a couple of noisily bleating goats, sour lassi, and an old bent Biji (grandmother) with a toothless smile.

This is a joint family of many and at their head is 81-year- old Subedar Kala Singh, who retired from the Army more than 30 years ago. The proud sardar, who stands tall in his white pathan suit, doesn’t wear the olive green uniform anymore. Yet, no one would doubt that he is a soldier. He is one of the three men who came back alive from the battle of Tongpen La, near Bum La, Tawang, in the North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA) in 1962.

MAJ HOSHIAR SINGH 1971

BRAVE - PVC STORIES (1962 WAR)
Major Hoshiar Singh
Basantar Nala, Shakargarh Sector, Pakistan
15-16 December 1971

It is a chilly winter night. Across the shadowy sugar cane and wheat fields that the soldiers of 3 Grenadiers have already crossed flows the Basantar Nala. The water is not in spate and has taken on a gentle, white glow in the moonlight. Looking at its sublime stillness, one cannot guess just how frigid it is. Only after one dips the foot in and the wetness seeps into leather boots and socks, pricking the soles like hundreds of sharp needles does one realize it.

The 120-plus men of Charlie Company (led by Major Hoshiar Singh) and the 120

ALBERT EKKA -1971

THE INDO-PAK WAR OF 1971  -  BRAVE PVC STORIES
The Indo-Pak War of 1971 was brought on by the Bangladesh’s struggle for independence.

In 1970, elections were held in Pakistan. The Awami League won 167 out of 169 seats in East Pakistan and a simple majority in the 313-seat lower house of the Parliament of Pakistan. However when Sheikh Mujibur Rahman staked claims to forming the government, then West Pakistan’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leader Zulfikar Ali Bhutto refused to yield the prime ministership to him and President Yahya Khan called the military to crush the resulting protests in East Pakistan.

CQM ABDUL HAMID - 1965

SECOND KASHMIR WAR OF 1 9 6 5

The 1965 conflict is also known as the Second Kashmir War. The First War was fought in 1947-48.
One of the repercussions of the setback in 1962 war was that Pakistan felt India was weak militarily and that the timing was perfect for another bid to take over Kashmir. The Indian morale was low after facing the adverses in Sino- Indian War; the economy was stumbling, Jawaharlal Nehru had died and the next Indian prime Minister, Lal Bahadur Shastri, did not have his predecessor’s charisma. Pakistan, on the other hand, was confident with US aid at its disposal. This included 200

LT COL AB TARAPORE 1965

BRAVE PVC STORIES (1965) - 
Ardeshir Burzorji Tarapore

The first time her father did not come back home, leaving the family very worried, Lieutenant Colonel Adi Tarapore’s daughter Zarine was just 15. She could feel her mother’s anxiety from the way she paced up and down the house. And she kept doing that till he came back.

The second time Lt Col Tarapore did not come back home, well, he just never did. No amount of worrying or praying or pacing could bring him back this time because the 1965 war had claimed him. Zarine Mahir Boyce is now in her 60s and it has been nearly fifty years since her father Param Vir Chakra (PVC) Lt Col Ardeshir Burzorji Tarapore, died but memories of him are still fresh in her

  

NIRMAL JIT SINGH SEKHON 1971

BRAVE PVC STORIES (1971 OPS SRINAGAR) 
Flying Officer Nirmal Jit Singh Sekhon
Srinagar
14 December 1971

It is another freezing morning at the Srinagar air force base. And who would know the bone-chilling cold better than the 26-year- old, tall and lanky Flying Officer Nirmal Jit Singh Sekhon, with the crisp upturned moustache, and Flight Lieutenant Baldhir Singh Ghuman, both of whom have got there at 4. 30 a. m. in a bus with most of its windowpanes missing. The 45-minute ride from Badami Bagh officers’ mess, where they live in dingy, dimly lit rooms, to the airbase has made their teeth chatter and nearly frozen their joints but for the pilots of 18 Squadron (Flying Bullets), this is routine. Those on morning shift have to get to the base

YOGENDER SINGH YADAV KARGIL

BRAVE PVC STORIES (KARGIL)
Yogender Singh Yadav

Grenadier Yogender Singh Yadav was lying in a pile of bodies. Around him lay his comrades, all six of them, brutally killed. Their fingers had been ripped off, limbs torn out of their bodies, legs twisted grotesquely under their torsos, heads smashed beyond recognition. War is terrible. It reduces breathing, living, brave, young men into lumps of bloody flesh and bone. It reduces friends, colleagues, brothers, fathers and husbands into scarred, broken, ragdolls that were indistinguishable from each other, their vacant dead eyes mute witness to the pain they had undergone. It also reduces soldiers, trained emotionless killing machines, to emotional wrecks.

MAJ RANE 1948

BRAVE PVC STORIES - Rama Raghoba Rane
Jammu and Kashmir
April 1948

Rama Raghoba Rane is on his stomach and crawling under a Stuart tank that is slowly making its way across a minefield. He is trying to do it at a pace that matches the speed of the tank that is moving above him. His leg, badly slashed fom exploding mortar, hurts with any movement but he ignores the pain, concentrating instead on the massive wheels that are turning with a deep rumble that is reverberating in his ears. Rane holds in both his hands thick ropes that are attached to the tank. He is using them as a signal for the tank to stop or move. Each time he spots a mine ahead, he pulls the rope in his right hand and the tank stops. After he has cleared the mine, he pulls the rope in his left hand and the tank starts moving again.

PIRU SINGH SHEKHAWAT 1948

BRAVE  PVC STORIES (1948)  - Piru Singh Shekhawat
The Battle of Darapari
18 July 1948

It is a dark-purple moonlit night. But Company Havaldar Major (CHM) Piru Singh cannot afford to look up. The route is steep and filled with loose stones; one misstep can send him plunging down into the valley, leaving a mass of broken flesh and bones. Piru Singh’s boot has just struck a rock that has gone tumbling down. For a fraction of a second, he stops to look at its deep descent. And then he looks up at the treacherous ridge he and his section from Delta Company, 6 Rajputana Rifles (Raj. Rif.), are trudging up. If he arches his neck right up, at an angle of nearly 180 degrees, he can see where the mountain ends, dark, craggy, uninviting. That is where the enemy sits and that is where he and his men are headed.

SANJAY KARGIL

BRAVE PVC STORIES (KARGIL) - Sanjay Kumar

In the tidy olive-green Army cantonment in Dehradun where 13 Jammu and Kashmir Rifles (JAK Rif. ) is stationed, soldiers sleep after a long, tiring day of training. The alarm in most barracks goes off at 5 a. m. on weekdays; it rings in the room Havaldar Sanjay Kumar shares with his buddy Lance Naik Sandip.

After a mug of hot chai, the soldiers are on the PT ground by 6 a. m., ready for their daily 5-km run. A breakfast of puri- sabzi or ande ki bhujia in the langar, when they crack jokes or discuss the latest political developments or a film, and they return to their barracks for a bath and change of clothes.

GARANTH - SANATAN DHARAM

एक ग्रंथ ऐसा भी है हमारे सनातन धर्म मे।

इसे तो सात आश्चर्यों में से पहला आश्चर्य माना जाना चाहिए ---

यह है दक्षिण भारत का एक ग्रन्थ  क्या ऐसा संभव है कि जब आप किताब को सीधा पढ़े तो राम कथा के रूप में पढ़ी जाती है और जब उसी किताब में लिखे शब्दों को उल्टा करके पढ़े तो कृष्ण कथा के रूप में होती है ।

COMPLICATED TIMES

"We live in complicated times..." Pratap Bhanu Mehta.

Mr Pratap Bhanu Mehta, the Professor, recently quit from Ashok University in Haryana. He is of the opinion that we live in the complicated times. Yes, complicated times when a Congress ruled state is protecting a criminal shamelessly. Yes, complicated times when some Indian political parties exhort voters to vote for Pakistan but not to BJP....

CYCLING - OLDEN DAYS

हमारे जमाने में साइकिल तीन चरणों में सीखी जाती थी , 

पहला चरण   -   कैंची 

दूसरा चरण    -   डंडा 

तीसरा चरण   -   गद्दी ...

तब साइकिल चलाना इतना आसान नहीं था क्योंकि तब घर में साइकिल बस पापा या चाचा चलाया करते थे. 

*तब साइकिल की ऊंचाई 24 इंच हुआ करती थी जो खड़े होने पर हमारे कंधे के बराबर आती थी ऐसी साइकिल से गद्दी चलाना मुनासिब नहीं होता था।*

BATRA - KARGIL

BRAVE PVC STORIES (KARGIL)
Vikram Batra

It takes a one-and-half-hour flight out of Delhi and then as much time by road to drive from Kangra airport to Bandla Gaon in Palampur, Himachal Pradesh. The snow-covered Dhauladhar ranges appear and disappear at bends in the winding road and dazzle you with their magnificence. And the fragrant white roses that dot the airport and make the tourists gasp in pleasure follow you all the way to Vikram Batra Bhawan, where the late Captain Vikram Batra’s old parents stay in a bright-yellow-walled bungalow.

There, they stop and bloom outside the room where an oil portrait of Capt.

BALAKOTE - MORE TO IT

There is more to Balakot than the numbers

THE BJP PRESIDENT Amit Shah may not have been far-off the mark when he claimed that 250 terrorists were killed during the Indian Air Force's air strike on Balakot at around 3:30 am local time on February 26th, 2019. However, Shah would never be able to provide the evidence to back his claim. Revealing the evidence would violate the charter of 'The MOU on Geosynchronous Earth Orbit and Low Earth Orbit Optical Link' signed between Prime Ministers Modi and Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on July 5th, 2017 in New Delhi. This MoU permits Indian and Israeli satellites to 'talk to each other'.

1962 THAPA

THE INDOCHINESE WAR OF 1 9 6 2

The blunder committed by political as well as military leadership by misreading the Chinese game and neglecting the Indian Army’s preparedness, made India suffer a humiliating defeat in the Sino-Indian war. The only thing that stood out was the iron will and cold courage of the soldiers who, though completely outnumbered and ill-equipped, fought to defend their country’s honour.