---------- Forwarded message --------- From: 'N Sekar' via iyer123 <[email protected]> Date: Tue, Dec 12, 2023, 9:36 AM Subject: [iyer123] Re: Fwd: Brigadier (Retd) Sarathy tells the story of one of the great war heroes To: <[email protected]>, Rangarajan T.N.C. <[email protected]>, Mathangi K. Kumar <[email protected]>, Iyer <[email protected]>, Kerala Iyer <[email protected]>
Moving, really moving, heart breaking really. I could not even imagine the Khetarpals' plight and anguish. It is said in our scriptures that the greatest sorrow a person can undergo is when he has to lit the pyre for his son; there is no greater sorrow. Father performing his son's final rites is something unthinkable but it happens, especially for those serving in the armed forces. I have seen the TV news where this has been shown ( army men) many times and on all those occasions I used to say a silent prayer for the martyr and for the surviving family, especially the parents. I used to feel like hugging the father, to console and say how so many grateful millions are praying for them - a privilege given only to a few. There is the story of how even Arjuna had to undergo this ordeal by fire, when he lost his great warrior son Abhimanyu, this when Krishna was with Arjuna. There are no answers to some questions. But then, we still talk about Abhimanyu' valour because of his age and the way he was killed. Only a few are born to attain immortal fame and Abhimanyu was one such, eclipsing even his father. One incident which still gives me nightmares is when I saw (TV news) Maj. Vaikund's body ( he was killed in an encounter with the terrorists in Kashmir) was cremated by his aged father and Vaikund's small son was playing at the crematorium, oblivious to what was going on. What a cruel world we live in. N Sekar Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android <https://mail.onelink.me/107872968?pid=nativeplacement&c=Global_Acquisition_YMktg_315_Internal_EmailSignature&af_sub1=Acquisition&af_sub2=Global_YMktg&af_sub3=&af_sub4=100000604&af_sub5=EmailSignature__Static_> On Tue, Dec 12, 2023 at 4:50 AM, Chittanandam V R <[email protected]> wrote: Forwarded by Shri Sarathy, Brigadier ( Retd.) Our fighting formation , the strike Corps, was concentrated in Sambha area in J&K. I had met this boy Khetrapal as his Poona Horse Regiment was to break through into Pakistan as part of our formation but was shifted to 54 Infantry Division, at the last minute due to strategic reasons!! Saying a prayer for this brave boy today! Heart touching true story of a brave army man - must must read: 19 December 1971 0745 hours B-24, Naraina, Delhi. Brigadier K L Khetarpal is in his dressing gown, shaving, when the bell rings. Running his razor along his foamy chin, he hears the soft scrape of his wife's slippers against the floor and her footsteps leading to the front door. The latch clicks and the door creaks open. There is hushed conversation. He hears the distinct rustle of paper changing hands. And then a scream and a dull thud. His wife appears to have fallen down. His face still soapy, Brig Khetarpal rushes out of the bathroom. He finds Maheshwari Khetarpal collapsed on the floor and a postman at the door. In her hand there is a telegram. Gentle, soft-spoken Mukesh, the Khetarpals' younger son -- barely twenty and a student of IIT Delhi -- is home too. He also hears the noise and comes out of his room, still in his pyjamas. As Brig. Khetarpal bends down to assist his wife, Mukesh takes the piece of paper from his mother's loosely clasped fingers. Tears spring to his eyes as he reads the telegram and then wordlessly passes it on to his father. 'Deeply regret to inform your son IC 25067 Second Lt Arun Khetarpal reportedly killed in action sixteenth December. Please accept sincere condolences,' it says. May 2020. Khetarpals' bungalow Forest Lane, Ghitorni, Delhi. Fifty years have passed. Mukesh Khetarpal is now seventy years old, while his elder brother, Arun, who smiles rakishly from a portrait on the wall, dressed in army fatigues, is an eternal twenty-one. Mukesh points that out himself. 'I have aged but Arun never will,' he says, his eyes crinkling up at the corners as he smiles. He says he clearly remembers the cold Delhi winter of 1971 when he was studying in IIT Delhi and Arun's Young Officers course at Ahmednagar had been interrupted by the war. Arun was recalled to his unit like all the other officers, and he had taken a train to Delhi, travelling in the pantry car since he could not get a reservation at such short notice. He had carted along his beloved Java motorcycle, a gift from his dad. Since there were a few hours before he had to catch the Punjab Mail to Jammu, he had unloaded his bike at Delhi and decided to ride it home. 'I was home that day,' remembers Mukesh. 'Arun parked his bike and walked in, looking extremely handsome in his black Armoured Corps dungarees. 'I was so envious, particularly of his uniform. 'He was in the peak of his physical health, just as most young officers are after their intensive physical training, and he knew it. 'He had the lithe body of a panther, a confident prowl, and he was so extremely proud of his uniform, his regiment, his country that it showed.' 'We were so young then. I never once thought that Arun might not come back. For me, he was just going on an adventure.' Arun had packed up his golf clubs and his Blue Patrol uniform, explaining to Mukesh that he planned to play golf in Lahore and that he would need his ceremonial dress to attend the dinner that night would surely be held after the war was won. The Khetarpals had an early dinner, and it was at the dining table that Mrs Khetarpal said to Arun those famous words that would become part of army folklore. Recounting to him how his father and grandfather had both fought in wars, she had said, 'Sher ki tarah ladna, Arun, qayar ki tarah wapis mat aana.' Arun looked into her eyes and smiled. Later in the evening, Brig. Khetarpal had taken out his grey Standard Herald car and, giving a warm hug to Mukesh and his mother, Arun had got in. Arun, sitting next to his father, had pushed his head out of the car window and saluted his mother as she fought back tears and the car sped out of the driveway. Early December went by in a haze. 'We had an imported Hitachi transistor. We would carry it around and spend all our time listening to Radio Ceylon, which was reporting the war in detail. Sometimes the signal was good and sometimes we could hardly hear anything, but we all sat around with our ears glued to it,' Mukesh remembers. On the evening of 16 December, Radio Ceylon reported that a massive tank battle had happened in Shakargarh. 'We knew Arun's regiment was in that area and our hearts sank. There was a dreadful stillness in the house all evening. In our hearts there was this terrible fear about Arun's wellbeing, but nobody wanted to say it out loud.' The next morning, there came the announcement that Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had declared a ceasefire. The war had finally ended. 'It was such a relief to us,' Mukesh recollects. 'We started smiling and talking once again. 'My mother got Arun's room cleaned up and we started looking forward to the day he would be back home, recounting stories from the battlefield.' And then, on 19 December, the bell rang, and his mother opened the door to the postman. 'That telegram shattered our lives forever,' remembers Mukesh. 'After that, sadness seeped into our lives. 'My father, who was bursting with pride when Arun graduated from the Indian Military Academy and joined Poona Horse, was never the same again. 'He had so many dreams for Arun. But Arun left us all so suddenly. 'Both my parents never recovered from the loss. My mother immersed herself in household chores. Papa became quiet and withdrawn. He stopped going to the Delhi Gymkhana Club and meeting people, something that he used to love doing earlier. He would spend most of his time locked up in his room,' Mukesh remembers. Thirty years passed as the Khetarpals slowly accepted their loss and came to terms with their grief. Mukesh studied at IIT Delhi, found a job, got married and had a daughter, though he continued to stay with his parents. And then one day, he and Mrs Khetarpal were surprised to see Brig. Khetarpal smiling again. He looked happy. He said he was going to Sargodha, his ancestral place in Pakistan where the family had lived before Partition,' says Mukesh. Both Mukesh and Mrs Khetarpal tried their best to dissuade Brig. Khetarpal, but he would not hear a word from them. "You are eighty-one. Where will you go?" we asked him, but he dismissed all our pleas. "It is decided. I am going," he told us. "Don't argue with me." 'I am staying with another graduate of our college, a Pakistan Army officer who lives in Lahore,' he told her. 'That reassured us a little, and finally, when the day arrived, we drove him to the airport, where he got on to the Air India flight and waved us a happy goodbye. 'He was as excited as a schoolboy,' says Mukesh. Brig. Khetarpal called his family from Lahore. He told them his host was a perfect gentleman who had come to receive him at the airport and was taking very good care of him. Three days later, it was time for Brig. Khetarpal to return, and Mukesh drove to the airport to pick up his father. He found in him none of the excitement with which he had gone. A week later, the Khetarpals were visited by 1971 war veteran Maj Gen Ian Cardozo, who was releasing a book on Param Vir Chakra award winners. Since Arun's story was also in the book, he had come to invite Brig. and Mrs Khetarpal to the book launch at the Ashok hotel. A week later, Mukesh was reading India Today magazine when he came across an article that talked about his father's Pakistan trip and his meeting with the Armoured Corps officer who had been the cause of his son's death. A shocked Mukesh read it and then went looking for his father. 'I confronted him and asked if what I had read was true. 'He said it was. 'When my mother and I asked him why he had not shared this with us, he said what could he have told us. 'It was not a pleasant episode.' And that was when a shocked Mrs Khetarpal and Mukesh heard what had transpired in Lahore when Brig Khetarpal had been a revered guest at Brig Khwaja Mohammad Naser's house in Lahore. 1 March 2001 Lahore. It is day three of Brig Khetarpal's Pakistan visit. He has just returned from Sargodha and is tired, but is also touched by the fact that Brig Naser has gone out of his way to make the trip comfortable for him. Brig Khetarpal is surprised to notice discomfort in the Pakistani officer's eyes. Brig Naser is looking at the grass. He looks up to find Brig Khetarpal's eyes on him. 'Main kuchh qubool karna chahta hun, brigadier sahab,' he says softly. 'Kahiye, beta, main sun raha hun,' Brig. Khetarpal replies, looking affectionately at his host, who is younger than him by around thirty years. 'Sir, I too participated in the 1971 war. 'I was then a young major, squadron commander of the Pakistan Army's 13 Lancers,' he says. Brig Khetarpal is surprised -- 13 Lancers is the same regiment which had exchanged its Sikh squadron with the Muslim squadron of Poona Horse (his son's regiment) during Partition in 1947. On 16 December 1971, in a sense, the Indian and Pakistani soldiers had fought their old regiments. 'We fought Poona Horse in the Battle of Basantar,' says Naser, 'Sir, I am the man who killed your son.' A speechless Brig. Khetarpal listened quietly. 'On the morning of 16 December 1971, I was leading the counter-attack of 13 Lancers against the Indian bridgehead at Basantar,' Brig Naser recounts. 'Your son was on the opposite side, standing there like a rock. 'In the battle, tank casualties were high. 'He destroyed many of our tanks, and finally, it was just the two of us left facing each other with our tanks just 200 m apart.' We both fired simultaneously, and both our tanks were hit. It was, however, destined that I was to live, and Arun was to die,' Naser says. 'Your son was a very brave man, sir. He was singularly responsible for our defeat.' Stunned, Brig. Khetarpal can only ask, 'How did you know it was Arun's tank?' Naser tells him that a ceasefire was declared the next morning (17 December), and with that the war ended. When he went to collect the bodies of his dead comrades, his arm in a bandage from the injuries he had suffered in the battle, he also checked on his damaged tank. That was when he saw Indian soldiers trying to extricate the tank he had battled with a day before. Curious about the identity of the brave man who had fought him so fiercely, Naser walked up to the soldiers and inquired who had been commanding the tank. He was told it was 2nd Lt Arun Khetarpal of Poona Horse. 'Bahut bahaduri se lade aapke sahab. Chot toh nahi aayi unhe?' he asked the soldiers. They told him that Arun was martyred on the battlefield. 'Sahab shaheed ho gaye.' A crestfallen Naser returned to his tent. Brig Khetarpal is listening in complete silence. Naser tells him that he realized much later, when Arun got the Param Vir Chakra and became a national hero, how young he was. 'I didn't know he was only twenty-one, sir,' he says. We were both soldiers doing our duty for our nations. I salute your son for what he did. And I salute you too, because I now know where he received his values from.' The two officers sit quietly under the moonlight for some time. Then Brig Khetarpal slowly gets up from his chair. Naser springs to his feet as well. The two stand together in an awkward silence, the moon lighting up Naser's grief-ridden face. Brig Khetarpal looks at his moist eyes and moves forward to gently hug the man who killed his son. [This edited excerpt is from '1971: Charge Of The Gorkhas And Other Stories' by Rachna Bisht Rawat.] ************************************************************************************* Chittanandam -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "iyer123" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/iyer123/227783531.197615.1702359390062%40mail.yahoo.com <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/iyer123/227783531.197615.1702359390062%40mail.yahoo.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> . -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Thatha_Patty" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/thatha_patty/CABC81Zfm9M_XR1z%2BieCiTmxY_abbGaw6rosBREOFCwBrQhSWcw%40mail.gmail.com.
