Wars and Compassion at Ground Zero

 

Wars and Compassion at Ground Zero by Dinesh K Kapila

 (Note - As related By Major General PK Batra, AVSM (Retd).  45 Cavalry)

General Batra and my late father, Major General Rajendra Nath, PVSM (Retd) go back a long way. Their bonds were forged in the din of bitterly fought battles in Bangladesh in 1971, where Dad Commanded 62 Mountain Brigade and then Major PK Batra commanded the A Squadron of 45 Cavalry. About these bonds I will write separately. And their battles. This story, well, it’s different. It’s from Another War. 1965. And touched my heart. It really did.  Where do I come in, well, I got connected with Major General PK Batra over the years as I deem it an honour to be connected to my father’s comrades in arms. 

 Wars are not only about death, bullets and blood and guts but also acts of caring and compassion. A barbed fencing or a wall can only create a superficial barrier but can not run through the hearts of people who were part of one country. This narration is of a village split in two by the whimsical and cruel partition of our nation in 1947 and the fencing off in the Jammu-Sialkot Sector. The year 1965.General Batra was a young Captain then.

 45 Cavalry was then a newly raised Armoured Regiment and was given the task of Armoured Delivery Regiment. This story starts with the much awaited announcement of Cease fire that had finally come on their tank radio set. After days of war and being highly alert and on an edge, sitting in cramped tanks, it would be a relief. As I heard it, on this very day, as the news came in, Captain PK Batra got down from his jeep next to a parked tank to stretch his legs and to exercise his limbs. He sat down leaning against the wall of a big brick cum mud house on the outskirts of a small village with barely 30 dwellings. His driver gave him a most welcome glass of tea. To quote Gen Batra, “the tea brewed in a tank has its own flavour-- a bit of diesel and kerosene smell with plenty of sugar. But you can't resist it”. He still remembers it with nostalgia. The young officer must have dozed off after tea and was startled awake by the noise of utensils hitting the ground from the room behind him. He froze with trepidation and some degree of fear too. He thought it could be a cat or a dog or surely it could be some enemy element as he pulled out his pistol.

 Hugging along the wall, pistol in hand, he approached the broken wooden door, the entrance to the house and built up the courage to survey the lay-out of the house. On his left, from the place where the noise came were five rooms in a row like a barrack. On the opposite side were two rooms and a huge shed for the cattle--two buffaloes sat munching oblivious to the danger around them. On the right side was fodder and some kind of a toilet. In the middle of the compound were two huge trees , a well on whose parapet rested a bucket tied to a string. To complete the setting, there was a rope tied between the trees to dry clothes.

 Finally, he reached the entrance of the room from where noise had come and gently opened the door. There in front of the surprised Captain Batra sat a very old and frail woman with cracked spectacles. He softly enquired of this gentle soul as to what was she doing in the midst of a battlefield, everyone from her village had left and there was not a soul living left. By the way I saw this in Palanwala in 1972, village after village deserted. It was eerie. To come back, the old frail soul was cool as cool one can be and calmly and clearly replied she had no place to go and could not leave Usman, her late husband ,who lay buried in the family grave yard barely two miles away. Razia, once a young , fair and petite girl barely 4 feet 10 inch tall had married Usman a 6 feet 6 inch tall handsome Punjabi. Usman had brought her as a young bride from her village across the border six decades ago and they lived together in this house. Her home, hearth and life's memories were in this house.

 Where else could she go at this stage in her life. She just wanted to be near her Usman. She slowly got up and had taken a few steps when a barrage of artillery fire came pouring down, she stumbled and Capt Batra reached to give a helping hand saying in Hindi, “Ammi be careful’. Her hands were very warm and he could make out that she had high fever. He requested over the radio the Regiment Medical Officer to come to his location with medicines after explaining about the lady’s fever & weakness. The Doctor along with the Nursing Assistant arrived within half an hour and carried out a proper check and gave medicines for fever, low blood pressure, weakness etc and advised her to rest. Capt Batra requested the Doctor to get two sets of new spectacles for her from Jammu. Such are our soldiers, trained for war and its horrors and viciousness but with a Golden Heart inside.  

 The young officer proceeded to check the kitchen with one of his boys and they were appalled to find that she was surviving only on a bit of atta (flour),onions and salt. All her ration tins were empty. As he says softly, “My boys replenished from our rations in the tanks and she had tears of   gratitude. It was time to leave and as I had to request her that I had to leave, she simply said Puttar (meaning son) when will you come again and then quietly wished, May Allah protect us all”. Capt Batra found some time next day and saw her. She was looking better and told him that the Doctor had come and checked her and that the previous evening her kitchen had been properly stocked including with fresh vegetables and fruits. The young Officer felt proud of his boys for their concern and "Insaniyat" (humanity).

 They connected, this soldier from Jalandhar and the old lady. From opposite sides. She spoke about Usman and their early years of married life, how she would carry food and go and make him eat in the fields and in the evenings wait for him. She would draw water from the well and he would bathe. A few years back Usman died of snake bite and she decided to join him when her time was up. This touched the young Officer deeply. The chats, the reminiscences and the memories of times gone by, in a quiet as a grave setting with silence all around. On their rounds, the boys (as General Batra calls his then young troops) and he would always stop by to check about her welfare and this young soldier made it a point to spend some time with her.

 She would narrate of the time spent with Usman, the joys and sorrows they had shared. The young officer could make out how loneliness makes one sad and uncared for. The Doctor too would also visited her and would keep Capt Batra informed about her health. One day when Capt Batra went to see her, she was excited about her new spectacles and said that she could see the moon and stars which she could not see properly earlier .They were all so hazy. As General Batra says, in his words across the years, “She looked beautiful too, there was a radiance in her face and she reminded me so much of my grand mother. Suddenly she became very emotional and said," Puttar tere siwa mera is duniya which Koi nahin ( meaning Son, there is no one besides you in this world)”. He was very moved and could feel his eyes go moist."Puttar apna khayal rakhin (Son, take care of yourself) she said and insisted he have saag and parathas made specially for him. General Batra still gets emotional about it and can only say “It was a delicious meal, only a grand mother could make it”.

 After a week or so, the Doctor told Capt Batra that Ammi (by that time she was Ammi – mother – to the soldiers) had high fever and she was very unwell. They reached her house and Capt Batra could make out that the time had come for her to join her beloved Usman.  She spoke to them and pointing towards the family graveyard said,"mainoo Usman de naal dafnain (bury me next to Usman). The youngsters tried to cheer her up but she had gone to sleep. Next morning she was gone and the  young soldiers who also called her Ammi were in tears and very sad. It was a sad day, says General Batra. As he recollects with clarity even today, with great difficulty they  managed to locate a Maulvi ji in one of the Infantry Battalion's, who on the radio set gave them  all the instructions for a proper burial. A proper grave was dug and these young lads, officers and men, located there, covered their heads as no skull caps were available. They did exactly as instructed. Finally they joined the Maulvi in "Dua-i-maghfirat" i.e. seeking forgiveness for the dead. There was complete silence and one could only see tears and red eyes. This was the bond forged between the two sides, young soldiers just through a tough brutal war and this old frail lady. Major General PK Batra can only say with all the decades behind him, “I was very sad as I felt I have lost my grand mother for a second time. My only consolation was that I could fulfill her wish to be buried near Usman and look after her a bit. I hope they are together and happy”.

 Wars can be cruel, rather are cruel, that is how it is, but  then come such instances, where you realise the essential humanity in us remains, even if it takes one old frail uneducated lady to bring it out.  Major General PK Batra, AVSM (Retd) would go on to play a stellar role in the 1971 War as a Squadron Commander and distinguished himself particularly at the crossing of the River Madhumati and in the subsequent pitched battle. That is his pride and justifiably so, and ofcourse of his Regiment, as it is for my family as Dad was there. However, I found it particularly interesting that nearly  six decades on, this is the story he liked to share with me. It has his heart and soul in it. How two totally disconnected strangers and from opposite sides of the border  could forge a close soulful connection while the war still lingered and memories of hard fought battles were fresh in the mind. Strange are the ways of fate. And to just sum it up, soldiers are men of heart after all, this story just had to be shared. I had to.

 (Dinesh K Kapila is a Retired Chief General Manager from NABARD)

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