HEARTS of STEEL

FOUR STORIES THAT PAINT A VIVID PICTURE OF BRAVERY, SACRIFICE, AND THE PROFOUND IMPACT OF WAR ON THE HUMAN SPIRIT

- Neha Dwivedi and Diksha Dwivedi,Gaurav C. Sawant ,Shikha Akhilesh Saxena ,Raveev Bakshi

BROTHERS- IN-ARMS

Maha Vir Chakra awardee Captain Neikezhakuo Kengurüse, aka ‘Nimbu Saab’ played a crucial role in defending Point 4590 in Kargil war. Here, his brother Neingutoulie describes Neibu’s life in the army before embarking on the operation in which he lost his life leading his men into combat

Several days after the conflict, acclaimed journalists made their way into the tents of the soldiers who had just returned from the Tololing battlefront. This was the war that gave birth to real-time reporting in India as journalists took to keeping the nation informed about the ongoings at our borders.

I would not have been able to believe then if someone told me that Neibu was witnessing his soldier-brothers breathing their last, crying for their families as they lay there in pain. When you’re at war, there’s no time to mourn; there’s only little time to get your men together, more united than ever before, pick up martyred bodies, collect your enemy’s weapons and ammunition, clear out the scattered bodies after a victory, and most importantly, gather courage and resilience for the next attack.

The Indian Army soldiers would often find letters of Pakistani Army soldiers while clearing out the points captured, and with every letter, more secrets about the planning of this disruptive war would be revealed. At the same time, they would empathize with the soldiers writing letters to their loved ones, as they themselves had done the same during troubling times, desperate as they often were to make their families feel at ease, since the news of the war had spread like wildfire by then and it told a different story than what most soldiers were reporting to their families in their initial days. However, as the attacks got intense, soldiers started speaking the truth, as did Neibu, since there was no guarantee that they would live to tell these tales to their loved ones.