The fighter who loved a face off but that morning someone was to back stab him! Cowards do it that way and once again they were at it!
‘Some lines said or written are tailor made for soldiers like Naib Subedar Jaswinder Singh and more often than not the people speak them out from their mouth pieces with hearts beating silently but loaded with strange heaviness. After Jaswinder and the four others of his Ghatak Platoon laid their lives for the Nation and the people, the people in the villages in DKG were saying, ‘your mind could imagine what others could not. Your heart could sense what others could not. Your feet could go where others could not and you hands could do what others could not have ever. Now you are no more but you gave us plenty and youe smiling face will remain etched in our hearts because you gave up your life for our tomorrow’. Jaswinder was not new to such encounters of the volatile kind. He had been awarded Sena Medal and Chief of Army Staff’s Commendation card for the acts of bravery that he had done before in other theatres where operations were part of the routine work to be executed!’
-‘One man who left his name in the echoes that come back from the grey/black rocks of Pir Panjals! The one who fires first is scared! Some one was behind the bush? But the one who knows that this is not of any significance either knows the area or backs his instincts?’
-‘District Poonch and Rajouri has its villains as every universe has its saints, every era has its heroes. And in this present one in an episode that happened two days back 16 RR produced Five of them with Jaswinder the Subedar leading the Charge of the Light Brigade’
-‘That day the wolf pack was on the wait. Routine movement is a bad thing, maybe that day the extraordinary man Jaswinder Singh the Junior officer Officer leading the Ghatak Platoon of 16 RR knew as to what was after the next turn or he was made to believe that something was going to happen! The latter was going to happen and it did!’ Nothing strange. It happens but the next time it would not as 16 RR will assure that!’
-‘Jaswinder Singh a Subedar was a man who loved humanity! There was a reason for that too! From a young sepoy to rise up to a Junior Commissioned Officer it takes some doing and his own children must have seen their father grow to get new heights!’
-‘ I’m sure when he had been given a posting to 16 RR his first thought would have been, ‘never mind’, it’s where the bullet’s fly, nice, let us see how my barrel explodes! Usually it used to but that morning maybe it was silent though the hand was on the trigger! It happens and I have seen it happening, bad idea but the man behind the bush has to be taken out but that morning could not have been Jaswinder’ day! That morning one man was to fall silent who always said that, Love is the world’s superman!
-‘ There is a saying that the soldiers leave a legacy behind! The legacy and some moments do get entrenched into the hearts and minds of the children! Jaswinder and his team used to get into a village and every day the children used to wait for them. When he used to go on leave he used to tell the men taking over about the children and what they expected! The children who love small joys do not expect Cadbury’s from Uncle Moon! But this uncle called ‘Jass’ always used to give them a Santa Claus in camouflages on the move! This art would have to be performed by someone else now!’
‘The whole village was numb and paralyzed today. Yes, the morning arrived but Jass Uncle was not there! The new man in place of ever lively Jaswinder could not have told the children that he would not come back because he retired in a heroic fashion! But vengeance was overloaded in a small heart beating full steam inside every person of 16 RR!’
Look up to your heroes, not down at your haters this was what Jaswinder always conveyed and the exact message was wht 16 RR has been giving! But if some idiot did not listen then he would be made to pay and when nose bleeds it has to be a knockout punch!
Jaswinder, once a young man, athletic to the core, always had a wisecrack up his sleeve and the Platoon members loved it! But he always told them:
Don’t wait for any hero to save you, become one. 16 RR ever since it was raised has produced several!
He who helps you in your worst moment well deserves to be your best hero! The village where everything happened, he was a hero, larger than life. DKG was never a cordial place back in the Nineties but 16 RR ensured that it became the most loveable place!
The villagers all around till Bafliaz loved the troops but unfortunately someone was not liking it! Never mind! It happens, ‘if Jass is gone, there are several others to get on with the job left, yet to be finished! More than three quarters have been!’
Jaswinder the Subedar always told his men, I don’t like perfect heroes, there cannot be one in the heat when bullets travel but still someone is there to tell, ‘I can’t recognize myself in this noise because the situation is all about heroes to stay afloat. ‘I like flawed heroes, like me’. So just keep moving on! The final word would have been, ‘you don’t need a medal to do what’s right. It is better to die for your virtues than to live for your vices’! Trust me every officer and man of 16 Rashtriya Rifles is on the same wavelength! They have done that no one could have ever! Every soldier has a story to tell! Jaswinder was a bit different, nostalgic for the people but heroic for the kids growing up in DKG. The toffee uncle somewhere behind a plethora of clouds is watching the children bounce about smiling and laughing as Jas uncle’s replica is there with the bag full of love and toffees!
