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bls31
July 11th, 2013, 06:23 PM
I watch with shock, awe, amazement and profound sadness the magnitude of the havoc played by nature on the helpless Uttrakhand, the horrifying pictures of death and destruction playing on the various news channel of the TV.

I find some solace, and feel a bit of pride, in seeing the on going rescue efforts launched, on war footing, by the Army and Air force, the helicopters, defying the bad weather, low clouds, poor visibility at times risking the life and machine while navigating through the narrow valleys, flying in with relief material and flying the stranded tourists, and pilgrims out to safety.

More amazing is to see the human will to survive, earlier, having travelled by cars and buses, till last night comfortable in there hotel rooms, now shelter-less, wet and hungry with the single thought how to survive the next step.

The portly ladies, old men and young children, bravely bearing the ordeal while being helped over non existing tracks, hanging on to the sections of ropes, attached to the rocks by the rescuers, guided, hand to hand , at times even carried , from person to person of the human chain , across the crumbling mountain side, formed by the Army Jawans, some of whom had been para-dropped, to safer grounds


Seeing their plight I could not help but recall the day of 20th October 1962 when we had to abandon our Brigade Headquarter with the Chinese closing in fast.

We set out and started moving in a single file through a re-entrant. Bombardment by Mortars was still going on. We were moving and climbing at a steep gradient. With no one to guide and no rope to hold to, we had to make our own tracks as there were none to follow, even if there were any in that area we had no knowledge of the same. The steep climb, big boulders, thick vegetation, the Rhododendron bushes though providing cover from observation got entangled with every and any part of body, dress or the webbing resulted in the going being difficult and painfully slow.

The whole mountainside was covered with snow and thick bushes. Moving mostly sideways along the narrow ledges, scrambling up the bare rocks, leaping the wide gaps, with the heart in the mouth, some how we kept on progressing upwards.

The torturous movement combined with incessant and heavy shelling resulted in our loosing cohesion and we soon got separated in small groups of ones and twos.

It was with luck that most of the stranded in Uttrakhand were rescued ; it was also with luck that we of the Seven Brigade, those who came out, did come out of the trap we were caught in.

The similarity of the events was amazing; the situations entirely different.
BLS31