Captain Vikram Batra, Major Saravanan, Captain Manoj Pandey ,Sqn. Ldr Ajay Ahuja, Captain Kieshing Nongrum, Lt. Saurabh Kalia, Lt. Col. Vishwanathan, Sepoy Lal Singh, Sepoy Rakesh Kumar, Sepoy Rakesh Kumar, Sepoy Raswinder Singh, Sepoy Bir Singh……..
Do these names ring a bell? I am sure not.
These names don’t mean anything to this Facebook, MTV, Orkut Crazy generation.
Ask them to name the reckless, useless winner of a reckless, useless show in MTV Roadies and you will get a prompt answer.
Well these were among the thousands brave hearts who fended off evil Pakistani army goons who had infiltrated our side of LOC in the guise of mujahideen. Ten years after India fought the most televised battle in the history of warfare in the subcontinent, Indians seemed to have moved on.
At 11.30 past night I messaged some friends ‘Happy Vijay Divas’ and ‘Kargil Forgotten’.
Some of these friends were happily and heavily drunk at a reataurant called ‘It’s Greek to Me’ and the text perhaps seemed all too Latin to them.
A Google Search cleared the haze next morning in .17 secs.
Well these very dear friends of mine actually reflects the times we are living in,that tells me that an ungrateful nation had forgotten to salute a famous victory against Pakistan.
A victory in achieving which 562 soldiers had bravely, selflessly, unquestioningly laid down their lives for their country and countrymen, i.e. us, in the cold heights of Kargil.The present generation takes lot of pride in calling themselves as ‘Liberal’ and broad minded. But even for a "liberal" nation with an equally ‘liberal’ generation which has scarcely any militaristic sentiments, it seemed too obvious an event to miss, especially given the rap the nation had received for their disgraceful send off to Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw in June.But the Sunday papers provided little proof that old habits die hard. It again reminded me that we as a nation are hardly proud of our history, culture and legacy.
The largest selling newspaper in the world ‘The Times of India’ didn’t think that Vijay Divas demanded any special mention. After all there are other important strategic issues to be covered such as Gay rights etc.
But I must say that Electronic Media proved me wrong. Almost all the prominent news channels covered it extensively. A lot of them stressed upon the history involved, reasons behind the war and aftermath.
Highly appreciated.
Ten years have passed by. But have we learnt our lessons. I regret that the answer is no.
I am not going into why Kargil happened and what could have been done 10years ago
As there is no point in crying over spilt milk. But every war teaches a lesson to the countries involved. The lessons can be categorized in some broad categories :
Political,Social,Militarily,Intelligence and Strategic.
I again regret that we have hardly learnt any lesson.
Political lessons are to be taken by the most worthless citizens in our country, the politicians. I was mad with anger over how they are scrambling to make a political issue out of this too. Congress govt not showing much enthusiasm in celebrating Vijay Divas
as according to some of them the victory came under NDA.
Those who cover the defence beat say the Kargil victory is now viewed as "an NDA/BJP victory" with which the UPA/Congress wants to have no part. "The Congress has its 1971, the BJP has its 1999," says one award-winning reporter.(That the Congress which does not want to remember 1999 could not even remember the hero of the 1971 victory(to Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw )properly tells its own story.But if true, how pathetic as a people can we be getting, that we view the triumph of the nation, the sacrifice of our soldiers, not through a wide, collective prism, but through a narrow, constricted aperture of the government of the day?Certainly, critics, skeptics and cynics in the military, media and polity have plenty of questions over how the Kargil victory was achieved: The intelligence and strategic failures, the antiquated techniques in capturing Tiger Hill (the site of most of the casualties), etc.Plus, there is the coffin scam over which the Congress walked out of the House each time then defense minister George Fernandes got up to speak.Much as those questions may be important and need to be answered, how do they take the gloss away from a great victory? And how do they make a meaningful observance meaningless?What kind of signal is such peevishness sending to the jawan in the field, and to potential recruits? What kind of impact does it have on their morale and motivation to be reminded that they are not fighting for the nation at large but for the coalition in power?Is this something over which our parties should try to score silly points?Is this how we show how much we value the armed forces?This is not to suggest that the President and prime minister and defense minister and Congress president must drop everything and break out into a bhangra every July 26 for the benefit of the television cameras. But what do they lose by gracefully acknowledging Kargil's place in our contemporary history?
This was for political class.
There are some lessons to be learned after every war which are very Militarist in nature.
Just a day before I read a report which reports that ‘CAG’ has termed the Gorshkov defense deal as totally useless. Almost all the defense deals happening are shady.
Army is equipped with sub standard weapons. Are we ready for another Kargil?
There are still so many families who have not got their due from governments.The government and the system continues to treat them shabbily. My heart goes out for them.
And now the baiton passes to us. Are we as a citizen even aware of our Army and the great role it plays in safeguarding our interests. Aren’t we so engrossed with our own busy lives and selfish dreams that we don’t even know that there is a Vijay Divas today and it needs to be celebrated.
I wish the Media plays a more proactive role in guiding the citizens towards this. e.g instead of beaming useless Reality TV programmes as ‘Rakhi Ka Swanyvar’ why not
beam a programme on War Heroes.Take some creative liberty to make it sellable. Add some fiction to the real life stories and present it to audience. Well it’s just a small idea.
I am actually quite anguished and emotional today as I write this and I might sound over the top in what I have written but am not apologetic for the same. And as I am writing this I have just watched news on TV which says that Defense Minister and Prime Minister have stayed away from the celebrations. There must be reasons for this.
And I remember a famous Urdu couplet written for freedom fighters.
शहीदो क़ी य़ाद मे लगेंगे हर बरस मेले
वतन पे मिटने वालों का बाकी यही ऩिशान होगा
Times have changed and the poor martyrs won’t know that there won’t be any ‘Mela’
for their remembrance now. The nation has forgotten them.
I will close this post with a request to have a glance at the below mentioned links.
They carry some info of my favorite heroes from Kargil War,
Captain Vikram Batra and Captain Manoj Pandey.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikram_Batra
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manoj_Pandey
http://captainmanojpandey.tripod.com/
Also try to watch a movie called ‘1971’.One of the rare hindi movies made on POWs
(Prisoner of Wars).
And with a request to observe a silence for a minute in memory of these brave men.
That’s the least we could do.
Jai Hind.
Love,
Saket.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Travelogue of a journey from India to Bharat
The journey was truly from India to Bharat. The occasion was Wedding Ceremony
of a friend and colleague. The Wedding was to be held at Jhansi. The name Jhansi
evokes such a great sense of history as we all have grown up on great patriotic stories
of Rani Laxmibai of Jhansi. Now we all know how hazardous it is to apply for leave
in these troublesome times but a mandatory week off forced by client on our team allowed us to go for the wedding. Now since the trip was planned on a very short notice affordability of air tickets went beyond our finance. So we all planned to take the service of Indian Railways to travel. But even here we could manage a Sleeper Tier ticket that too not all of us got confirmed seats.
Travelling in Sleeper class to north India in mid July will give scare to anyone who has faced the fury of summers in that part of India. That I have been in Bangalore for last 5 years in the most beautiful weather has made me even more skeptic about travelling.But the feeling of going to land where you have been brought up and where your roots lie will overcome all these apprehensions.
The train leaves Bangalore at 19:35.Now Bangalore railway station is not the perfect example of how a Railway station of a leading metropolitan should be but it is just enough clean and tidy enough that if your train is late you can comfortably wait at
the platform.
Indian Railways sleeper class coaches can be perfect classrooms for the course in
Hospitality management. All the leading institutes around the globe should make it sure that the students enrolling in this course should be given a trip in the sleeper class and it will be even better if the trip involves travelling across any north Indian town.Anyone who boards the train at any station boards the train with an assurance that irrespective of whether he has a reservation or not, he is entitled to sit or sleep at any seat he wish to. The boarder enters the compartment and if he has the seat he will take the seat quite assertively and if he doesn’t have a seat he will ask the already seated people to just push a bit so that he too can have a seat. The one who has the seat reserved is expected to be hospitable enough to accommodate any no of people who comes through. Will you get a better example of sense of hospitality anywhere else !.
This is Indian Railways for you.
There are huge distances to be covered. So there are various means of passing time.
People make friends, they discuss politics,cricket. These days they carry laptops too
so have the luxury of watching movies, listening music. And then we have the ubiquitous ‘Chai wala’ without whose ‘Chai’ no journey is any Indian train is complete.
So one ends up gulping 10-15 tea cups during the journey.
In my compartment I was accompanied by 4 engineering graduates who are pursuing
engineering in Bangalore and were retuning home to Lucknow via Jhansi after finishing their semesters.As usual they had just one seat between them and I readily became a
‘bhaiya’ for them. Now the term ‘bhaiya’ if used in Maharashtra evoke such a fear
in north Indians(courtesy Mr Raj Thakeray) but when used in Trains,such a perfect platform for forging relationships. In the same compartment another student studying Pharma was travelling to his home in Rajasthan.He readily became another bhai for the eng. Grads. So at 11 pm me and the pharma student were sharing the berth so that we all can sleep tight in night.
The next day was spent with these guys narrating how enjoyable their first 2 years have been far away from watchful eyes of parents. They will narrate their dare devil acts and one fellow in our compartment who must be in late 30’s had it enough and sarcastically asks them ‘Are they right in doing all this? Was this the reason their parents have sent them here? Moments ago this man was being offered wafers, soft drinks and what not by these guys but now he was an Uncle. I tell you, this generation hates being preached.
The day passed by. The night too. The train reaches Jhansi at 3.30 A.M. The train reached at the right time. We got down. And what was to be seen was a huge sea of humanity sleeping on the floor as if we have reached some Military dormitory just that the amount of dirt and filth lying around the area the people were sleeping would shoo away all notions of this being a Military camp. Welcome to Bharat.
62 years of freedom from Gora Sahib’s rule but when our Railways Minister talked of
Creating 50 'World Class Railways stations' and 375 ‘Adarsh Railway Stations’ Mr Lalu Prasad says that is not feasible.Now these ‘Adarsh Railway Stations’ will have all basic amenities like clean water,waiting rooms, clean platforms etc etc. This is ‘Adarsh Railway Station’ for you. 62 years and we are still struggling to have ‘bijli, paani’ and having these will make a station ‘Adarsh’.These are basic amenities in other world though.
.
We got out from the Railway station. It appeared that we are in some Red Country.
Walls, floors ,streets almost everything seems red. Red by expectoration from Pan chewing people, from Gutka eating people , from people eating Pan Masala etc.
Communists from China would have been so happy to know that in remote corner of UP a town is so dedicated to their dying theory .The Red Revolution.
The wedding went fine. It was such fun attending the marriage in old traditional fashion
again though I restricted myself to just helping myself with unlimited variety of delicacies. How badly I love the Shadi ka khana.
After the wedding I thought of visting my Parents in Lucknow as Lucknow is not very far off from Jhansi. And Indian railways has made sure that there is a train from everywhere
To everywhere. So here I was again in a Inter City Express between Jhansi and Lucknow.
The train pass through the town of Kanpur and as the train left the station what one sees
is a such a huge conglomerate of slums that one will be forced to think that are we passing through Dharavi?. No problem I said to myself.Let the train get past another town and the same visual will repeat.I wonder is there some term called ‘Fourth World Country’? If not then why not coin it and get it patented .This is Bharat. I left India the moment the train went past Bengaluru.
The train reached Lucknow in another hour and a half. Same visuals repeating themselves but who cares now.The smell of your own land taking over all your feelings.
Maa has cooked Kadhi at home and I can smell that from light year apart.
I call for a auto and this ends the travelogue.Please feel free to comment on this.
Arey Auto wale Bhaiya , chaloge.
Love,
Saket.
of a friend and colleague. The Wedding was to be held at Jhansi. The name Jhansi
evokes such a great sense of history as we all have grown up on great patriotic stories
of Rani Laxmibai of Jhansi. Now we all know how hazardous it is to apply for leave
in these troublesome times but a mandatory week off forced by client on our team allowed us to go for the wedding. Now since the trip was planned on a very short notice affordability of air tickets went beyond our finance. So we all planned to take the service of Indian Railways to travel. But even here we could manage a Sleeper Tier ticket that too not all of us got confirmed seats.
Travelling in Sleeper class to north India in mid July will give scare to anyone who has faced the fury of summers in that part of India. That I have been in Bangalore for last 5 years in the most beautiful weather has made me even more skeptic about travelling.But the feeling of going to land where you have been brought up and where your roots lie will overcome all these apprehensions.
The train leaves Bangalore at 19:35.Now Bangalore railway station is not the perfect example of how a Railway station of a leading metropolitan should be but it is just enough clean and tidy enough that if your train is late you can comfortably wait at
the platform.
Indian Railways sleeper class coaches can be perfect classrooms for the course in
Hospitality management. All the leading institutes around the globe should make it sure that the students enrolling in this course should be given a trip in the sleeper class and it will be even better if the trip involves travelling across any north Indian town.Anyone who boards the train at any station boards the train with an assurance that irrespective of whether he has a reservation or not, he is entitled to sit or sleep at any seat he wish to. The boarder enters the compartment and if he has the seat he will take the seat quite assertively and if he doesn’t have a seat he will ask the already seated people to just push a bit so that he too can have a seat. The one who has the seat reserved is expected to be hospitable enough to accommodate any no of people who comes through. Will you get a better example of sense of hospitality anywhere else !.
This is Indian Railways for you.
There are huge distances to be covered. So there are various means of passing time.
People make friends, they discuss politics,cricket. These days they carry laptops too
so have the luxury of watching movies, listening music. And then we have the ubiquitous ‘Chai wala’ without whose ‘Chai’ no journey is any Indian train is complete.
So one ends up gulping 10-15 tea cups during the journey.
In my compartment I was accompanied by 4 engineering graduates who are pursuing
engineering in Bangalore and were retuning home to Lucknow via Jhansi after finishing their semesters.As usual they had just one seat between them and I readily became a
‘bhaiya’ for them. Now the term ‘bhaiya’ if used in Maharashtra evoke such a fear
in north Indians(courtesy Mr Raj Thakeray) but when used in Trains,such a perfect platform for forging relationships. In the same compartment another student studying Pharma was travelling to his home in Rajasthan.He readily became another bhai for the eng. Grads. So at 11 pm me and the pharma student were sharing the berth so that we all can sleep tight in night.
The next day was spent with these guys narrating how enjoyable their first 2 years have been far away from watchful eyes of parents. They will narrate their dare devil acts and one fellow in our compartment who must be in late 30’s had it enough and sarcastically asks them ‘Are they right in doing all this? Was this the reason their parents have sent them here? Moments ago this man was being offered wafers, soft drinks and what not by these guys but now he was an Uncle. I tell you, this generation hates being preached.
The day passed by. The night too. The train reaches Jhansi at 3.30 A.M. The train reached at the right time. We got down. And what was to be seen was a huge sea of humanity sleeping on the floor as if we have reached some Military dormitory just that the amount of dirt and filth lying around the area the people were sleeping would shoo away all notions of this being a Military camp. Welcome to Bharat.
62 years of freedom from Gora Sahib’s rule but when our Railways Minister talked of
Creating 50 'World Class Railways stations' and 375 ‘Adarsh Railway Stations’ Mr Lalu Prasad says that is not feasible.Now these ‘Adarsh Railway Stations’ will have all basic amenities like clean water,waiting rooms, clean platforms etc etc. This is ‘Adarsh Railway Station’ for you. 62 years and we are still struggling to have ‘bijli, paani’ and having these will make a station ‘Adarsh’.These are basic amenities in other world though.
.
We got out from the Railway station. It appeared that we are in some Red Country.
Walls, floors ,streets almost everything seems red. Red by expectoration from Pan chewing people, from Gutka eating people , from people eating Pan Masala etc.
Communists from China would have been so happy to know that in remote corner of UP a town is so dedicated to their dying theory .The Red Revolution.
The wedding went fine. It was such fun attending the marriage in old traditional fashion
again though I restricted myself to just helping myself with unlimited variety of delicacies. How badly I love the Shadi ka khana.
After the wedding I thought of visting my Parents in Lucknow as Lucknow is not very far off from Jhansi. And Indian railways has made sure that there is a train from everywhere
To everywhere. So here I was again in a Inter City Express between Jhansi and Lucknow.
The train pass through the town of Kanpur and as the train left the station what one sees
is a such a huge conglomerate of slums that one will be forced to think that are we passing through Dharavi?. No problem I said to myself.Let the train get past another town and the same visual will repeat.I wonder is there some term called ‘Fourth World Country’? If not then why not coin it and get it patented .This is Bharat. I left India the moment the train went past Bengaluru.
The train reached Lucknow in another hour and a half. Same visuals repeating themselves but who cares now.The smell of your own land taking over all your feelings.
Maa has cooked Kadhi at home and I can smell that from light year apart.
I call for a auto and this ends the travelogue.Please feel free to comment on this.
Arey Auto wale Bhaiya , chaloge.
Love,
Saket.
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