Category: Features

When the Galwan Valley clash happened in June 2020, the Indo-China conflict became the centre of the world’s attention. As shown in this excerpt from India’s Most Fearlesss 3, journalists Shiv Aroor and Rahul Singh have succeeded in recalibrating the narrative from speculative headlines to the real axis of the stories: the Indian Army soldiers. Read the full story of these bravehearts as well as many others in this thought-provoking book on real-life military bravery.

*

‘I Had Never Seen Such Fierce Fighting’
The Galwan Clash of June 2020

Even above the loud, steady roar of the Galwan River, he heard the thundering footfalls. The sound of over a thousand men reverberating through the darkness, amplified by the tunnel effect of a narrow valley flanked by steep rising mountains on both sides. Peering into the black void beyond Patrol Point 14, lit only a few metres forward by hand-held torches, the reality of those sounds dawned on Havildar Dharamvir Kumar Singh of the Indian Army’s 16 Bihar infantry battalion. He clenched his eyes briefly shut to soak in every vibration. When he opened them again, he knew that the huge horde of men advancing towards his position was not marching.

They weren’t even jogging.

They were sprinting.

‘There were less than 400 of us,’ says Havildar Dharamvir. ‘We would soon discover that the number of Chinese Army soldiers running towards us was maybe three times that. We had been fighting smaller numbers of Chinese for two hours before that. But this was their main force. The all-out assault that the Chinese side was launching against us.’

An all-out assault.

Unarmed, as stipulated by decades-old protocol between the two armies, Havildar Dharamvir quickly glanced around at the soldiers with him. Even in the darkness he could tell their expressions. A curious mix of determination and fearlessness, but tinged with an edge of foreboding.

As the soldiers steeled themselves, rallied by their commanding officer and a group of younger officers, Havildar Dharamvir knew what lay ahead would need every ounce of strength the smaller force could muster. But it also made one particular man in the team even more crucial.

A non-combatant with a white suitcase.

Wading through the group of soldiers with him, Havildar Dharamvir emerged on the banks of the gushing Galwan, right where he had last seen the man he was looking for now.

With a big, unmistakable red ‘plus’ sign painted on to his parka, Naik Deepak Singh wasn’t standing. On his knees, his suitcase open with bandages and bottles of tincture, he was crouched over what appeared to be a small group of injured men, all groaning in the darkness. Three were Indian soldiers being administered first aid.

The six other soldiers receiving emergency ministrations from the young Indian Army medic weren’t Indian soldiers. They were Chinese Army personnel. Two People’s Liberation Army (PLA) officers and four jawans.

‘They are badly injured. They need to rest,’ Naik Deepak said before Havildar Dharamvir could ask. An hour earlier, the injured Chinese soldiers had been left behind by their retreating force. Naik Deepak, the young nursing assistant, had been summoned to Patrol Point 14 by his commanding officer two hours earlier. Not he, not Havildar Dharamvir and not his commanding officer knew then how crucial his crouched figure would be in the events of that night.

‘Is that your blood?’ Havildar Dharamvir bent down over Naik Deepak, inspecting a gash just above the nursing assistant’s right eyebrow.

‘It’s nothing. A piece of rock hit me. It’s superficial. Main theek hoon [I am fine],’ said Naik Deepak as he finished bandaging one of the Chinese soldiers, a young man whose face was covered with streams of blood from a head injury.

A short distance behind, at a point where the north-flowing Galwan River abruptly bent westward, Colonel Bikkumalla Santosh Babu, commanding officer of the battalion, had been alerted to the sounds of the Chinese advance. As he began to summon reinforcements and rally his much smaller force to face the arrival of the much larger Chinese advance, one thing was certain to him. No matter what transpired next in that desolate, ravine-like valley at 13,000 feet in Ladakh’s Himalayan heights, history had already been made with blood and bone that day.

As word of the lethal Galwan Valley incident shocked the world at 12.21 p.m. the following day, most would see it as a spontaneous flare-up that had ended a healthy forty-five-year run of zero fatal casualties on the India–China frontier. But waiting in the darkness on the banks of the Galwan River the previous night, Naik Deepak and Havildar Dharamvir knew that nothing, including that advancing horde of Chinese soldiers, was unplanned.

In the early twentieth century, a Bohemian writer called Franz Kafka released a strange story. The absurd but existentialist tale of a man who transforms into a huge insect is the reason we now have the term ‘Kafkaesque’. More than a century later, Pakistani author Mohsin Hamid, who last published Exit West has adapted the trope to suit contemporary anxieties about race and identity. His protagonist, a white man named Anders, wakes up in a darker skin colour. Soon, the world around him descends into chaos as more such transformations take place.

The following excerpt is the first chapter of The Last White Man. Get your copy from bookstores or Amazon.

*

One morning Anders, a white man, woke up to find he had turned a deep and undeniable brown. This dawned upon him gradually, and then suddenly, first as a sense as he reached for his phone that the early light was doing something strange to the color of his forearm, subsequently, and with a start, as a momentary conviction that there was somebody else in bed with him, male, darker, but this, terrifying though it was, was surely impossible, and he was reassured that the other moved as he moved, was in fact not a person, not a separate person, but was just him, Anders, causing a wave of relief, for if the idea that someone else was there was only imagined, then of course the notion that he had changed color was a trick too, an optical illusion, or a mental artifact, born in the slippery halfway place between dreams and wakefulness, except that by now he had his phone in his hands and he had reversed the camera, and he saw that the face looking back at him was not his at all.

Anders scrambled out of his bed and began to rush to his bathroom, but, calming himself, he forced his gait to slow, to become more deliberate, measured, and whether he did this to assert his control over the situation, to compel reality to return through sheer strength of mind, or because running would have frightened him more, made him forever into prey being pursued, he did not know.

The bathroom was shabbily but comfortingly familiar, the cracks in the tiles, the dirt in the grouting, the streak of dried toothpaste drip on the outside of the sink. The interior of the medicine cabinet was visible, the mirror door askew, and Anders raised his hand and swung his reflection into place before his eyes. It was not that of an Anders he recognized.

He was overtaken by emotion, not so much shock, or sorrow, though those things were there too, but above all the face replacing his filled him with anger, or rather, more than anger, an unexpected, murderous rage.

He wanted to kill the coloured man who confronted him here in his home, to extinguish the life animating this other’s body, to leave nothing standing but himself, as he was before, and he slammed the side of his fist into the face, cracking it slightly, and causing the whole fitting, cabinet, mirror, and all, to skew, like a painting after an earthquake has passed.

Anders stood, the pain in his hand muted by the intensity that had seized him, and he felt himself trembling, a vibration so faint as barely to be perceptible, but then stronger, like a dangerous winter chill, like freezing outdoors, unsheltered, and it drove him back to his bed, and under his sheets, and he lay there for a long while, hiding, willing this day, just begun, please, please, not to begin.

Anders waited for an undoing, an undoing that did not come, and the hours passed, and he realized that he had been robbed, that he was the victim of a crime, the horror of which only grew, a crime that had taken everything from him, that had taken him from him, for how could he say he was Anders now, be Anders now, with this other man staring him down, on his phone, in the mirror, and he tried not to keep checking, but every so often he would check again, and see the theft again, and when he was not checking there was no escaping the sight of his arms and his hands, dark, moreover frightening, for while they were under his control, there was no guarantee they would remain so, and he did not know if the idea of being throttled, which kept popping into his head like a bad memory, was something he feared or what he most wanted to do.

He attempted, with no appetite, to eat a sandwich, to be calmer, steadier, and he told himself that it would be all right, although he was unconvinced.

He wanted to believe that somehow he would change back, or be fixed, but already he doubted, and did not believe, and when he questioned whether it was entirely in his imagination, and tested this by taking a picture and placing it in a digital album, the algorithm that had, in the past, unfailingly suggested his name, so sure, so reliable, could not identify him.

Anders did not normally mind being alone, but as he was just then, it was as if he was not alone, was, rather, in tense and hostile company, trapped indoors because he did not dare to step outside, and he went from his computer to his refrigerator to his bed to his sofa, moving on in his small space when he could not stand to remain a minute longer where he was, but there was no escaping Anders, for Anders, that day.

The spiritual awakening of Sri M and his journey into a yogi’s life has inspired people worldwide. Rather than focusing on a singular concept, Sri M and his foundation, Satsang Foundation, believe in generosity, faith and helping spiritual seekers no matter where they have come from.

The following are glimpses of his extensive bibliography, starting from Apprenticed To A Himalayan Master to Yoga Also For The Godless. His latest book The Friend is written in the guru-disciple style of conversation with Mohini Kent.

*

Apprenticed To A Himalayan Master

Both my sister and I went to the Holy Angels’ Convent, which was walking distance from home. As soon as we came back from school, it was our usual practice to wash up, eat something light, and play in the backyard till sunset. At sunset, we were supposed to wash our faces, hands and feet and sit for a short Arabic and Urdu prayer with our grandmother. After that, we would finish our school homework and have dinner. Sometimes my grandmother would tell a ew stories from the Arabian Nights, or her own experiences, and then off to bed.

That particular day, my sister who was more studious than me (no wonder that she became a senior Indian Administrative Services Officer), cut short her playtime and went back into the house earlier than usual. I was wandering around the courtyard doing nothing in particular. Dusk was not far from setting in. The light had mellowed to a soft golden yellow. I thought I would go home too and perhaps find some snacks in the kitchen. So I turned towards the house. However, for reasons I cannot explain to this day, I turned instead and walked towards the jackfruit tree at the far end of the courtyard. There was someone standing under the tree and was gesturing for me to come forward.

The normal instinct would have been to bolt, but instead I was surprised to find I felt no fear whatsoever. A strange eagerness to go closer to the stranger filled my heart. I quickened my steps and was soon standing in front of him. Now I could see clearly. The stranger was tall, extremely fair and his well-built muscular body was bare except for a piece of white cloth that was wrapped around his waist and reached just above his knees. He was also barefoot.

I was intrigued by this strange man who had slightly brown and thickly matted long hair gathered over his head in a big knot that looked like a tall hat. He wore large, brown, probably copper earrings and carried a black, polished water pot in his right hand. By far, the most striking of his features were his eyes: large, brownish black, glittering and overflowing with love and affection. He put his right hand on my head without any hesitation and his kind voice said in Hindi, ‘Kuch yaad aaya,’ which means, ‘Do you remember anything?’

I understood the stranger’s words perfectly, for although our family had settled in Kerala for generations, we spoke a peculiar dialect of Urdu known as Dakkhini, very similar to Hindi. ‘Nai,’ no, I said.

He then removed his hand from my head and stroked the middle of my chest with it, saying, ‘Baad mein maalum ho jaayega. Ab vapas ghar jao.’ (You will understand later. Go home now.) I still did not understand what he was trying to convey, but instantly obeyed the command to go back home. As I hurried back, I felt as if his touch had made my heart lighter. Reaching the last step to the rear entrance of the house, I turned around to have a last glimpse of the stranger under the jackfruit tree, but he was gone. There was no one there.

*

Shunya

For well over sixteen years, Sadasivan had to pass the old, abandoned cremation ground at midnight on his way back home from his toddy shop.

He prided himself on the fact that he didn’t believe in ghosts and ghouls and other superstitions and yet, every time he passed the gate of the crematorium, an unknown fear gripped him and his hair stood on end.

That night, too, as he whizzed past the gate on his Royal Enfield motorbike—an upgrade from his old bicycle which he had felt took ages to clear the distance—Sadasivan followed the simple rule he had devised to make things easier: ‘Don’t look in the direction of the crematorium. Go as fast as you can.’

He had almost passed its gate when he distinctly heard a voice calling him out by name. Try as he might, he couldn’t resist the temptation to turn and look. A shiver went up his spine.

A figure clad in white leapt out of the gate and, in the bright light of the solitary street lamp, Sadasivan could see him coming in his direction.

He lost control of his motorbike which hit a protruding flagstone, skid sideways, and sent him flying across the road.

As he picked himself up, he was scared stiff to see the white-robed figure right by his side.

‘Umph! Not bad. No major damage, Sadasiva. Get up and go home. Don’t be frightened. I am not a ghost, ha ha!’

Sadasivan got up, dusted his clothes and picked up the motorbike which had fallen a few metres away. The bike seemed fine except for a dent or two and one broken rearview mirror. Then he noticed that the skin on both his elbows and his left knee had peeled off. No other damage.

The stranger followed him to the bike.

‘Who the hell are you,’ shouted Sadasivan, angrily, ‘popping up from the cremation ground at midnight like a ghost? Haven’t seen you in these parts and how do you know my name?’

‘Sadasiva, I’ll see you tomorrow at your toddy shop, okay? We’ll talk then. Now go home and take care of yourself. There are no ghosts—go home.’

Sadasivan started his bike and rode home wondering who this crazy man was. He had seen him at close quarters: a single piece of unwashed white mundu was wrapped around his waist with an equally unwashed, loose cotton shirt; he was barefooted and fair-complexioned, with a pointed Ho Chi Minh beard. Who was he? Didn’t Sadasivan notice a bamboo flute in his hand? Where did he spring from? He was certainly not a local and yet he spoke Malayalam. By the time he reached his house his anger had vanished and, for some strange reason, he was looking forward to seeing the stranger the next day.

*

Yoga Also For The Godless

Some years ago, I met a smart young lady who said to me, ‘M, I believe you are a yogi. I think you might be able to shed light on a question on yoga. I was very keen on practising yoga after I heard about its health benefits. The fact that many celebrities practise yoga to keep in shape also influenced me.

‘I approached a yoga teacher. He started teaching me Sanskrit shlokas in praise of God and insisted that I chant them. I tried convincing him that I was an atheist. I was born a Hindu but do not think it necessary to believe in God. He strongly felt that without invoking Lord Ganesha, I could not begin my yoga practice and insisted that the aim of yoga was God-realisation.

‘I told him that there is no God and, therefore, learning yoga for me was not to reach something that, according to me, did not exist. He was adamant and asked me to find another instructor’.

‘What do you think?’

This yoga teacher, the girl referred to, is not an exception. Thousands of people labour under the mistaken notion that yoga is a theistic philosophy and is not for atheists and agnostics. Some yoga teachers admit that mere postures can provide health benefits, but the higher aspects such as the expansion of consciousness and the attainment of Kaivalya, freeing the consciousness from the limitations of conditioned thinking and awakening to its infinite potential, is not realisable by the godless.

This book is meant precisely to change such misunderstood notions about yoga, while serving as a practical guide to practise yoga to perfection, without the ‘God crutch’. You will understand that ancient yoga philosophy has almost no interest in the concept of a creator or an all-powerful God, who controls you and throws you into heaven or hell according to his whims and fancies.

Even the great Patanjali, considered the foremost and earliest exponent of systematic yoga, in his masterpiece, The Yoga Sutras, uses Ishwara (God) only twice in the entire text and only as a useful adjunct to the main practices. Whether Patanjali’s Ishwara denotes an omnipotent ‘thundering God’ or the tranquil Purusha of Sankhya philosophy is an age-old question that needs a healthy debate. We will look into these and other points of view because to practise yoga well, an understanding of its philosophical roots is important.

Lastly, this book is an attempt to save the purity of yoga from being adulterated by religious cults and politico-religious outfits keen to exploit the masses and use them to their advantage.

*

Get your own Sri M collection from the nearest bookstore or visit Amazon.

There have been many vantage points to the Dhoni story, but how about one that encapsulates his unseen essence? From behind-the-scenes stories to radically attentive analyses of iconic matches, Joy Bhattacharjya and Amit Sinha have created the ultimate handbook for M.S. Dhoni fans.

Here’s the first chapter of Do Different: The Untold Dhoni, ‘Glimpses of a Superstar’.

*

On 19 August, two days before the senior team’s first match of the tri-series against Pakistan in Amsterdam, a young MS Dhoni was greeted by chants of his name in a small Nairobi ground. This was the result of a knock he had played against the same opposition a couple of days ago where he had scored 120 runs out of a total of 330 in India’s first innings. Today, the situation was different as India had lost a wicket early in the innings in the pursuit of 235 runs when Dhoni walked in. For Dhoni too, who had gotten this chance largely because Dinesh Karthik had been selected to play for the senior team in Amsterdam, this was an opportunity to show that the 120 in the previous outing against Pakistan was no flash in the pan.

Waiting for him at the other end was the familiar sight of Gautam Gambhir, with whom he had stitched a 207-run partnership in the earlier match. Commentator Atul Wassan introduced him as the ‘find of the tour’ even before Dhoni faced his first delivery and went on to discuss his purposeful walk with fellow commentator Javagal Srinath. The Jharkhand cricketer, despite having been overlooked for the senior team promotion, was making quite an impression in Nairobi.

Facing his fourth ball of the innings, he cut fast bowler Riaz Afridi for his first runs of the innings. Javagal Srinath was just beginning to talk about how young cricketers need to be put through the ‘process’ despite having displayed their talents. The powerful cut seemed like an assurance sent to the commentary box. Such was the impact of the youngster on the audience that had been watching him for so long, the discussion revolved around his talent and how to ensure it didn’t get wasted. On the panel was Saba Karim, a prodigy from the same region whose career didn’t really blossom despite all signs of it at the corresponding age levels.

Facing Iftikhar Rao in the sixth over, Dhoni misjudged the length and edged the ball to the slips. However, luck was on his side that afternoon as Pakistan skipper Misbah-ul-Haq grassed a tough chance. In Anjum’s next over, Dhoni was back to his attacking self as he picked the length early this time and pummelled the short ball to the mid-wicket fence. In the same over, the ball found itself in the same place again, although this time it was pitched full and on the batsman’s legs.

The Nairobi Gymkhana, one of the highest cricket grounds in the world thanks to its location 5,500 feet above sea level, saw Indian cricket transform four years ago when an unheralded Indian team made it to the final of the ICC Knockout Trophy, only a few months after the match-fixing scandal. What started in that tournament reached its peak with India’s success in the 2003 World Cup and on tours of Australia and Pakistan. By mid-2004, however, the wheels had stopped turning for Indian cricket as the team suffered losses in both bilateral and multilateral competitions. The mantra that had worked for John Wright and Sourav Ganguly for four years seemed to be missing the mark now and it would all culminate in all the drama that unfolded in Indian cricket in the subsequent year.

Strangely, as the senior team was giving another listless performance in Amsterdam, on the rugged grounds of Kenya, the story of Indian cricket’s future was being forged by two men who would play a huge part in taking Indian cricket to its peak seven years later.

Riaz Afridi, the elder brother of current Pakistan sensation Shaheen, was a nippy customer who was the star of Pakistan’s win of the U-19 World Cup that year. However, against Dhoni and Gambhir, he found the going difficult. In the 11th over, Dhoni rocked back to hit him for a 4 through covers that proved the man was more than a spinner killer. He was quick to punish any error from the fast bowlers, be it Afridi or his bowling partner, Junaid Zia. The first lofted shot from the youngster’s bat came in the 15th over when Iftikhar made the mistake of pitching it right in the slot for Dhoni to send it flying over covers. The small crowd gathered at the stadium was overjoyed. They seemed to have come exactly to witness this kind of shot making from the long-haired batsman. Even the commentators could barely hide their excitement.

Once the half-century mark was crossed, Dhoni went after the Pakistani spinners and hit both Qaiser Abbas and Mansoor Amjad for massive 6s that went out of the ground. A mere teaser of what was to follow in the next one and a half decade. Neither pace nor spin could trouble the duo as even Gambhir crossed his half-century and took India A closer to the target. Batting on 96, Dhoni decided to go for the glory shot against Junaid Zia, a bowler who had shoulder barged him earlier in the innings. The straight hit over the bowler’s head came off spectacularly and another century was reached in 124 balls, the second in two matches. With 11 runs needed of the remaining 32 deliveries and a leg spinner bowling, even those who had not seen him before knew what was coming. Mansoor Amjad, the leg spinner, was launched into the stands for Dhoni’s fourth and fifth 6 of the innings. The match was won. With two centuries in two matches against the Pakistan A side, the required stamp of confirmation was acquired. Everyone who watched Dhoni on those two days was left enamoured by his nonchalance and power play. In the unlikeliest of places, a star was born.

Two days later, the senior team suffered a defeat against Pakistan in the tournament opener. The wheels of change had started moving again in Indian cricket.