Had he lived on, tomorrow (09-09) he would have turned 43. But fate did not let him complete 25
Sam Bahadur Manekshaw - India's gutsy witty former Army Chief is once supposed to have said "If a man says he is not afraid of dying, he is either lying or is a Gurkha" . He perhaps did not know Vikram Batra at that time !
July 1999 - the vacation after my 2nd year of IITM BTech. If I remember it right, I was doing a mini project at DRDO Bangalore. Naturally the talks were about the Kargil war. In fact for my generation that is the only "closest to a war" that India fought - so far - in our life time. With internet not so common, Newspapers and TV news were mostly the source. Vikram Batra's name became famous because of his "Yeh Dil Maange More" radio message after the capture of Point 5140 .
That mere attitude was inspiring, but the first time I read about him making that statement, little did I know what real substance this young chap was made of. Then came the news of him being killed in the next attempt. Somehow I don't remember reading the full details - years later I read a detailed account somewhere - I dont remember where, but it was pretty close to what is detailed in his wiki page - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikram_Batra#Kargil_War - true "Lion King"
Param Vir Chakra, till date, I believe has been awarded 21 times. 4 of that were for bravery in Kargil. 2 out of that 4 were posthumous. One was Vikram Batra and the other Manoj Kumar Pandey
The least inspiration that these men who died for India instill in us is to live for this Nation.
1 comment:
Abhishek Bacchan played Batra's role in LOC Kargil but that was only a small portion. A dedicated biopic is going to come
Post a Comment