Going back in memory lane
Sitting on lawn chair watching the students going to school, my memory of olden days of my childhood flashed back. I remembered the days when I was five and my father took me along with three other children from my village (who were two to three years elder than me) to nearest school which was three miles from our village across the paddy field through narrow road dividing the fields. It may have taken an hour to reach the school. Head Master saw us half wait and tired asked my father who was known to him “are these children going to study in standard one”? My father replied in affirmative. The head master came close to me and asked “ Beta will you be able to walk every day to school and back to home”? I was quite eager to attend school hence replied “ Yes I will attend school every day”. Thereafter we were enrolled for study in class one. I recollect in those days all village children used to play on street, going to school was a big change in our life.
My father accompanied us to school for a week thereafter we became confident of ourselves and started going to school on our own. We were first four children who started schooling in fifties. I being youngest among all children, I was loved and cared by all. In school we found ourselves new to teaching and learning. The head Master paid special attention and instructed one of the teaches to teach us from beginning. In our class all students were very supportive and brought us to their level within a month.
I recollect the lunch pack prepared by my mother which used to be soaked with Ghee with some vegetables.
Mountaineering Warfare Training
I was attending Mountaineering Warfare training at High Altitude Warfare School(HAWS) located at Sonamarg in 1975. It was a difficult training. It was freezing cold and we were accommodated in tents as Building of HAWS was washed away in an avalanche followed by Land slide. Night Temperature used to be in minus.
Our schedule used to be to start from Camp at about six in the morning, breakfasts were served at road head at about eight, after breakfast our climbing on mountains used to start thereafter. We used to climb different ranges within the given time frame and difficulty. There was an exercise to reach Pahalgam from Sonamarg through mountain picks passing Vishansar and Krishnasar lakes. The climbing started at 4 PM, we may have climbed for one hour then it started snowing. We continued our travel however it started heavy snowing at about 6 PM, we were not equipped properly for snow, so all officers took shelter where ever we could find. Since it was on mountain there were no house except few small huts owned by locals. Half of the hut was for the cattle and remaining for persons to live. Snowing stopped at around 8 PM, I being senior most took roll call of all the team members, it was found that three members were missing. We formed the search team under one of our instructor and went back two kilometers. We were able to locate two, it was mid night so returned back to place where we had taken shelter. We were carrying dinner pack, we had dinner and rested till 6 AM, we started our search for the one missing officer, after going back on the route we could locate the officer hiding under the big stone which was like a cave. We noticed that he had frostbite in his lag fingers, was unable to walk. We were carrying stretcher with us, we made him lie down on stretcher and carried him to place where we had halted. A helicopter was requested which could not land at that hill, so we carried him on stretcher for another two kilometers from where he was hele-lifted to nearest military hospital and was administered medical help. Thereafter we continued our journey to Pahalgam through Vishansar and Krishnasar lakes . We reached pahalgam eight hours later as planned,it was getting dark and beautiful lights of pahalgam was seen from hills.
Accident where i was saved
I was travelling from Jammu to New Jalpaiguri after my training at High Altitude Warfare School at Sonmarg in 1974. I was in superfast train, on the morning at about 4 AM train stopped with an emergency break after a big jolt. All passengers woke up with great fear on their face. Most of the passengers came down on severing cold night in dark only light one could see was of trains coaches. We were unable to compresence the situation. After two hours the whistle of train blew and passengers mounted the train with fear in their face. Our coach was nearest to Pantry Car. When enquired I was told by coach attended that due to mistake by signal man who allowed the Kalka Mail to pass our train was cut in two parts, I could not have understood how it happened but took as truth. It could have been a major train accident with one train cross hitting the other but God’s Mercy only two persons had minor injury.
It was 1985 when I was attending Defense Services Staff College at Wellington (Tamil Nadu). We used to have holidays on Sunday from studies and could move to nearby places. Otty is 40 kilometers from Wellington, once a month we used to visit Otty by Scooter. In one of the visit, me and my wife were returning back from Otty at about 4 PM. At a small village on hills number of people were standing on one side of road waiting for bus. At taught in driving school, I was driving in gear one being steep slope. Suddenly a girl aged at about 8 years crossed the road. I had to apply both hand and leg break, scooter stopped with a jolt just a foot away from the child, me and wife fell down on the ground. People rushed to help us with abuses to child. We got up, inspected the scooter and ourselves. Being winter we both were wearing very thick jackets. Jackets were cut and we both had minor brushes in hands and knees. I thanked the God as child was saved and we too were left with minor injury. Someone helped me to start scooter, which was running, so we took our journey back to Wellington home. We first went to military hospital which was a kilometer from our home. Got first aid and then returned home where children and care taker were waiting as we got delayed over an hour.
