Until the summer of the 1999 War, on the road meandering through the Himalayan landscape and midway between Srinagar and Leh, Kargil was an unknown village. Suru river flows at its base and is dotted with apricot plants, among other shrubs, that grow wild along its course. Summer months afford the time to grow crops in the limited space available to preserve the produce for the sustenance of locals during the long and harsh winters lasting seven to eight months in a year.
Due to the extreme cold temperatures, touching sixty degrees Celsius below zero and very heavy snowfall in winters, no movement is easy and mere survival of human beings becomes difficult. As such, the area had remained inactive during this period for a long time.
Kargil shot into international prominence only when the peaks in the area, starting from Mashkoh - Dras to Turtok Siachen, a stretch of 170 kilometers on the Line of Control (LOC), were quietly occupied by Pakistan Army soldiers during the winter just gone by. To pass them off as terrorists, they were dressed in Salwar-Kameez.
The Indian Army was taken by surprise when it discovered this subterfuge. Initially, the exact extent to which the Pakistanis had occupied our land was unknown. The presence of our soldiers was very thin on this entire front and the arms and ammunition was scanty.
As per the conventional wisdom, the mountains of this nature require more than nine times the size of enemy to attack uphill and capture any locality. Anyone sitting on top has to only just roll down boulders and stones to prevent anyone climbing up. Extreme weather and climate conditions make it even worse. It took a heavy toll on us, initially. There were reversals and the cost, in terms of human lives of brave young men, was huge until the brave soldiers of the Indian Army rose up to the occasion and turned the tide and ultimately, emerged victorious.
In my capacity as the head of a training institution in Kashmir valley, my role did not demand from me to go to Kargil and fight along with the men, whom I had recently trained, but learning about the ordeals they faced and the sacrifices it needed to overcome it, made me rush to Kargil after obtaining due permission.
Kargil was the first place of my posting as a Second Lieutenant some 25 years back then; it was homecoming and nostalgic this time. The world had changed but the familiarity with the ground was as fresh as before. I went to each of those places where the battle was taking place and stayed with them in bunkers which were facing the brunt of Pakistani artillery shells and bombs exploding. I listened to the stories of great emotions, courage and valour; which were punctuated with the sounds of huge explosions outside very often. One thing that stood out was the style of narration that never remained without a dash of humor, indicating the fighting spirit of our soldiers.
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