When belief in self
surmounts death
Drass, July 3 (Rajesh
Ramachandran)
They were seven of them,
in two rows. Taking their rifles up and then bringing it
down, eyes fixed on the ground, hands moving to the right
and then left. The haggard-looking soldiers were
rehearsing to welcome their colleagues.
Then Havildar Satbir Singh
came, the last one to return after capturing Black Rocks.
His colleagues’ hands and legs moved out of sync.
Probably because they didn’t want to welcome the
hero this way. Satbir Singh was dead. Four jawans of the
unit climbed the Shaktiman truck and brought him down .
It was a plot of dried up
wheat field where the stretcher was laid. The seven, with
arms, took position to his left and the rest of the unit,
which was present at the makeshift base camp, on to his
right.
The click of heels was not
heard; there was no bugle playing the last post. Suddenly
they all looked tired and vulnerable. Satbir Singh,
bare-footed with his toes tied together with white gauze.
His face was covered with his own jacket.
The officer marched
towards Satbir Singh’s body, took the wreath from a
jawan, laid it at Satbir Singh’s feet, saluted and
turned back.
The wreath was on behalf
of the Commanding Officer of the unit. Next, it was the
Subedar Major’s turn to pay homage on behalf of all
other ranks. The military ritual over, the officer slowly
walked up to Satbir Singh, lifted the jacket, had a last
look and walked away.
“I just wanted to see
his face,” the officer later said. The face seemed
calm and ordinary. Satbir Singh was the last of the 13
who perished while capturing Black Rocks to arrive at the
base camp.
Death in life couldn’t
be felt more than here at the battlefront. They do think
about life, however busy they are with the task at hand.
For instance, while reassuring omeone that he wouldn’t
be quoted, the officer’s reply was willy but morbid
too: “If we don’t fear death, why should we
fear you quoting us?”
And it could be this
element of uncertainty that lurks behind every rock they
climb which makes them all believers. At a base camp a
few minutes before they were to start the march to the
next battlefield, they all had a red tilak on their
forehead: from the commanding officer to the lance naik.
Do they think of their
families while going up to bare their chest to enemy
fire? “Fleeting images of the family do appear. But
mostly there would only be blood in our minds. For, to
survive is to kill,” says a soldier. Then there is
life in death too; its for Satbir Singh that many more
Satbirs would fight.
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