Vijay Divas

Photographs by Dishant Bhatia and Sahil Arora. 

It’s been fifteen years. The bloody war that took lives of more than 500 Indian soldiers and left more than a thousand injured - has made its place in the history books and ‘war timeline’ and is being remembered every year as Vijay Divas. I had never realized the importance of this day until June ’13 and then the trip to Kargil War Memorial happened.

Kargil War Memorial

Tololing Hill

Sitting between the deserted peaks likes Tololing and Tiger hill, the memorial/museum is soaked in a very odd stillness. The entrance is marked by the slogan, “INDIAN ARMY – OF THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE, FOR THE PEOPLE”. The moment you enter the premises you are welcomed by a concrete road heading straight to the memorial beaded with Indian flags flying on both sides. But the only thing which will drag you is the tall post with a fearlessly flying ‘giant’ TIRANGA, placed just behind the memorial and the ‘amar jawan jyoti’. Behind this ‘symbol’ is a wall with AMAR JAWAN written on top and the names of all the brave jawans who fought for the country and lost their lives.

A ‘small’ (as compared to other museums that I have visited) museum marks the tales of the war, bravery of soldiers and throws light on their tough life and hardships they go through in order to make us feel ‘free’ in this free country. There are rare pictures of war and things that defines life of a soldier. There are tales written all over, soldiers present there on duty have witnessed it themselves, they showed the Pakistani bunkers which were captured during the combat, they share experiences which can ‘woo’ any civilian who spends his life online on social networks and abuses the system for not giving him freedom to download songs. While leaving the museum we saw a message register where you could pen down your experience, I had a lot of things in mind but no words to put in.

   

       

'Agni path' by Harivansh Rai Bachchan

After all the ‘heart-in-your-mouth’ experience we asked one of the soldiers about the location of Tiger Hill. He pointed towards a distant snow-capped peak on left and said, “vo chhoti si safed pahadi jo hai… sabse top pe.. vo hai…”, explaining the condition more he added, “jahan aap khade ho wahan tak aagaye the vo… Tiger hill yahan se 150 kilometer hai..”. That conversation left us blank. Suddenly we could feel the emptiness of the air we were breathing in. Standing there in front of hundreds of tombstones laid in the memory of our soldiers, the snow-capped Tiger hill on your left and the giant TIRANGA on your right, you realize the worth of the word ‘FREEDOM’

Tiger hill in the background