Soldier Mountaineer: The Colonel who got Siachen Glacier for India
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Soldier Mountaineer: The Colonel who got Siachen Glacier for India
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9789385563560 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | VIJ Books (India) Pty Ltd |
| Publication date: | 07/01/2016 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 274 |
| File size: | 5 MB |
About the Author
Col N N Bhatia was commissioned in the Kumaon regiment, Indian Army. He took part in the 1965 and 1971 wars, and the insurgencies in Mizoram, Nagaland, Punjab and Jammu&Kashmir. His numerous articles have been published in various journals and in a Pakistani newspaper “The Lahore Times”. He is involved in trying to obtain the release of 54 Indian POW’s languishing in Pakistani jails since 1971 war.
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
GENESIS
Narinder Kumar was born in Rawalpindi, now in Pakistan on the 8 December 1933. They were four brothers and two sisters. Narinder's father was an educationist and professor in the Chief College, Rawalpindi which was the alma mater for the royals of all the princely states like Kapurthala, Patiala, Chamba, Jind and other similar states in northern India.
The eldest brother, Brigadier KI Kumar was a great swimmer; and the services' champion in the breast stroke events. The next was Major Davinder Kumar who after 16 years of service in the Territorial Army (TA) Regiment went to Iraq to work for a construction company – Somnath Builders, around the time when Iraq had attacked Kuwait. One unfortunate night, he was ambushed by deserters of the Iraqi Army and asked to hand over the keys of the vehicle he was driving. He resisted and was shot by the deserters. Later on the offenders were caught and hanged.
Bull Kumar as he was christened in the Army — the actual story of how he was christened is explained in another chapter; was the third in the line of the siblings. The fourth brother was Major Kiran Kumar who was a Para Commando and had followed Bull's footsteps in mountaineering. Unfortunately, in 1985 while climbing the summit of the Everest, solo; he missed his footing and hurtled down to instantaneous death.
One sister, Saroj Pandit elder to Narinder, was married to the Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC) Secretary who later became the Minister of State in the Central Government. His youngest sister Nirmal Pandit was married to an Army Officer who retired as Major General.
Bull Kumar (we will continue referring to Col Narinder Kumar as Bull Kumar or just Bull) was married to Mridula Sadgopal on the 21 February 1966. Mridula was doing a course in perfumery in Sweden at that time. Most of the Indian 1965 Everest team members got married after the successful Expedition. Mridula's father was the topper from the Banaras Hindu University in his batch. He had joined Indian Standard Institution and dealt with basic oils. Her mother Kamla Sadgopal was born in Lahore and was one of the first few ladies to complete her B.A. in her time.
His son Akshay Kumar was a great skier and would have partaken in the 1988 Olympics but when he was sent to France for training, he fractured his knee unfortunately; serious enough to bring an end to competitive skiing. He had studied in the Delhi's prestigious Modern School and subsequently graduated from the elite St Stephen's College. After that he joined Mercury Himalayan Explorations, known for organizing treks, rafting and other adventure expeditions. Since he was also a great rafter, he led the Brahmaputra Rafting Expedition form Tuting to Bangladesh. He has also done Narmada and Ganga Rivers' Rafting Expeditions from their sources to sea. He presently holds the eminent positions of the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Mercury Himalayan Explorations and also the President of the Adventure Tour Operators Association of India. Akshay's wife Dilshad Master was the Vice President of the Star TV. They have been blessed with one daughter.
Bull Kumar's daughter Shailaja Kumar was the first lady to represent India in 1988 Winter Olympics held at Calgary. She is married to Yash Karan Singh and is blessed with a daughter. They live in San Diego, California.
Bull's father being a teacher correctly believed that young children should not go to school at an early age. Bull was 8 years old when he started going to school in Class III and had only 7 years of formal education before he joined the Joint Services Wing (JSW) at Clement Town, Dehradun. This institution was later known as the National Defence Academy (NDA) and shifted to Khadakvasla near Pune.
School days were fun as he was a Boy Scout. The scouts used to be called down to Annandale Race Course where they used to act as staff members to manage the crowds. At the end of the races, the management used to give them a sumptuous and rich tea. It was there that he learnt to bet on horses.
Scouts used to pool in money and the jockeys and owners gave them good tips to enable them to make a little extra pocket money. After that they used to climb up from Annandale to Shimla. They were young and fit and sometimes they climbed upto Jakhu – the Hanuman Temple, where there used to be lots of monkeys and return in the evening.
In those days climbing 3,000 feet was not considered to be a great feat. From Shimla there was a road that led to Tibet. Once some of the boys got bored and decided to go to Tibet. They carried a few puncture units with them and thought that they could survive on gur (jaggery) and mungphali (ground nuts), but they got far too many punctured tyres in their bicycles en route! Their Tibet mission remained a dream, but later on, on many occasions and in many sectors, Bull Kumar entered Tibet during his numerous mountaineering expeditions. He visited Barahoti in the Central Himalayas in 1961, Lola Pass in 1965, conducted an Everest Expedition in the Eastern Himalayas and the 1981 Siachen Expedition in the Western Himalayas, shattering the myth that dreams do not really come true.
Bull studied in the Government High School, Shimla, and used to play cricket matches with Bishop Cotton School in Shimla. They won many a match! They usually played in their ground and were looked after very well and given good lunches and tea. Once the Bishop Cotton School team came to play in Government High School ground but the hospitality shown to the Cottonians left much to be desired!
All the brothers were extremely lucky that their father was posted as the Headmaster of the Government High School, Shimla in 1946; a year before the partition. After the partition, their small house had 50-60 guests at a time, as most of the refugee families were devastated due to partition of the country. All the young people were lodged in the boarding school while the ladies and gents slept in separate rooms. They shared the meagre resources of the family. The boarding school children had the time of their lives during those trying days which forged a permanent bond till date.
While Bull was in Class IX in 1947 he went to World Scouts Jamboree in Paris. There he mingled with International scouts from all over the world. In the evening every country had to put up their own cultural shows at the camp fire and he kept visiting separate countries every day. The Indian contingent consisted of 150 boy scouts out of that 50 were from Punjab itself. Mr Thaddeus from the South was the Contingent Commander and Mr Qureshi was the head of the Punjab Contingent.
On the eve of 15 August 1947, they hoisted an improvised Indian and Pakistani flags together with the Union Jack in the centre. It was only while sailing back from Paris in the ship called 'Strathmore', when one night the churning of the engine stopped and their Pakistani friends including his best friend Sarfraz were taken away to Karachi while the rest journeyed to Bombay. It was only at Bombay that they understood the havoc that the partition had brought about in the Motherland. Thousands of migrants, both Hindus as well as Muslims were being slaughtered on either side of the border.
At Delhi Junction they all parted company. Even the Punjab Contingent broke off to different areas. Some went to Amritsar, Shimla and to other cities of Punjab. He still remembers a scene where a young boy named Swaran Singh who came from a very rich, affluent and cultured family from the Western Punjab found his parents penniless on the railway station after the partition. At that time, he was too young to understand such privations.
He also remembers that before going to the Jamboree, he needed a full sleeve sweater and four of his aunts knitted a sweater in a combined effort. When he went to the JSW he was asked to give a small talk during ragging and he started talking about the jamboree he had attended and earned the nickname "Jamboree".
The first JSW course had only an interview and no examination. He got selected in the interview and was very confident to go to the Academy. All of them, who were selected, stopped studying, sold their books and waited for the call from the JSW. At the last moment, it was announced that there would be a Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) written examination. Firstly, he thought that was a mere formality but later on he realized that it was a competitive examination and he was not in the order of merit. So, he joined the JSW a year later in 1950.
Cadets stayed in the barracks and ragging was very much part of the training at that time. He personally felt that healthy ragging was really essential to break down one's ego. Putty parades were another custom that could also be given to junior cadets by the senior appointments. Putty parades included asking juniors to go and change their dress in three minutes time or report in a particular dress in the evening where they made them do front and back rolls or run around the barracks; and no cadet could escape these punishments.
There was another type of punishment called extra drills that could be given by officers if cadets were caught slouching; or breaking any custom or tradition. Apart from extra drills they were also given restrictions debarring them from going to the town on out passes on Sundays and holidays. The restriction drills also meant reporting at night where some officers would take 30-45 minutes' parade. There were some cadets who were perpetually on restrictions and would take life easy as they could not do more than one restriction drill in a day.
Some of them had joined JSW to escape studies but were surprised when they had to take at least 17 subjects that included academics and military studies. Each room had four cadets, all of different terms. In his case, there were first, second, third and fourth termers! It worked both ways; the good point was that the senior cadets could help juniors in their work and guide them on how to overcome daily difficulties, while most of the times the junior cadets had to run errands for the seniors.
Once while he was bringing a chocolate for his senior, enroute he was accosted by another senior cadet who demanded a portion of the chocolate and he could not refuse to give him some. Since then, the senior cadet decided to buy his own chocolates lest they be swiped en route.
Since malaria was prevalent in those times, anti-malaria precautions were mandatory and cadets had to roll down their sleeves in the evenings and the mosquito nets were drawn to sleep. Even now he seldom finds an army officer with half sleeves in the evening. Somehow it had become a habit with him too.
There used to be two Mess Nights a week where they had to go formally dressed and had a sit down dinner. After the dinner, there was a custom to drink a toast to the President once everybody had finished their meals. The President would rise up and say, "Mr. Vice for the President" and Mr. Vice would then get up and say, "Gentlemen, the President" and everybody would rise up and say, "The President". Before independence the toast used to be drunk to the King. This tradition is still in vogue in all the Armed Forces Officers' Messes.
The day's routine started with physical training (PT) in the morning, followed by breakfast, drill, weapon training (WT), academics and studies on the basics of the various military subjects. Lunch was followed by the compulsory siesta and games in the evening and the day ended with the formal dinner. After that there would be lights out time and everybody had to go to sleep.
Cadets were shown two movies in a week. They used to have Saturdays and Wednesdays as half days and Sundays as the holidays. They could go to town but had to be properly dressed and some of the areas and cinema halls used to be 'out of bounds'. Howsoever rich any cadet may be, they were not allowed to spend more than Rs.40/- a month. Even the children of Rajas and Maharajas had to stick to that rule.
There were various games to play and boxing was compulsory in the initial stages. Any cadet could pick boxing as a sport if he desired to. There used to be inter-squadron competitions and those who did well in sports used to get 'Blues' in various sports. Bull Kumar earned his boxing 'Blue' very early.
Only in riding they used to award 'Canes' for those who excelled in riding, instead of 'Blues'. Cadets could wear the 'Blues' on their blazers and got extra marks on their passing out merit list for sports activities. In fact sports and other extra curricular activities counted more than studies. Narinder remembers he passed out within top 10 percent of the passing out cadets whereas those who were very good only in studies were left far behind.
The cadets who passed out went to different academies. The Army cadets went to Indian Military Academy (IMA), Dehradun and the Naval and Air Force cadets went to their respective academies before they got commissioned.
During the passing out, as a custom, the junior cadets had the chance to rag their seniors. Bull still remembers some instances of his stay at JSW One was that he used to study after lights out with a torch under his blanket. He had also represented his squadron in 5-6 games that left him quite exhausted at the end of the day.
In another incident before passing out, he was pinned down by 4-5 cadets and half of his moustache was shaved off. He was extremely angry and was out to take revenge and the alleged cadets hid themselves in the kitchens and never slept in their beds. On the lighter side, one of them had many years later written a column in the newspaper produced below: In those days hockey was far more popular than cricket. Narinder made his mark in cricket but then later on he realized that the matches took place during Saturdays and Sundays with the result his 'weekends' went for a six. It was very easy to play a couple of bad shots and get out of that game. The new games that he had picked up during the JSW were cycle polo and under water swimming. Cadets could also propose outdoor excursions like trekking, shikar, cycle trips, and the like. Once they were taken on a cycle trip from Clement Town to Mussoorie and he was the only cadet who did not get off the cycle. His squadron leader Atkinson was forced to keep pace with him and told him later that he had taken five years of his life that day.
CHAPTER 2RAFTING – HIS FORTE
Bull Kumar had a love for mountaineering at a very young age. Once, he remembers – four cadets decided to go to Mansarover Lake, but he opted out as he wanted to attempt Mount Kailash — which was day dreaming indeed!
It was from one of the excursions in the Academy that he went to Khalsi on the bank of the Yamuna River on a riding trip and there he saw lots of rafts passing by. Himalayan Rivers are fast. Water rushes down the Himalayan slopes with tremendous force, and with the momentum it gathers, it moves though the valleys at extremely high speeds. These rivers are dangerous. Because rocks and boulders lie on river beds and water flows over and around these. In addition, there are strong, unpredictable currents, whirlpools, rapids and waterfalls.
These rivers are fascinating because they are fast, dangerous and beautiful. The clear blue water and white foam bordered by sheer rock canyons, occasional pebble beaches or vast mountain ranges give to the Himalayan rivers a wild and strange beauty.
He was only seventeen when he first felt attracted to rivers and what began as a pastime developed into a major preoccupation. During training as a cadet at the IMA, greater emphasis was given to physical development. The cadets had, in fact, become so used to physical exercises that even Sundays and other holidays normally meant to be days of rest for their tired bodies, found them eagerly on the move, and restless if they were not doing some physical activity.
One weekend trip they went horse riding to Mandi, twenty-six miles away, and were to camp there overnight. Before settling down for the night they massaged their horses only to find, much to their annoyance, that they, instead, smelled dirty. The Yamuna flowed close by, so early in the morning they decided to bathe in the river.
They all walked up to the Yamuna but only Bull Kumar stripped and was about to step in, when suddenly he stopped. There, before him flowing by majestically on the waves of the river was a huge wooden raft, forty feet long and twenty feet wide. Navigating it, as it rose and fell with the rolling motion of the waves, was a local boat with a boatman using only a long pole. Narinder's heart was beating faster as he thought how he would love to be on that raft. His companions apparently felt as he did, for their faces showed similar emotions. They too were excited by that sight.
They began waving their arms, signaling frantically for the man to stop, but he only waved back at them and went past. That left them disappointed, but even more determined to ride a raft, right at that moment! The question was how? A plan was laid with great ingenuity quite reflective of their military training, and promptly carried out. All the currency notes that they had among themselves were slung together as a garland. The garland was then strung to one end of the long pole. That completed the preparations, after that they sat and waited.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Soldier Mountaineer"
by .
Copyright © 2016 Col N N Bhatia.
Excerpted by permission of Vij Books India Pvt Ltd.
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Table of Contents
WHY THIS BOOK?,
Foreword,
Preface,
1. GENESIS,
2. RAFTING – HIS FORTE,
3. IMA – CREME DE LA CRÈME!,
4. WINTER WARFARE SCHOOL,
5. BULL KUMAR'S FIRST EXPEDITION – TRISHUL,
6. EVEREST – 1960,
7. BARAHOTI – 1961,
8. NILKANTHA – 1961,
9. NANDA DEVI – 1964,
10. EVEREST AGAIN – 1965,
11. CHOMOLHARI – 1970,
12. NATIONAL SKI SCHOOL,
13. INDUS BOAT EXPEDITION – 1975,
14. TRISHUL SKI EXPEDITION – 1976,
15. KANCHENJUNGA – 1977,
16. TERAM KANGRI – 1978,
17. SIACHEN – 1981,
18. KAMET – 1983,
19. SIACHEN DISPUTE: INDIA AND PAKISTAN'S GLACIAL FIGHT,
20. THE MERCURY HIMALAYAN EXPLORATIONS,
21. THE INDIAN OLYMPIC ASSOCIATION,
22. EPILOUGE,
Index,