Frankly Speaking

My Swiming Lessons

2019-08-20T11:20:00.004+05:30

A non swimmer can enter the Indian Army but the Army won't allow one to remain a non swimmer for long. Once again owing to having been born and brought up at Shimla, I did not know swimming when i entered Army and also was not imparted training in swimming in the OTA because the swimming pool had just been inaugurated as we were passing out from the Officers' Training Academy. I tried my hand in swimming at our regimental centre where i stayed for about fifteen days before reporting to my unit in Nagaland. During the swimming practice in the regimental centre swimming pool i would swim the full length but only by holding my breath as i could not establish coordination between my strokes and my breathing. While the instructors would admonish me for not making the right moves they would also express surprise over my capacity to hold my breath for so long under water.

Luckily i was deputed to undergo a course in Physical Training at Army School of Physical Training, Pune within just three months of my reporting to my Unit. There it was that i learnt full fledged swimming. I along with some other officers was declared weak swimmer and would have to go for swimming practice in addition to attending the regular training schedule. It was quite an embarrassing experience, not because we were singled out as weak swimmers but because three grown up daughters (almost our age) of the Commandant of the ASPT also used to come for swimming at the same time. While their presence in the swimming pool offered a pleasant company to us young bachelor officers in our early twenties, it also threw a challenge to us as those girls were good swimmers and accelerated us towards our goal of becoming good swimmers fast.

Although i could swim for the full length of the pool of International dimensions but i could do it only by holding my breath as mentioned earlier. The swimming instructor suggested that i should wear the safety tube and learn coordinating my strokes with my breathing. I did that and found to my delight that by wearing the tube i was breathing perfectly well while swimming across the full length of the pool. One day to my greatest delight and surprise i learnt that while i was swimming very well making perfect coordination between my strokes and the my breath, the tube that i was wearing had actually deflated and it was acting only as a placebo. I removed the tube and threw it out of the pool towards the instructor who smiled at me approvingly. Eureka!! i had learnt swimming. While i was happy in being taken off the list of weak swimmers, i also felt sad in loosing the pleasant company of the swimming pool.

An Open Letter to Kashmiris

2016-02-26T14:15:00.001+05:30

An open letter to Kashmiris.
Dear Kashmiri brothers and sisters. It pains me to hear time and again that Kashmir wants independence. But at the same time a question also flashes in my mind that which Kashmir wants independence and from whom. The state of Jammu and Kashmir consists of mainly three major regions ie,. Jammu, Ladakh and Kashmir.
I served in Ladakh from 1982 to 1984 and was posted in an area called Turtuk which was recaptured by Indian Army from Pakistani occupation in 1971 war. Let me share it with you that everytime i traveled to climb to my company posts located at average altitude of 17000 ft the villagers along the way would come out of thier houses and would wave at us like we were some filmy heroes. When i asked the village head of one such village the reason for this he replied "saheb aap toh hamare liye khuda ki tarah ho. Aap na sirf hamaree zameen ki hifazat kar rahe ho balki aap hamein ration aur dawanyeeaan bhee muhaiyeea karvate ho lekin unnis sau ikkattar se pehle jab ye area Pakistan ke under tha toh yahaan pakistani fauji afsar kabhee kabhee ate the aur hamari sunder bahu betiyaan utha kar le jate they" (Saheb you are like God to us who not only were defending our homeland but also provide us ration and medicines. But prior to the year Nineteen Hundred and Seventy One when this area was under the occupation of Pakistan, their officers would come sometimes and would take away our beautiful daughters and daughters in law). I would request some of you to kindly go to those villages and ask them that do they want independence. You may find some old men and women there who would corroborate what i have said.
And dear brothers and sisters if you say that only the Kashmir valley wants independence then please understand that this valley also belongs to other Kashmiris who have been displaced from their homeland and who have their land and property there. Please bring them back to the valley and ask them that whether they want independence.
From whom do you want independence? If your intention is to join Pakistan then some of you may please visit the Pakistan Occupied Kashmir and see the plight of Kashmiris living there.
If you say that you want to remain independent of both India and Pakistan, then please be informed that such a mistake was commited in 1947 by the erstwhile ruler Maharaja Hari Singh. Within days of the state declaring independence the Pakistani Army backed men had stormed the valley and raped any woman coming their way. Their very lust for women had delayed thier onslaught and had saved the valley as by then the Indian Army had come to the rescue of Kashmiris. And ever since the Indian Army has been deployed there.
But sad to say that you have made villain out of the Indian Army who are protecting your land day and night from foreign infiltrators. Recently you have pelted stones on the Indian Army commandos in Pampore who were fighting to flush out the terrorists from one of your buildings. Had it been some other Army they would have eliminated the stone pelters before killing the terrorists.
Once again let me share with you that in 1987 I was posted in the Uri area and I had traveled by a civil bus from Uri to Srinagar chatting with fellow passengers to proceed on leave. The atmosphere was absolutely normal then.
So you suddenly woke up to attain independence somewhere in 1990 when actually the Pakistan backed militancy in Punjab had failed and thier focus shifted to Kashmir to attempt to avenge the defeat of 1971 war.
Please wake up to the fact that The State of J&K has been acceded to India by its former ruler like many other erstwhile states and is inseparable part of India and if there would be any change in the existing boundaries then it would be only after the recapture of Pakistani occupied Kashmir.

Killing in the Name of Religion

2014-12-19T08:54:00.000+05:30

A Major in the American Army killed twelve of his colleagues in a shooting spree. The news about killing or shooting was not disgusting. It is happening daily on a routine basis in some corner of the world. But the disgusting part was that before shooting innocent unsuspecting fellow men, the killer shouted "Allah Hu Akbar" which means "God is Great".

If we look into statistics, we will find that most of the present day killings are taking place in the name of God or religion. Though, no religion preaches enmity or hate against any fellow human being or even against any living being.

Why do killers invoke God before killing HIS creatures? Is it to obtain strength for doing such a ghastly act or do they ask for HIS forgiveness in advance. One can only remember God before killing someone if one is doing the act in cold blood. If the killing is the result of a heated exchange of blows or gun fire or any other weapon, there is no time for one to remember God.

Gone are the days when the wars were fought for women (Sita and Helen of Troy), for wealth (invasions over India by Gaznavi and Gouri) or for kingdoms or territorial gains (no need for examples). The next major war will be fought in the name of religion or say, God (please mark my words). Personally i don't wish for that but one can't deny the fact that many of such fights are already going on, though on a small scale, in many parts of the world.

Does being religious mean being intolerant of others?

Should we stop being religious if it is creating hate in our minds against our fellow human beings?

The question is open to all.

Twins, One Year Apart

2014-06-09T21:00:00.000+05:30

While the celebrations of first 'lohri' and some other rituals after the birth of our first son, born in October 1985, were continuing, Jeet gave me the news of having conceived again. Though it did not come as a surprise to me because i had always fancied having twins and God was going to bless us with the birth of a second child within a year's span, but at the same time the news rang warning bells in my mind. I would not be present at the birthplace at the time of delivery of the child. It was not to be just one or two day's absence from Jalandhar Cantt like it had happened during the birth of my elder son when i had been deputed to go out of station for a duty leaving my wife hale and hearty in the morning and when i came back in the evening the newborn was waiting for me in the labour room of Military Hospital. I have written about that earlier which you can read by clicking here. This time the absence would be at least three months because I had been deputed for undergoing approximately 90 days Junior Command Course at College of Combat (rechristened as Army War College), Mhow, M.P., from 26th August to 22nd November 1986. As per doctors' calculations, the D Day for the birth of the second child was expected to be somewhere in the end of October or first week of November 1986.

I fully understood that once my name had been selected by Army Headquarters for deputation on a course like Junior Command, there was no way to opt out of it. Moreover, i had volunteered to undergo this prestigious course.

I left for Mhow on 23rd August 1986 to reach the training institute as per the schedule. The training regimen was very tight and i realized that we were kept so busy that there was no scope of missing the family members left back home. While we the Infantry officers used to call the thirty five days long Commando course, done earlier as 'physical rape', this ninety days long Junior Command Course was akin to 'mental rape'. An officer was expected to study a large number of books (precis in Army parlance) even before leaving for the course and during the conduct of the course the midnight oil would have to be burnt if an officer did not want to cut a sorry figure in the class room the next day. In addition to the group discussions in the class rooms or over the indoor maps and sand models, the outdoor exercises would also be conducted where the officers were expected to demonstrate good knowledge and clear comprehension of pattern of battle at the Battalion level.

The course was progressing well and i was getting good feedback from the instructors about my grading. However, towards the end of October while we would come back after long days of the strenuous class room discussions or day long outdoor exercises, i would look at the calender hung in my room to count the days left for the D-Day ie, for the birth of my second child. The days kept passing in the wait for the good news. One fine evening (5th November to be precise), when i was about to proceed to the officers mess for the dinner, i got a call from the administrative wing of the college that there was a telegram for me with the duty clerk. I rushed and collected the telegram which i reproduce below and which is self explanatory. It was from my sister Harpreet Kaur, lovingly called Happy. I was blessed with another son, exactly one year and fifteen days after the birth of my first son.

I broke the good news to my training mates and threw a small instant party in the officers mess. There were still twenty more days left for the course to finish. When i came back to Jalandhar Cantt on 26th November 1986 to rejoin my unit and my family, the new born was almost a month old.

This post also forms part of a series of posts on my life journey. To read all the posts in that series please click here.

What is your laughter Threshold

2014-04-19T22:02:00.000+05:30

Have you ever been forced to walk to a washroom to vent out your laughter? Today while having lunch with Jeet at a restaurant in Delhi, she had to rush to the washroom because she had tough time controlling her laughter. It so happened that a gentleman came and sat on the next table. He had grey hair and beard flowing free up to his waist and chest level respectively in the style of some great philosopher or artist. His complexion was extra fair. I asked Jeet to make a guess that what nationality he could belong. She started making guesses and named quite a few, like European, Russian, Irani or an Afghan. But i had a hunch that he was non of those. I proved right when i saw the back of his hand while he was scanning the menu card. It had a tattoo of 'IKK ONKAR'. He was a sardarjee (a sikh gentleman) who must have come out on a holiday after having a good shampoo and wanted to dry his long hair before tying them up. When i signaled that silently to Jeet, she had no option but to rush to the washroom as her laughter threshold is very low.

How i Learnt Cycling and Swimming

2014-04-14T23:16:00.001+05:30

While i learnt cycling when i had entered college, my swimming bouts started much later ie., only after joining Indian Army, because Shimla, where i was born and brought up, neither had many swimming pools during those days nor many places where one could cycle, except a two kilometers long stretch of road between Lakkar Bazaar and Sanjauli where cycles were available for hire and one could hire a cycle at one end and deposit the same at the other or even come back and deposit it at the starting end. This side of the end was near our school and some of my school mates, who knew cycling, used to hire cycles during lunch breaks and cycle between two ends as mentioned above. But that was not the place where one could learn cycling for the fear of hitting people, walking on the road.

I had learnt cycling over a period of approximately one month when i visited my 'naankey' (maternal grand parent's village) in Punjab during winter holidays of our college at Shimla. I used to sit behind on the carrier whenever my cousins would go around on their cycles for various daily chores. It was only when one day i picked up my cousin's cycle, pulled it up to a lonely stretch of the village road, sat on the carrier, spreading both my legs on either side of the cycle and tried to pedal. To my great delight i could ride for small stretches without loosing balance. And if i lost balance I would not fall because i would immediately rest my feet on the ground since i sat on the carrier from where the ground was easily accessible as compared to 'Kathi' (the main seat) and would resume peddling again. In the bargain at one occasion i had also banged the front wheel of my cycle into the ankles of an old lady who was walking in front of me with small load on her head. When i apologized and told her that i was learning, she retorted "kaka ajey hor wadhna" (" boy, do you have to grow any more") She was right in expressing her surprise because no boy of my age would be seen learning cycling in a Punjab village. I continued my self -learning sessions in cycling and graduated from carrier to the 'Kaathi' and by the time i left for Shimla after a month of winter holidays, i could cycle fairly well. At Shimla i would some times join my friends to enjoy cycling by hiring one and riding it from Lakkar Bazar to Sanjauli and back.

My cycling spree came to an abrupt end when once during such cycling practice between the two ends as mentioned above i lost control of my cycle and hit a girl of a different college walking on the road along with her friends. (There were only two co-educational colleges in Shimla that time. I studied in RPCSDB college which now has become girls college and the other one was Govt college which is now boys college. This group of girls was from Govt college which was located in the mid distance of this stretch of the road from Lakkar Bazaar to Sanjauli) It was raining and the road as well as the brakes were wet. The girls were holding umbrellas and were also chatting. Suddenly i realised that the front wheel of my cycle was heading straight behind one of the girls. I tried very hard to brake, or turn away and rang the bell continuously but the neither the girls listened to the warning bell nor the cycle slowed down or drifted away from the direction that it was destined to go. Before i could even shout any verbal warning, the inevitable had happened. My cycle had hit the girl from behind between both the legs. The result was disastrous. The girl fell down with me and my cycle on top of her. My friends accompanying me stopped and lifted both of us and the cycle. We all were expecting a scene but the girls were too nice and instead of raising hue and cry they simply complained that i should have checked the brakes of my cycle before riding it on that rainy day. Had there been boys from the college of those girls, this incident or accident would have erupted into a full fledged rioting between the students of the two rival colleges. Alternately had it happened in Punjab or for that matter in any other part of the country i would have been thrashed nice and proper, not only by the girls but also by the passers by. But thankfully this had happened in Shimla. We apologized to the girls and took to our heels on our cycles and after depositing the same at the Lakkar Bazaar we headed straight to our college which was ten minutes walk from there. Never again i dared to go on that stretch of the road to enjoy cycling.

This much about cycling. I will write about swimming in a new blog.

Khushwant Singh's Write Up on Longevity

2014-03-21T13:45:00.000+05:30

Khushwant Singh has left for his Heavenly Abode after leading an illustrious life to say the least. I am too small a person to write anything in his praise so as a tribute to him and his writings let me reproduce below a write up published by him in a leading daily last year.

"Time tested tips on how to stay healthy and live longer" – by Khushwant Singh

Coming on to 98 and still earning more than I did in my younger days, people ask me how I manage to do it. They regard me as an expert on longevity. I have pronounced on the subject before; I will repeat it with suitable amendments based on my experience in the past two years.

Earlier I had written that longevity is in one’s genes: children of long-living parents are likely to live longer than those born to short-lived parents. This did not happen in my own family. My parents who died at 90 and 94 had five children, four sons and a daughter.

The first to go was the youngest of the siblings. Next went my sister who was the fourth. My elder brother who was three years older than me went a couple of years ago. Two of us remain; I, who will soon be 98, and my younger brother, a retired Brigadier three years younger than me and in much better health. He looks after our ancestral property.

Nevertheless, I still believe gene is the most important factor in determining one’s life-span. More important than analysing longevity is to cope with old age and make terms with it.

As we grow older, we are less able to exercise our limbs. We have to devise ways to keep them active. Right into my mid-eighties, I played tennis every morning, did rounds of Lodhi gardens in winter and swam for an hour in summer. I am unable to do this any more. The best way to overcome this handicap is regular massages.

I am convinced that this has kept me going for so long. Equally important is the need to cut down drastically one’s intake of food and drink. I start my mornings with guava juice. It is tastier and more health-giving than orange or any other fruit juice. My breakfast is one scrambled egg on toast. My lunch is usually patli kichri with dahi or a vegetable. I skip afternoon tea. In the evening, I take a peg of single malt whisky. It gives me a false appetite.

Before I eat supper, I say to myself “Do not eat too much.” I also believe that a meal should have just one kind of vegetable or meat followed by a pinch of chooran. It is best to eat alone and in silence. Talking while eating does not do justice to the food and you swallow a lot of it. For me no more Punjabi or Mughlai food. I find South India idli, sambhar and grated coconut easier to digest and healthier.

Never allow yourself to be constipated. The stomach is a storehouse of all kinds of ailments. Our sedentary life tends to make us constipated. Keep your bowels clean however you can: by laxatives, enemas, glycerin suppositories, whatever. Bapu Gandhi fully understood the need to keep bowels clean. Besides, taking an enema every day, he gave enemas to his women admirers. Lucky man, he was.

Impose strict discipline on your daily routine. If necessary, use a stop-watch. I have breakfast exactly at 6.30 amlunch at noon, drink at 7 pm, supper at 8. Try to develop peace of mind. For this you must have a healthy bank account. Shortage of money can be very demoralising. It does not have to be in crores, but enough for your future needs and possibility of falling ill. Never lose your temper, it takes a heavy toll and jangles one’s nerves. Never tell a lie. Always keep your national motto in mind: Satyamev Jayate — only truth triumphs.

Give generously. Remember you can’t take it with you. You may give to your children, servants or charity. You will feel better. There is joy in giving. Drive out envy of those who have done better than you in life. A Punjabi verse sums up: Rookhi Sookhy Khai kay Thanda Paani Pee Na Veykh paraayee chonparian na Tarssain jee (Eat dry bread and drink cold water Pay no heed or envy those who smear their chapattis with ghee) Do not conform to the tradition of old people spending time in prayer and long hours in places of worship. That amounts to conceding defeat. Instead take up a hobby like gardening, growing bonsai, helping children of your neighborhood with their homework.

A practice which I have found very effective is to fix my gaze on the flame of candle, empty my mind of everything, but in my mind repeat Aum Shanti, Aum Shanti, Aum Shanti. It does work. I am at peace with the world. We can’t all be Fauja Singh who at 100 run a marathon race but we can equal him in longevity and creativity. I wish all my readers long, healthy lives full of happiness.

Thanks.

Khushwant Singh

A surprising confession on Kargil by a Pak General

2014-01-10T17:17:00.000+05:30

A surprising confession on Kargil by Lt Gen Shahid Aziz,
>> Former GOC 4 Corps, Pak Army

January 06, 2013 .

>> Kargil, like every other meaningless war that we have fought, brings home lessons we continue to refuse to learn. Instead, we proudly call it our history written in the blood of our children. Indeed, our children penning down our misdeeds with their blood! Medals for some, few songs, a cross road renamed, and of course annual remembrance day and a memorial for those who sacrificed their tomorrow for our today; thus preparing more war fodder for our continuing misadventures. Since nothing went wrong, so there is nothing to learn. We shall do it again. We decide. You die. We sing.

>> Cut off from the reality of pain and affliction that would be brought upon the nation, the decision maker takes the course most suited to his whimsical ambitions. Possible hurdles are sidetracked, on the basis of ‘need to know’, or merely bulldozed. Never has there been an institutional decision for the bloodshed. And at the end of each fiasco, original objectives are redefined to cry, “Hurrah! We have won”.

>> Our leaders seek personal glory, and desire honour in the eyes of other nations. Sadly, that has become our definition of national honour; but how can we be respected when we have little self respect? So concerned have we become about how they perceive us that we openly deride our religion and all the social values that we once stood for.

>> The whole truth about Kargil is yet to be known. We await the stories of forgotten starved soldiers hiding behind cold desolate rocks, with empty guns still held in their hands. What stood them there could only be a love higher than that of life. Some refused to withdraw even when ordered, and stayed to fight the proverbial last man last round. Such precious blood spilled without cause!

>> Whatever little I know, took a while to emerge, since General Musharraf had put a tight lid on Kargil. Three years later, a study commenced by GHQ to identify issues of concern at the lowest levels of command, was forcefully stopped by him. “What is your intent?” he asked. His cover-up was revealed many years later, on publication of his book.

>> An unsound military plan based on invalid assumptions, launched with little preparations and in total disregard to the regional and international environment, was bound to fail. That may well have been the reason for its secrecy. It was a total disaster. The question then arises why was it undertaken? Were there motives other than those proclaimed, or was it only a blunder, as I had assumed for many years?

>> It certainly wasn’t a defensive manoeuvre. There were no indications of an Indian attack. We didn’t pre-empt anything; nothing was on the cards. I was then heading the Analysis Wing of Inter Services Intelligence and it was my job to know. Our clearly expressed intent was to cut the supply line to Siachen and force the Indians to pull out. This was not a small result we sought and cannot be classified as a tactical manoeuvre, where no one other than the local commander needed to be aware. General Musharraf himself writes, “800 sq kms of area was captured.... and it created strategic effects”. To say that occupying empty spaces along the Line of Control was not a violation of any agreement and came under the purview of the local commander is astounding. This area was with the Indians as a result of Simla Agreement, and there had been no major violation of the Line of Control since 1971.

>> The entire planning and execution was done in a cavalier manner, in total disregard of military convention. In justification, to say that our assessment was not wrong, but there was, “unreasonably escalated Indian response” is a sorry excuse for not being able to assess Indian reaction. Assumptions were made that they would not be able to dislodge us and the world would sit back idly.

>> There were no mujahideen, only taped wireless messages, which fooled no one. Our soldiers were made to occupy barren ridges, with hand held weapons and ammunition. There was no way to dig in, so they were told to make parapets with lose stones and sit behind them, with no overhead protection. The boys were comforted by their commander’s assessment that no serious response would come. But it did — wave after wave, supported by massive air bursting artillery and repeated air attacks. The enemy still couldn’t manage to capture the peaks, and instead filled in the valleys. Cut off and forsaken, our posts started collapsing one after the other, though the general publicly denied it.

>> The gung-ho mannerism, when there were no pressures, was cowed when lines started shrinking and the international setting became frightening. There was no will to stay the course. Media was hushed to silence, so that pulling out does not become a political issue. We will sing when our songs don’t tie us down.

>> The operation, in any case, didn’t have the capacity to choke Siachen. When this truth surfaced, the initial aim was quickly modified. Now the book reads, “I would like to state emphatically that whatever movement has taken place so far in the direction of finding a solution to Kashmir is due considerably to the Kargil conflict.” Glory be to the victors.

>> We continue to indulge in bloody enterprises, under the hoax of safeguarding national interest. How many more medals will we put on coffins? How many more songs are we to sing? And how many more martyrs will our silences hide? If there is purpose to war then yes, we shall all go to the battle front, but a war where truth has to be hidden, makes one wonder whose interest is it serving?

>> Pakistan must be Allah’s country, for who else is holding it afloat?!
>>
>>
>> The writer is a retired lieutenant general and former corps commander of Lahore. Blog: gen-shahidaziz.blogspot.com

New Year ?? Which One ???

2013-12-31T13:00:00.000+05:30

A friend once wished me happy new year on my birthday which falls in August. I thought that it might have been due to slip of tongue and thanked him for the wishes. But later, when I gave it a second thought, his wishes sent me on a thinking spree.

The new year need not necessarily fall on 1st January. My friend might have wished me some other new year, as there are a number of them, and more so in our country, inhabiting a number of communities. The business community, particularly in western part of India, celebrates new year on second day of Diwali. Then there is Parsi new year, Buddhist new year, Assamese new year called 'Bihu', Bangla Nav Varsh called 'Poila Baishakh', Marathi New Year called Gudi Parva, Punjabi new year (on the first day of Chaitra and not Baishakhi as is popularly believed by many) and such many more. Only the rituals to celebrate these various new years differ from community to community.

While the Christian era new year is marked with 'spirited' revelry, carrying out surveys of the past and prophesies for the future, and distributing calendars and gifts, the celeberations for the other new years involve religious ceremonies and folk festivities.

Some of our official calendars show two more dates along side the Gregorian ones ie., from 'Vikrami' and 'Saka' samvats. One of these is much ahead of our times and the other one, as much behind. No wonder the former is the 'samvat' followed by the business community and the latter, our 'sarkari' one, which is showing 1932 this year and sure enough, the look inside some of our 'sarkari' offices match that age.

Coming back to the new year's wishes that my friend conveyed to me on my birthday, well ! when there are so many calendar years around, why can't you have your personal one. In fact one's year commences on the day when one is born. The day one lands on this beautiful planet, one is taken by the big 'Merry-go-Round' on a ride, which rotates around its own axis to make one pass through light and darkness every twenty four hours, so that one can work and rest accordingly (though some of us make wrong use of the journey through darkness and instead of taking rest they create trouble either for themselves or for others).

The same 'Merry-go-Round' also takes one on a longer ride of 365.25 days, year after year. Its axis is so carefully tilted and the orbit so elongated, that one does not have to suffer the monotony of the journey and is exposed to various seasons and other kind and unkind acts of Mother Nature. Well, in fact, on one's birthday one can precisely tell that how many rounds one has completed around the 'Big Bulb' - that eternal source of light and energy.

However, today at the dawn of one of the most popular new years, I take this opportunity to wish all my friends a very Happy New Year, whichever one it may be.

One Never Looses One's Hard Earned Money

2013-08-09T22:07:00.001+05:30

I, along with Jeet, was driving back from Jalandhar yesterday. We had started from my in-laws' village at nine a.m. with an intention to reach Delhi before nightfall. It takes roughly seven to eight hours by road (making provision of wastage of almost one hour for negotiating potholes at Ludhiana, the so called "Manchester of India"). Jeet's Mausa ji had hitched a lift with us to be dropped at Jalandhar where he had to visit an eye specialist. While dropping him off at By-Pass at Jalandhar, Jeet, who was sitting in the rear seat till then, got out of the car to say bye to him and then occupied the front seat.

Till recently she used to carry her mobile phone in her hand bag and whenever the phone rang she would start unzipping all the pockets of her bag one by one and would invariably unzip the one in the end which actually carried her phone. By that time the caller would have disconnected. But a few days back Geetu had gifted her a lovely mobile cover, done up with nice mirror work and attached with a string, which she could wear around her neck like a "Mangal Sutra" (the nuptial necklace). This would ensure two things, firstly that she would promptly attend the incoming calls and secondly, that there were no chances of her misplacing her phone till she wore it around her neck, religiously.

Coming back to our episode, she somehow decided not to wear the phone around her neck during the journey and rather kept it in her lap and when she got out of the car to say bye to our uncle, the inevitable happened ie., the phone slipped and got dropped outside the car. It was only after we had covered approximately three kilometers, that she started frantically looking for her phone, suspecting that she had dropped it at the place where her mausa ji had got down. After pulling up the car to the left on the busy flyover, i rang up her number and not hearing any ring tone in the car, we concluded that her mobile phone was lost for ever. It was a cute little Samsung phone with a slide screen which i had gifted to her last year after her earlier phone was chewed up by our dear Bruno Singh Labrador.

She asked me to take a U turn to get back to the spot where she had got out of the car. That place was a tri junction of NH 1 and NH 1-A where all the buses coming from Amritsar or Jammu would halt and pick up waiting passengers, numbering anytime around fifty to sixty. In addition to that, a number of cycle and scooter rickshaws also waited there to ferry the passengers who alighted from these buses to various places in Jalandhar City. So the chances of getting back her phone from that spot were one in a million. But Jeet repeated her famous dialogue that one never looses one's hard earned money. As i looked for some U turn which was not in sight on the busy National Highway, my mobile phone rang and the call was from Jeet's phone. Jeet's eyes brightened up and she attended the call and told the caller that it was her phone which she had dropped at Jalandhar by-pass. The caller told her that her phone was safe and that she could collect it from Ludhiana. She snapped back at the caller and told him that she had dropped it a few minutes ago at Jalandhar and how come it had reached Ludhiana which was almost two hours journey from Jalandhar. At this i once again pulled up the car to the left and took my phone from her to talk to the caller myself. I asked him point blank that where was he at that moment. Hearing a male voice, he fumbled for a while and then told me that he was on board a bus, heading towards Ludhiana. I was sure that the bus in which he was traveling must be either behind our car or at the most may be a few steps ahead of me. I told him that i was also traveling in the same direction and that we could meet on the way where he could hand over the phone to us. He suggested that he would get down at Phagwara bus stop in front of ICICI Bank and would wait for us. I told him my car registration number and drove ahead. After reaching Phagwara, i slowed down and looked for the bus stop and the ICICI Bank branch. There was a traffic constable at one of the intersections and i pulled up the car near him and inquired about the location of the bus stop. He told us that the bus stop was right in front of us and after i narrated to him our story he told me to wait there itself. A number of buses were coming from Jalandhar side and were driving away after dropping or picking up passengers at the bus stop. We waited for a while and after no one came towards us, the police constable suggested to me to ask the man about the registration number of the bus in which he was traveling so that we could locate the bus. I rang him up on Jeet's number but it gave a message that the phone was either switched off or was out of reach. I crossed my fingers and hoped that the man had not changed his mind to hand over the phone to us. Since the caller had asked me to wait at the bus stop in front of ICICI Bank, I asked the Policeman that where the said Bank was and he pointed towards it which was a few steps away from there. I thanked the policeman for his help and pulled up the car in front of ICICI bank. Once again we waited there for a while. While Jeet sat in the car itself, i waited outside and looked for the man who would hand over the phone to us. Then suddenly i saw a young boy knocking at the window of our car. I walked up to him and there he was, holding Jeet's mobile phone. He told us that at Jalandhar bus stop the mobile phone was picked up by a rickshaw puller and that he had to pay him Rs 400/- for the phone. I immediately took out Rs 500/- and handed them over to him which he promptly accepted. I asked him that whether he wanted to get dropped somewhere on the way, he firstly refused and while we started to drive away he again hailed our car and told us to drop him nearby. I asked him to hop in at the rear seat. I asked his name which he told us was Honey Singh. He sported a light beard and wore an ear ring in one of the ears- a typical fashion in vogue in many parts of India, particularly with youngsters. After a while he took out a memory chip from his pocket and handed it to me, telling us that he had taken out the memory chip to copy the music which he said he had liked a lot. He also asked me to talk to his brother to tell him that we had got our phone back. He said that he had called his brother from Jeet's phone who insisted that he must return the mobile phone to the rightful owner. I dialed his brother's number from the last dialed list on Jeet's phone and informed him about our getting back the phone and thanked him that he had given good 'Samskars' to his younger brother. After a while Honey Singh got down and we bade good bye to each other. Jeet looked into my eyes and said, "Dekhiya, hakk di kamayee kitey naheen jandi" (see, one never looses one's hard earned money). I remembered another episode about thirty years ago when she had first uttered these words which i have narrated in this blog which you can read by clicking here.

Contain the Dragon's Spit Fire

2013-05-02T10:30:00.000+05:30

In view of recent developments on the Borders with China I am reproducing this post, written by me earlier.

Frankly speaking, nothing succeeds like success. China has not only succeeded in selling their cheap goods to the whole world but also the idea that they are the next superpower. They demonstrated it during the Beijing Olympics and again on their 60th National Day.

We cannot forget the Chinese invasion over India in 1962, which was the punishment meted out to us for having given refuge to the Dalai Lama and his Tibetan followers, who had come to India to seek asylum after Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1959. Chinese aggression of India in 1962 resulted in India loosing a large chunk of its territory of Aksai Chin in Ladakh to China which is still under their occupation. China's claim on Aksai Chin and some other Indian territories is beyond any logic.

Take a closer look at the geographical features of the Indian sub continent, you will find that the map of India has been crafted by the Nature itself. The Indian peninsula is formed by a wall in the north consisting of a range of hills and mountains including the great Himalayas which rise from Karachi in the west, make an irregular arch over its northern borders and end near Burma in the east. The great River systems like the Indus, the five rivers of the Punjab, the Ganges and the Braham Putra in the north and Narmada, Mahanadi, Godavari, Krishana, Kaveri, and Tapti in the central and southern parts, irrigate this land, making it the most fertile and cultivable land in the world. The shores of the triangular peninsula are washed by three water bodies -- Bay of Bengal in the east, Arabian Sea in the west and the Indian Ocean in the south. There is no question of any other country claiming even an inch of territory inside this natural Indian domain. However, over a period of centuries various invaders and settlers have caused the demographic, political and administrative configuration of this land to change from time to time.

While the reason behind China's 1962 aggression still persists ie, the Dalai Lama and the Tibetans are still our guests, we are also following China close behind in making rapid economic progress, which must be further bugging them. That is the very reason that they keep making diplomatic noises at regular intervals, the volume of which has increased in the recent past. They also keep making occasional incursions into our territory to with an intention to make their presence felt, if not more. While they have silently nuilt Karakoram highway connecting Pakistani Occupied Kashmir with Aksai Chin and are supporting and funding the projects in the Pakistani Occupied Kashmir, they publicly object to the bunkers built by Indian Army on this side of the Line of Actua Control. In the past they have objected to the visit of our own Prime Minister to our own State of Arunachal Pradesh which is an integral part of India with a popular elected government in place. The voter turn out in the recent Assembly elections in Arunachal Pradesh was record 72%.

It is high time that we, on our part as Indians, end our in fights, pay heed to the red corridor of the naxalites, which may prove as a convenient passage to the 'Dragon' to come and spit fire at us again in times to come.

Having served in the area of Daulat Beg Oldi and Depsang plians during my Ladakh Scouts tenure back in early eighties, it pains me to learn that Chinese are sitting 19 kilometers inside our territory and we are doing sweet nothing about it.

We should stop indulging in critical appreciations and get down to 'Brass Tacks' NOW to contain the Spit Fire of the Dragon in its incipient stage itself.

Entrance to Taj Mahal

2013-02-21T15:30:00.001+05:30

I recently traveled to Agra to visit Taj Mahal, one of the seven wonders of the world. Though the drive on the newly commissioned Yamuna Express Way from Delhi to the outskirts of Agra was wonderful, the drive through the Agra city to reach Tajmahal was an agony. One had to wind one's way through the narrow market place, plying all modes of transport, including bullock carts, cycle rickshaws and hand carts, not to speak of convoys of cows and buffaloes crossing the roads, holding the vehicular traffic to ransom. The roads were full of cow dung and slush. Light showers of winter rain had made the place all the more dirty. But the culminating point of disappointment was the scene at the entrance to the Taj Mahal premises. To save me from using words to explain the scene, i am putting up some pics where the visitors to the Taj are seen doing obstacle course to avoid walking through ankle deep water gathered just at the entrance. I wonder what the administration is doing with the entry fee charged from the visitors. The heritage site is visited not only by the countrymen in thousands per day but also by foreigners from whom a hefty entry fee is charged. Please have a look and feel free to comment. The area around the entrance of the premises is dug up and is lying in a state of utter neglect.

Sikhism -- A Way of Life

2012-11-28T09:54:00.001+05:30

Guru Nanak Dev, the first Sikh guru, laid the very foundation of Sikhism to rid the society of false religious pretenses and rituals. He had a unique way of sending his message across to his disciples and the public in general. Once he deliberately lied down at a famous religious place, pointing his feet towards the sanctum sanctorum. When asked by the priest to move his feet away from the seat of the Allah, the Guru requested him to move them towards the direction where the Almighty did not live. The priest was speechless. Guru Nanak Dev had driven home his point that the Omnipresent does not live within the four walls of a building alone. On another occasion, after watching pilgrims offering water to the Sun on the banks of Ganges, he started throwing water towards the opposite direction. When questioned, he told, that he was trying to irrigate his fields, which were hundreds of miles away. He argued that if the water could reach the Sun then why not his fields. Every single verse of ‘Guru Granth Sahib’, the holy book of Sikhs, calls upon us to shun affectations and follow the teachings of the great gurus and saints which repeatedly mention that God is only one ('Ek Onkaar').

Over the centuries, the Sikhs have been identified as a brave and hard working race. They have not only been providing largest quantity of food grains to the country, but have also been contributing largest number of manpower to the Indian Army. By their sheer grit and hard work, they have converted many a barren land, in some parts of the country, into green farms, particularly in some desert and hilly areas. They have achieved success in almost every walk of life and have migrated to almost every part of the world. This is one community, the members of which, owing to their great sense of humour, have the ability to laugh at themselves. The Sikh functions are designed to be simple and sober. In Sikh marriages, no horoscopes are matched to find the brides and the grooms. The marriage is held on any convenient day selected by the families of the bride and the groom, mostly Sundays, without getting into the rigmarole of 'Muhurats' etc. The marriage is solemnized by taking four rounds of the holy book ie., 'Guru Granth Sahib' by the marrying couple during day time preferably before twelve. However, now most of the Sikhs have started indulging in the 'spirited' revelry during almost all the functions in addition to adding all kinds of pomp and show in a race to compete with one another.

While the Sikhs have become synonymous with hard work, bravery and high spirits, they have also demonstrated tolerance and humility. In a ‘gurudwara’ (a Sikh shrine) all are welcome, regardless of their cast, creed, colour or culture. At the end of every religious congregation, all sit on the floor and eat together, as a mark of equality of mankind.

The occassional show of strength by Sikhs, where they are seen killing each other, some times brandishing bare swords and other weapons, destroying public property and disrupting normal life, is just unfortunate. The Sikhs have been ordained to raise the sword only in the face of extreme injustice being meted out by the strong and powerful to the feeble and helpless.

" सूरा सो पह्चानिये, जो लड़े दीन के हेत" ' soora so pahchaaniye jo ladey deen ke hait' (the brave is identified as the one, who would fight for the sake of the poor)

In today's strife torn world, the need of the hour is universal brotherhood, tolerance, peace and harmony, that is demanded time and again in the ‘Gurbani’ -- the teachings of not only ten Sikh gurus but also other great saints from different religions like Kabir , Farid, Namdev, Jaidev, Ravidas etc, recorded in ‘Guru Granth Sahib’, which is worshiped as the embodiment of the ten Sikh 'gurus'.

This post is part of an earlier post and is repeated here on the occasion of Gru Nanak Dev's Gurpurab.

Two Armies, Two Chiefs, Two Funerals

2012-11-18T19:53:00.000+05:30

Field Marshal SHFJ Manekshaw, fell critically ill on 26th June 2008 and passed away the next day. His funeral was held at Wellington near Ooty in Tamilnadu. Not only almost all the top ranking dignitaries of the country were conspicuous by their absence during his funeral the media totally blacked out the proceedings of the funeral. To know the names of the absentees, please click here. At least our Media could have done well to telecast the running commentary on the funeral of the departed soul.

The irony is that the gallant soldier, who got the shaby treatment at the hands of our politicians and the media after his death, was praised by the newspapers of even that country which was cut to size by Sam Bahadur and his Army in 1971. While the article has praised the Field Marshal, it has also echoed the sentiments of many of our countrymen for the treatment given to the departed soul.

And now look at the media coverage that the funeral of chief of another 'Sena' got today.

While i have nothing against Shri Balasaheb Thakerey and pay due homage to him on his demise but at the same time as an ex-soldier of the same army that Sam Bahadur once commanded, I hang my head in shame for the lapse on part of the Indian Government, Politicians, Senior Defence Officers and above all that of the Media for meting out shabby treatment to him on his funeral. Please forgive us.

Delhi's Under Belly

2012-05-26T21:50:00.000+05:30

Every year, with the arrival of monsoon in delhi, the lightest of showers flood the streets of the National Capital. The reason is that the drains that are supposed to drain away the excess rain water are full of garbage and get choked.

Today during my morning walk I clicked some pics of the drain running through the posh residential area of Vasant Vihar, which is also the neighborhood of present Lt. Governor of the NCT of Delhi. Come on Mr.Tejinder Khanna. Get your drains cleaned in time. The monsoons have already knocked the doors of Andaman Islands and will be in Delhi in a few days from now.

Delhi Power Supply Competing with the Sun

2012-05-18T11:47:00.002+05:30

During my morning walks i invariably find the street lights burning while the Sun shines bright in the morning sky.

I wonder whether Delhi has surplus power or are the power supply companies trying to outshine the Sun? Have a look at the pictures which i took over a period of few days on my cell phone.

Sweet, Brave and Bright

2012-04-16T12:20:00.001+05:30

I have earlier written a post by the title 'Sweet and Brave' which is a tragic story of a small girl, Chandana, lovingly called Sweety by family and friends, who was our neighbor at Mumbai from 1995 to 98. Unfortunately at the tender age of nine or ten, she had lost her right hand in a ghastly accident in the lift of our residential flats at Mumbai. I had driven her and her father, Mr. Durganand Swami, to the hospital where doctors operated on her but could not join the severed hand to the wrist.

During that hair raising episode, one thing was very pertinent to note. After the initial screaming and crying at her house, the little girl had regained her wits and composure in no time. During the drive to the hospital she kept consoling her parents, who were sobbing silently, that she would learn writing with her left hand and that she would still continue her dancing and other activities. She even spoke to the hospital staff in a manner as if she had suffered only a minor injury.

As i moved to Delhi on transfer in 1998, i lost touch with the family. Therefore i have ended the post by writing that:-

"I don't know where Sweety is and what is she doing at present but, given the personality traits that she exhibited at the tender age of nine or ten, I am sure she must be doing well and I wish her all the best in her life."

Fortunately, last year i met her father. On inquiring about Sweety, he told me that she is not only happily married but is also doing very well on academic front and is settled with her husband in the USA. In fact after a few years of the accident, they had come in contact with a US based doctor, who was a specialist in artificial limb surgeries etc. They had sought the appointment with the doctor at Mumbai airport who was on a visit to India along with his wife and on meeting Sweety, the doctor couple immediately decided to take her to the US where they kept her at their own expenses and also fixed her hand with the help of artificial limb implant.

Two days back i received a mail from Sweety's father telling that :-

"tomorrow Sweety will be presented the Cooper award at a special banquet. we are very excited about it. the chairman of the committee for the award sent a message yesterday that he is also excited because for the first time an Indian student is getting the prestigious one. we will be meeting him tomorrow at the banquet."

Today Sweety's father has sent Sweety's pictures, receiving the coveted award.

See for yourself.

I pray to God that every parent be blessed with offspring like Sweety

Sweety, receiving the award

Sweet, brave and bright

Sweety with her father

You can see rest of the pics on the link below

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=durganands&target=ALBUM&id=5731839230003358641&authkey=Gv1sRgCM_EzpTixqHpkwE&feat=email

A Mistake Is Entitled To Correction

2012-01-04T15:41:00.000+05:30

The present controversy about the two dates of births of Army Chief, General VK Singh reminds me of my experience about mistake in documentation and rectification of the same :-

Few years back I approached Army Headquarters’ Adjutant General's Branch to obtain dependent certificates for my sons. As I approached the concerned officer in the AG’s Branch, he noted down my service details and asked me to wait in the visitors' room for a while. Though, I was expecting that after submitting my request I would be asked to come the next day or after few days, as it is done in other Government Departments, but to my pleasant surprise, in just about fifteen minutes' time, the Subedar Clerk of the concerned section came to the visitors' room and handed me the dependent certificate (swift action might have been due to the genius of computerization). As I glanced through the document I was surprised to find a different name of one of my sons, although other details on the document were correct. On asking for the dependent certificate for the second son, the Subedar Clerk replied that my record of service showed only one child.

I thought for a while and could immediately put two and two together.

Both my sons were born at Military Hospital, Jalandhar Cantt, where I was posted during my Army tenure in early eighties. When my first child was expected, we, in the family often discussed that if it was a boy we would name him Sapandeep and if it was a girl, then the name would be Deepali, (that reflected my fancy for word 'Deep' which means lamp or the source of light). While my wife was in total agreement with me on this matter, my mother differed and categorically told us that firstly, she was damn sure that it would be a boy and secondly that he would be named Sartaj Singh.

As the D day approached, we were blessed with a son, the grandmother’s wish was honored and the new born was christened Sartaj Singh.

In the Army, the personal effects of an officer, like marriage and birth of children are published by the officer’s unit in which he or she is serving, which are called Part Two Orders which are further forwarded to the Army Headquarters for putting them in the record of service of the officers in addition to the official effects like date of birth, date of commission, dates of transfers/postings, appointments held, training courses undergone, promotion examinations passed, medical category held, battles fought, and honors and awards won.

It had so happened that after the birth of my elder son, the Unit Head Clerk, while publishing the Part Two Orders, had not consulted me about the name of the child and had instead depended on the informal information emanating out of the discussion which had been going on for some time amongst Battalion officers about the name of my son and had published his name as Sapandeep Singh which in turn was recorded in the Army Headquartes too. Another mistake which was committed was that the Part Two Orders were not at all published with regard to the birth of my second son due to an oversight, since, at the time of his birth, i was away undergoing three months' Junior Command Course at College of Combat Mhow (Madhya Pradesh), and in the bargain, my record of service in the Army Headquarters showed only one child and that too with a wrong name.

I narrated the complete story to the Officer concerned of the section who asked me to submit two affidavits, one for the change of the name of my elder son, giving due justification and second, for the birth of my younger son, along with relevant documents like, birth certificate and or class tenth certificate, where the correct date of birth is recorded along with the names of both the parents. I submitted the said affidavits, with the desired documents and I got my Modified Record of Service, duly showing all the correct details about my service and my family etc.

Well, a mistake can always be committed in documentation due to an oversight but a mistake is also entitled to a correction.

Please Don't Fall into This Trap

2011-10-31T19:55:00.007+05:30

I have received a mail from some Burton who calls himself the Google Promotion Agent and tells me that my e-mail account has won 5,00,000 GBP. He says that my e-mail id has been short listed for the prize to celebrate the 13th anniversary of Google and the that i am being rewarded for using google mail for last so many years. I checked up by searching his name in the google search engine and found out that there were numerous Gmail users like me who have received such mail calling them winners. The modus operendi seems to be to ask you to come to a fictitious address in London or if you are staying in some far away land on this globe and can not come to London (which most probabaly must be the case while selecting the victims by the senders) then you will be asked for your bank account details and then either your account balance will be syphoned off or you will be asked to first deposit some money as International Transfer commission in his bank and then you will never hear from him. Earlier many citizens have been defrauded by some fraudsters who used Reserve Bank's Logo on the mail and asked them to deposit cash in some bank account. My sencere request to all my friends is not to fall into such traps.

Can Google check up that who is sending such mails on thier behalf and take appropriate action ??

The text of the said mail is reproduced below in green clour for distinction. I could not capture the Google Logo and the Watermark received in the mail while copying this document on my blog as it was in Microsoft Word Format :-

©2011 Giveaway Promo Team

Belgrave House, #76 Buckingham Palace Road London SW1W 9TQ.

Tel: +44 702 4084626, +44 702 4064514,

Fax: +448704710767, +44 700 597 8372.

Office Open 7 Days, 8am-6pm.

DEAR GOOGLER (WINNER),

13TH ANNIVERSARY PROMOTIONs.

I'm pleased to inform you that your email address has been checked and it falls among our ten (10) lucky winning email addresses for this year promo draw. On behalf of all team, I'm happy to inform you that you actually emerged a winner of £500,000.00 GBP (Five hundred thousand Great British Pounds) under Category (A), which is part of our 13th Anniversary promotional draws. No purchase of Tickets were required for this draw, all Participants (email addresses) for this draws were randomly picked from a worldwide range of Gmail users, web searchers (our Google Search Engine users) and other Google ancillary services through a computer ballot system and this was how your email was picked. This promo is organized by Google UK Organization to mark her 12th year of existence in the UK which also aimed to say "Thank you" to our numerous customers/users of our search engine and other ancillary services who have in one way or the other made us what we are today.

OPTIONS OF CLAIM (MODALITIES):

1 - Personal prize Pickup:

All winners are required to come down in person to personally pickup their prize at any of our disbursement locations (cash pickup centers) here in LONDON.

Requirements for personal prize pickup are:

(a) A printed copy of your Winning Notification (the first mail you received from us)

(b) An International Passport or Drivers license

(c) A tax clearance certification.

(d) Birth Certificate or Affidavit of age Declaration

(e) Police report attesting your patriotism and crime free citizen of your Country (Note: You are only required to present the above documents only when visiting us in person)

NOTE: Claim deadline for this option is exactly 30 working days from the receipt of this mail.

In receipt of these requirements your cash will be made available to you after 24hrs. This option is basically for winners who can easily visit us in person with the above stated pickup requirements. Scan copy of your Flight Ticket should be forwarded to us one week before your flight to UK to enable us assign delegates who would welcome you at the airport

Inability to meet up with this stipulated date either due to none availability of some claims documents above, none availability of travel documents etc. may result to loss of winnings as funds will be re-used for other upcoming draws. This option is recommended by the Google lotto management to clear doubts and unnecessary thinking as regard this Promo. This is because we have had series of complaints from individuals that people are using our company name for various forms of indecent acts. Thus, as part of verification/confirmation; our 10 lucky winners are advised to come and pickup their reward in person from our disbursement centre here in UK.

2- On-line Swift Telegraphic Bank Transfer:

Your £ 500,000.00 GBP which you have won will be transfer to your bank account via swift bank transfer. Condition: You shall be responsible for the international transfer commission what will be charged by our paying Bank since no tickets were sold for the promotion. This option is basically design for winners who are not resident of UK and winners who cannot visit our payment office in London.

Kindly fill the FORM below with the required data and send it back immediately either via email or Fax. To fill in your detail in the form, just click on the provided space “box” and fill in your data.

WINNERS PRIZE RELEASE ORDER FORM

Prefix (Mr., Mrs., Ms., Dr.):

First name :

Middle name :

Last name :

Date of Birth:

Occupation :

Address :

City/State/province

Country :

Telephone number(s):

Mobile number(s):

Email Address 1&2:

Amount won / Date of notification

Ticket number / Lucky numbers

CGPN Number

Payment Options (tick on any of the payment option, the one that you find most convenient) Personal prize Pickup.

Online Bank Transfer.

I expect you to fill and return the Release Order Form above within 24hrs upon receipt of this message so that appropriate arrangement can be put in place. Congratulations to you once again!!!

Sincerely,

MR. PAUL BURTON

Verification/ Payment office

A Promise to Pay

2011-09-19T13:00:00.003+05:30

(click on the images to enlarge)

Yes these are specimens of Rs 5000/- and Rs 10000 denomination currency notes. Don't get surprised. India is not a poor country and she never was. These notes were in circulation in our country even after India's Independence and were later withdrawn in 1978 to arrest black money.

Even today Indians have the largest deposits of money in foreign Banks like Swiss Banks etc.

It is alleged that according to the Swiss Banking Association Report of 2006, Swiss Banks deposits by top five countries were :-

India : $ 1456 Billon

Russia : $ 470 Billion

UK : $390 Billion

China: $ 96 Billion

(Based on a statement by Mr. Joginder Singh, former Director CBI, in a reputed magazine)

Incidentally the figures might have changed upwards since then as the report is of 2006. And Swiss banks are only one of the tax havens. There may be much more Indian money deposited in other banks abroad by our corrupt citizens.

Alas !! If only the country's wealth was equally distributed we won't have slums, illiteracy, malnutrition, and violent groups like naxalites and our Defence forces would have been stronger than those of America or China.

On Tenth Anniversary of 9/11

2011-09-11T17:38:00.008+05:30

Friends, on the tenth anniversary of "9/11" -- the famous term used for the day of the attack on World Trade Centre and other three sites in the United States that was carried out on 9th September 2001-- i want to share with you all an article that has been published in STRATFOR, a geopolitical weekly. The article is an explanation that why America has been successful in preventing another 9/11 and which carries a great lesson for us. Please read on:-

9/11 and the Successful War

By George Friedman

It has been 10 years since 9/11, and all of us who write about such things for a living are writing about it. That causes me to be wary. I prefer being the lonely voice, but the fact is that 9/11 was a defining moment in American history. On Sept. 12, 2001, few would have anticipated the course the resulting war would take — but then, few knew what to think. The nation was in shock. In retrospect, many speak with great wisdom about what should have been thought about 9/11 at the time and what should have been done in its aftermath. I am always interested in looking at what people actually said and did at the time.

The country was in shock, and shock was a reasonable response. The country was afraid, and fear was a reasonable response. Ten years later, we are all much wiser and sure that our wisdom was there from the beginning. But the truth is that, in retrospect, we know we would have done things superbly had we the authority. Few of us are being honest with ourselves. We were all shocked and frightened. Our wisdom came much later, when it had little impact. Yes, if we knew then what we know now we would have all bought Google stock. But we didn’t know things then that we know now, so it is all rather pointless to lecture those who had decisions to make in the midst of chaos.

Some wars are carefully planned, but even those wars rarely take place as expected. Think of the Germans in World War I, having planned the invasion of France for decades and with meticulous care. Nothing went as planned for either side, and the war did not take a course that was anticipated by anyone. Wars occur at unpredictable times, take unpredictable courses and have unexpected consequences. Who expected the American Civil War to take the course it did? We have been second-guessing Lincoln and Davis, Grant and Lee and all the rest for more than a century.

This particular war — the one that began on 9/11 and swept into Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries — is hard to second-guess because there are those who do not think it is a war. Some people, including President George W. Bush, seem to regard it as a criminal conspiracy. When Bush started talking about bringing al Qaeda to justice, he was talking about bringing them before the bar of justice. Imagine trying to arrest British sailors for burning Washington. War is not about bringing people to justice. It is about destroying their ability to wage war. The contemporary confusion between warfare and criminality creates profound confusion about the rules under which you operate. There are the rules of war as set forth in the Geneva Conventions, and there are criminal actions. The former are designed to facilitate the defense of national interests and involve killing people because of the uniform they wear. The latter is about punishing people for prior action. I have never sorted through what it was that the Bush administration thought it was doing.

This entire matter is made more complex by the fact that al Qaeda doesn’t wear a uniform. Under the Geneva Conventions, there is no protection for those who do not openly carry weapons or wear uniforms or at least armbands. They are regarded as violating the rules of war. If they are not protected by the rules of war then they must fall under criminal law by default. But criminal law is not really focused on preventing acts so much as it is on punishing them. And as satisfying as it is to capture someone who did something, the real point of the U.S. response to 9/11 was to prevent anyone else from doing something — killing and capturing people who have not done anything yet but who might.

Coming to Grips

The problem is that international law has simply failed to address the question of how a nation-state deals with forces that wage war through terrorism but are not part of any nation-state. Neither criminal law nor the laws of war apply. One of the real travesties of 9/11 was the manner in which the international legal community — the United Nations and its legal structures, the professors of international law who discuss such matters and the American legal community — could not come to grips with the tensions underlying the resulting war. There was an unpleasant and fairly smug view that the United States had violated both the rules of war and domestic legal processes, but very little attempt was made to craft a rule of warfare designed to cope with a group like al Qaeda — organized, covert, effective — that attacked a nation-state.

As U.S. President Barack Obama has discovered, the failure of the international legal community to rapidly evolve new rules of war placed him at odds with his erstwhile supporters. The ease with which the international legal community found U.S. decision makers’ attempts to craft a lawful and effective path “illegal and immoral” (an oft-repeated cliche of critics of post-9/11 policy) created an insoluble dilemma for the United States. The mission of the U.S. government was to prevent further attacks on the homeland. The Geneva Conventions, for the most part, didn’t apply. Criminal law is not about prevention. The inability of the law to deal with reality generated an image of American lawlessness.

Of course, one of the most extraordinary facts of the war that began on 9/11 was that there have been no more successful major attacks on the United States. Had I been asked on Sept. 11, 2001, about the likelihood of that (in fact, I was asked), my answer would have been that it was part of a series of attacks, and not just the first. This assumption came from a knowledge of al Qaeda’s stated strategic intent, the fact that the 9/11 team had operated with highly effective covert techniques based on technical simplicity and organizational effectiveness, and that its command structure seemed to operate with effective command and control. Put simply, the 9/11 team was good and was prepared to go to its certain death to complete the mission. Anyone not frightened by this was out of touch with reality.

Yet there have been no further attacks. This is not, I think, because they did not intend to carry out such attacks. It is because the United States forced the al Qaeda leadership to flee Afghanistan during the early days of the U.S. war, disrupting command and control. It is also because U.S. covert operations on a global scale attacked and disrupted al Qaeda’s strength on the ground and penetrated its communications. A significant number of attacks on the United States were planned and prosecuted. They were all disrupted before they could be launched, save for the attempted and failed bombing in Times Square, the famed shoe bomber and, my favorite, the crotch bomber. Al Qaeda has not been capable of mounting effective attacks against the United States (though it has conducted successful attacks in Spain and Britain) because the United States surged its substantial covert capabilities against it.

Obviously, as in all wars, what is now called “collateral damage” occurred (in a more civilized time it would have been called “innocent civilians killed, wounded and detained”). How could it have been otherwise? Just as aircraft dropping bombs don’t easily discriminate against targets and artillery sometimes kills innocent people, covert operations can harm the unintended. That is the nature and horror of war. The choice for the United States was to accept the danger of another al Qaeda attack — an event that I am certain was intended and would have happened without a forceful U.S. response — or accept innocent casualties elsewhere. The foundation of a polity is that it protects its own at the cost of others. This doctrine might be troubling, but few of us in World War II felt that protecting Americans by bombing German and Japanese cities was a bad idea. If this troubles us, the history of warfare should trouble us. And if the history of warfare troubles us, we should bear in mind that we are all its heirs and beneficiaries, particularly in the United States.

The first mission of the war that followed 9/11 was to prevent any further attacks. That mission was accomplished. That is a fact often forgotten.

Of course, there are those who believe that 9/11 was a conspiracy carried out by the CIA in order to justify interference in our liberty. But an organization as capable as they believe the CIA is would not need a justification to abridge liberty. That was a lot of work to justify something, and the truly powerful don’t need to justify anything. Nor do they need to leave people who are revealing the truth alive. It is striking that the “doubters” believe 9/11 was created in order to crush American freedoms but that the conspirators are so incompetent they cannot shut down those who have discovered the conspiracy and are telling the world about it. Personally, if I were interested in global domination triggered by a covert act like 9/11, I would silence those revealing my secret. But then I’m not that good at it, and the doubters all have reasons why they are blogging the truth and are not dead or languishing in a concentration camp.

I take this detour for four reasons. First, doubters should not be ignored but answered. Second, unless they are answered, they will be able to say the CIA (or whoever they think did it) needed one attack to achieve its goals. Third, the issue the doubters raise is not the structural integrity of a building but the underlying intent of the CIA in carrying out the attack. The why is everything to them, and it is important to point out that it is their explanation of motive that makes no sense. Finally, I am engaging the doubters here because I enjoy receiving an abundance of emails containing fascinating accusations and the occasional threat.

Considering the Failures

But to return to the main theme, it is important here to consider not only the successes but also the failures of the war, and here Iraq comes to mind. There is a case to be made that the Iraq campaign was not irrational, but even more interesting, I think, is the fact that no war is without its disastrous misjudgments, even successful wars. In my mind, the U.S. invasion of the Philippines in 1944 was a major mistake. It did little to contribute to the fall of Japan, cost far more than the 4,000 American lives lost in Iraq, and it could have actually delayed the end of the war. It was opposed by senior commanders and was essentially something Gen. Douglas MacArthur insisted on for political reasons. The Battle of the Somme in World War I cost 600,000 British and French casualties, with 60,000 in one day. Their total gain during the battle was perhaps six miles. And in the American Civil War, the federal drive into Virginia turned into a disaster.

Every successful war is built around a series of defeats and miscalculations. The perfect war is built around deeply flawed and unnecessary campaigns. My own personal selections are not as important as the principle that all successful wars contain massive mistakes. If we simply write off Iraq as one of these, that in itself does not change the fact that the American homeland was not attacked again. Did Iraq contribute to that? This is a question that warrants a long discussion. But conceding that it had no effect simply makes the post-9/11 war normal and, in that normality, tragic.

What has not been normal has been the length of the war. Heavy fighting continues in Afghanistan, Iraq is not quite done and new theaters for covert operations are constantly opening and closing. It is the first U.S. campaign — Afghanistan — that actually poses the most vexing problem, one that is simple to express: When is the war over? That, of course, depends on the goal. What is the United States trying to achieve there?

The initial goal of the invasion was to dislodge al Qaeda, overthrow the government that had supported it and defeat the Taliban. The first two goals were accomplished quickly. The third goal has not been accomplished to this day, nor is it likely that the United States will ever accomplish it. Other powers have tried to subdue Afghanistan, but few have succeeded. The Taliban are optimized for the battlefield they fight on, have superior intelligence and have penetrated and are able to subvert government institutions, including the Afghan military. They have the implicit support of elements in a neighboring major nation — Pakistan — that are well beyond American means to intimidate. The United States has no port from which to supply its forces except the one controlled by Pakistan and only complex and difficult supply routes through other countries.

On the other hand, the Taliban cannot defeat the United States, which can stay in Afghanistan indefinitely. But the major U.S. mission in Afghanistan is concluded. Al Qaeda has not used Afghanistan as a primary base since 2002. Al Qaeda in Pakistan, according to the United States, has been crippled. The Taliban, products of Afghanistan for the most part, have no international ambitions. Al Qaeda has relocated to other countries like Yemen and Somalia.

Given this, continued combat in Afghanistan cannot be linked to al Qaeda. It could be said that the reason to go to war in Afghanistan was to prevent al Qaeda’s return. But the fact is that it doesn’t need Afghanistan, and if it did return to Afghanistan, it would be no more dangerous to the United States than it currently is with its bases elsewhere.

In wars, and especially in counterinsurgencies, the mission tends to creep upward. In Afghanistan, the goal is now the transformation of Afghan society into one that is democratic, no longer corrupt by American standards and able to defend itself against the Taliban. This goal does not seem attainable given the relative forces and interests in the country.

Therefore, this war will go on until the United States decides to end it or there is a political evolution in Kabul in which the government orders us out. The point is that the goal has become disengaged from the original intent and is unattainable. Unlike other wars, counterinsurgencies rarely end in victory. They usually end when the foreign forces decide to leave.

There is talk of a long war against radical Islam. It had better not be. The Islamic world is more than a billion people and radical Islam is embedded in many places. The idea that the United States has the power to wage an interminable war in the Islamic world is fantasy. This is not a matter of ideology or willpower or any other measures. It is a matter of available forces, competing international interests and American interests.

Ultimately, there are three lessons of the last decade that I think are important. The first is the tremendous success the United States has had in achieving its primary goal — blocking attacks on the homeland. The second is that campaigns of dubious worth are inevitable in war, and particularly in one as ambiguous as this war has been. Finally, all wars end, and the idea of an interminable war dominating American foreign policy and pushing all other considerations to the side is not what is going to happen. The United States must have a sense of proportion, of what can be done, what is worth doing and what is too dangerous to do. An unlimited strategic commitment is the definitive opposite of strategy.

The United States has done as well as can be expected. Over the coming years there will be other terrorist attacks. As it wages war in response, the United States will be condemned for violating international laws that are insensate to reality. At this point, for all its mistakes and errors — common to all wars — the United States has achieved its primary mission. There have been no more concerted terrorist attacks against the United States. Now it is time to resume history.

Reprinting or republication of this report on websites is authorized by prominently displaying the following sentence, including the hyperlink to STRATFOR, at the beginning or end of the report.

"9/11 and the Successful War is republished with permission of STRATFOR."

Two Dominions Were Born

2011-08-13T20:38:00.008+05:30

Published below is an image of a newspaper clipping dated 15th August 1947, the day when India got independence. The headlines of the newspaper are self explanatory. The independence came at a cost because on 15th August 1947, India not only achieved independence but was also partitioned into two parts and which has proved to be the biggest historical mistake that our political leaders of that time committed. Two nation theory was considered as the basis of partition, where it was argued, that while Pakistan, as an Islamic Republic, will inhabit majority Muslims, India, as a secular state, will inhabit the rest of the non Muslim population, albeit, with Hindu majority. But actually more Muslims stayed back in India than the sum total of the Muslims of East and West Pakistan. The partition of India not only resulted into large scale bloodshed on both sides of the borders, dividing the two nations, but also created a dissatisfied and an unstable small nation on its western as well as eastern flanks as west and east Pakistan respectively, (though the eastern part of Pakistan got liberated later in 1971 and became an independent nation as Bangladesh). The dissatisfaction of Pakistan in its share after division was reflected by its claim over the state of Jammu and Kashmir, which had become integral part of India through accession by its ruler, like other numerous erstwhile princely states had done. Pakistan not only laid claims on the legitimate Indian territory but also launched an attack and captured a large chunk of Jammu and Kashmir which is now called Pakistan occupied Kashmir. That also resulted into three conventional wars between the two countries and since Pakistan met humiliating defeat in the later two wars it took a resolve to bleed India through a thousand cuts in the form of fomenting terrorism.This also gave the western countries, particularly America, an excuse, ostensibly, to prevent the two adversaries from fighting a nuclear war but actually, which served their own interests to maintain their dominance in the region.

Pakistan, instead of developing into a self sufficient responsible state, became a stooge of the western world, receiving trillions of dollars to help them fight terrorism. But actually instead of using that aid for its intended purpose, Pakistan used the same to run terrorist camps on its own land, primarily, with an aim to exporting terrorism not only into India, but also into other parts of the world.

To conclude i have nothing to say but quote a famous Urdu couplet :-

"यह वक़्त भी देखा है तारीख की घड़ियों ने

लम्हों ने खता की थी, सदियों ने सज़ा पाई"

"Yeh waqt bhee dekha hai taareekh ki ghadiyon ne

Lamhon ne khata kee thee, sadiyon ne sazaa payee"

"The annals of history bear witness to the times when, for mistakes committed in moments, centuries had to pay the price"

Click on the image to enlarge.

Osama or 'Raqtbeej'

2011-05-08T07:25:00.007+05:30

By killing Osama Bin Laden, America has eliminated the Frankenstein monster that it had once created to act against the then USSR, but who turned against America itself after the USSR withdrawal from Afganistan. So, nothing great in that except the style of doing it, ie., killing the monster in a covert operation without the knowledge of it's misguided brat Pakistan, whom the US has been nurturing in its arms and nourishing him since long and in whose backyard the monster was living in style. The Americans chose a code word 'Geronimo' for Osama.

( Geronimo--June 16, 1829 – February 17, 1909, was a prominent Native American leader of the Chiricahua Apache who fought against Mexico and the United States for their expansion into Apache tribal lands for several decades during the Apache Wars. Allegedly "Geronimo" was the name given to him during a Mexican incident, but his real name was Goyaałé from the Chiricahua language meaning "one who yawns"; often spelled Goyathlay or Goyahkla^[2]^[3] in English.
After an attack by a company of Mexican soldiers killed many members of his family in 1858, Geronimo joined revenge attacks on the Mexicans and later against the United States. He became known for bravery and daring feats and was revered by the Apaches as a warrior with spiritual powers. In 1886 Geronimo was eventually tracked down by U.S. authorities and surrendered. As a prisoner of war in old age he became a celebrity but was never allowed to return to the land of his birth. He later regretted his surrender and claimed the conditions he made had been ignored. Geronimo died in 1909 after being thrown from his horse.
--Source Wikipedia).

If India was to carry out such an operation and if i was to choose a code word for him i would have chosen 'Raqtbeej' after the name of legendary demon, who fought with the gods in the famous battle of gods and demons (The Indian legend has it that 'Raqtbeej' was blessed with a boon that if he was killed in the battlefield, his every single drop of blood will give birth to another form of his. When the gods got frustrated after finding that Raqtbeej was not meeting his end and that every time he was killed by the gods, his blood drops turned into many more 'Raqtbeej' after coming into contact with the earth. They all implored goddess Kali who had to drink all the blood oozing out from the body of 'Raqtbeej' before it dropped on the earth to form numerous other demons and thus the gods got rid of 'Raqtbeej' and ultimately won the battle with the demons)

So America and rest of the peace loving world will do better not to slip into complacency after the death of Osama. Although his 'will' mentions that he did not want his sons to join Al Qaida and become terrorists like him but there are many more mad men who will carry the blood of 'Raqtbeej' and will try to avenge his death and take the jihad ahead declared by Osama.

Any present day god, goddess, god man or god woman around who may be ready to drink the blood of the modern day 'Raqtbeej' to prevent the blood drops turning into numerous other such 'Raqtbeejas ???

कर्तव्यं अन्वत्मा -- Duty Before Self

2010-11-17T19:47:00.015+05:30

Jalandhar Cantonment, 21st July of 1985: As i woke up in the morning, it was still raining. In fact it had been raining 'cats and dogs' throughout the night and as a result the water had accumulated in the neighborhood of our Army residential complex called Honeymoon Park (though this accommodation was not only meant for honeymoon couples but yes we could qualify as one such couple as we had been married for two years and did not have any issue till then). I had been allotted a two BHK terrace apartment in a two storied row of houses which was called Captains' accommodation in the Army parlance.

I came to the balcony and saw that there was knee deep water all around. In the normal circumstances i would have put on my PT uniform to attend the morning PT parade, which is normally the first routine of the daily activities of an Infantry unit, but bearing in mind the level of water on the ground, i decided to put on my gum boots and rain coat and walked out of the house. My purpose was to visit our unit lines to see that everything was in order there. I took a round of the unit area. The jawans were busy throwing water out of their barracks with the help of mugs and buckets. That was the first time that i had seen it raining so heavily in that part of the country. Normally Punjab gets its fair share of rains during monsoons but never before i had seen the land turning into lakes and ponds due to heavy rains.

I thought of my own home at my village which was approximately twenty five kilometers away and where my parents were staying. My wife suggested that i should take leave and we should visit our village to see the condition there but i was doubtful of getting leave because things were not hunky-dory in the unit area due to heavy deluge.

While my taking round of the unit area in the morning had increased my comfort level, it also gave reassurance to the jawans of our unit to see an officer taking round of their barracks in such adverse weather condition. At the same time it also sent very positive signals to my superiors about my sincerity, as i was one of the few officers out of twenty odd in the unit, who had ventured out to take a round of the unit area. Later when i reached the office after breakfast, our Commanding Officer Col RK Sharma, called me to his office. I prepared myself to brief him about my morning round but he already seemed to know all. He started with a word of appreciation. I wanted to en-cash that opportunity to request him for giving me a day's leave so that i could visit my parents at my village. But there was something else waiting for me.

While the Commanding Officer did appreciate my having gone around the unit area in the morning, he also, in the same breath, gave me instructions to prepare my company for flood relief operations and rush to Nakodar Tehsil (Taluka) of Jalandhar District, where a large number of villages had been inundated by flash floods which occurred because a barrage on one of the canals of the Satluj river had collapsed and given way.

After listening to the Commanding Officer's instructions, there was no question of my asking for any leave to visit my own village but, before leaving his cabin, i did mention about my desire to send my wife to visit my parents and a kind hearted person that Col Sharma was, he promised that in my absence he would arrange her visit there.

I immediately initiated the process of preparation of our company for the flood relief operations which, in addition to getting approximately one hundred and fifty jawans ready for the move, also involved collection of Out Board Motors (motor boats) and other essential equipment from local Engineer Regiment.

I got back home to pack my personal stuff and told my wife about my next assignment. She laughed aloud without saying anything and started to prepare for the visit to our village.

By lunch time my company got ready and by evening we reached the flood affected area. For the next one week our place of stay were only our boats. It was heart wrenching to see only the tree tops instead of cluster of houses in a large part of Nakodar Tehsil. We shifted a large number of villagers and their essential belongings to safer places with the help of our boats and other special equipment. Once the water receded in the area, i fell back to the base where i had left the administrative detachment of my company and reported about successful completion of the flood relief operations to the Commanding Officer through Wireless Set. After getting due orders from him, we returned to Jalandhar.

Later i was asked to assist the local helicopter unit to conduct an aerial survey of the area where we had conducted the relief operations on ground (or in the water, i should say). Though the flood waters had vanished, nevertheless, leaving the signs of widespread devastation with damaged houses, crops, roads and railway lines etc.

Meanwhile, in my absence, my wife had been assisted by our battalion to visit our own house in my native village. Thankfully, except for damage to some of arterial as well some link roads, the area was more or less safe, as the flood waters had not entered villages in that area which lay north of Jalandhar.

Our company not only received due appreciation from all ranks of the Battalion for representing 10th Battalion of the Dogra Regiment popularly called 'Shaktishali Dus' in the flood relief operations, but i was also awarded Chief of Army Staff's Commendation on the occasion of Army Day, 15th January1986. On getting the news about the award, as i went to convey my thanks to our CO, Colonel Sharma, for having recommended me for the same, he smiled, tapped my left breast pocket (over which medals/ribbons are displayed) with one end of his baton and said that the award which i was getting was actually for my 'कर्तव्यं अन्वत्मा ' which is the motto of the Dogra Regiment and which means "Duty Before Self".

(Click on the image for a larger view)

This post also forms part of the series on my life journey. To read all the posts in that series, please click here.

Sting Operation

2010-05-05T23:40:00.007+05:30

This episode occurred during my Army tenure at Jalandhar sometime between 1984 and1986. I was supervising the training of our troops in the training area of our unit. It was a vast grassy field spread over a few acres with lots of trees providing adequate shade. There were a number of squad posts where the troops got their daily training in various skills as per the operational role of their sub units.

There is a famous saying that the busiest troops are the happiest ones. Therefore, when they are not fighting, they are training, which not only keeps them busy, but also sharpens their skills in their respective fields. And one has to sweat more in peace, to bleed less in war.

After visiting a number of training squad posts, I decided to sit near one of them under the shade of a big 'sheesham' tree, around which a platform made of bricks had been built by jawans of the unit. As I was watching the actions of the Havildar Instructor who was taking a class of jawans on how to dismantle and re-assemble a particular weapon, a bright yellow colored wasp came and started hovering over one of the toes of my DMS boot. There are some insects that one will always like to keep away from and as the wasp falls in that category so, I jerked it away and as it fell on the soft muddy ground, I stumped it with my boots and forgot about it. Just then two more officers from our unit joined me and we all got busy in observing the training session.

After a while, suddenly, I felt as if some one had hit me at inner side of my thigh with a sharp knife. I jumped up with pain. The other officers were taken aback and rushed to my help. As I held my thigh at that spot, I could feel the presence of some small little object inside my pants sticking to the flesh on my inner thigh. I pressed it hard with between my fingers and thumb and there was a sound of something getting crushed. I jerked my leg hard so that the crushed object could fall out. Yes, it fell out from the bottom of my trousers and lo and behold, there it was, the same wasp that I had stumped some time back under my boots.

The Army DMS (directly molded sole) boots have deep grooves in the rubber sole which help to maintain grip while running or walking on difficult terrains, even in adverse weather conditions. It so happened that when I stumped the wasp it got stuck in one of the grooves which saved its life. It came out from under the sole and silently crept up in side my trousers and climbed as high as it could. It might have been heading for the 'ultimate target', where it would have hurt me the most but luckily due to the tightness of the pants at the thigh level it could not advance further and decided to strike with full force at that spot. Though the insect ultimately sacrificed its life, but not before carrying out a silent sting operation on me. That day in the unit training area, I learnt a great lesson that "if you leave your enemy injured, keep an eye on him, it may strike deeper than the previous target". So better kill your enemy than merely leaving him injured.

This post also forms part of the series of posts on my life's journey. To read all the psots in that series please click here.