Nirvana!

“ Freedom is not free, everyday soldiers give their lives so that we can live ours. ” 15 years ago, in the summer months of 1999, the Pakistan army with aid from terrorist groups had launched a military attack across the Line of Control (LoC) in the Kargil district of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) and had threatened India’s territorial integrity. The Pakistani military establishment had become frustrated with India’s success in containing the militancy in J&K to within manageable limits and could not bear to see its strategy of ‘bleeding India through a thousand cuts’ evaporating into thin air. Its military aim was also to sever the Srinagar-Leh National Highway (NH) 1A and to isolate Kargil district and cut India’s lifeline to Leh and possibly occupy it. It is said that another aim was to infiltrate into the Kashmir Valley over the Amarnath Mountains and the Doda regions and physically occupy some territory on the Indian side of the LoC in Kargil district to use as a bargainin...

Whenever we read about the defence forces, army in particular, we get extreme accounts of valor and sacrifice or that of failure and corruption. But a normal army man's humane life gets lost somewhere in between. This Kannada book titled 'G annu Hidida Kaiyalli Pennu' (Pen in the hands which held a gun) by Brigadier SG Bhagwat is a pathbreaking account of life in the army in all its hues which never make it to the media.  Though Brigadier Bhagwat picks instances from his own life in the army in no way the book can be called as a biography. His lucid narration makes sure that the reader focuses on the event rather than the author himself. But the experience he gains from the events he narrates is also from which we get to learn. Amazing isn't it? Some of his experiences makes you proud of the army, some tell the pitfalls in the institution and our system, while few others incidents just make you smile.  Brigadier Bhagwat's narration of his unit...