ONE OF HIS KIND - LT GEN PREM BHAGAT, PVSM, VC

There is a prized black and white cabinet sized photograph in a forgotten album of my yesterdays in a locked steel box I no longer access.

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Getting upon a portable ladder and trying out key after key to open the heavy padlocks no longer interests me. The reason is that though 50 years have passed since that pleasant August 1974 morning, I can still recall reliving that electrifying thrill when I first saluted, then shook hands for the first and last time with the iconic Lt Gen PS Bhagat, PVSM, VC; the retiring Northern Army Commander. General Prem Bhagat had come to bid farewell to 16 (Independent) Armoured Brigade then located at Mamoon Cantt, outside Pathankot city on a spreading plateau that overlooked both the Beas River at Mirthal, a nondescript small town astride the river on the Pathankot-Jalandhar Road as well as the Kangra Hills that abutted the river. The Brigade and all its units were garrisoned there.

Known only to very, very few, a few kilometres away at what was just inside the state boundary between Kangra District of HP and Pathankot District, climacteric history affecting India had unfolded in 325 BCE at a small Shiva-Parvati obelisk temple at Kathgarh. The restless, tired and apprehensive army of Alexander the Great had camped at the vicinity of the temple, the sullen Greek soldiers mutinying against Alexander despite the world conquerors fervent exhortations to cross the Beas (Hyphasis) then in spate and advance deeper into the Indian Gangetic hinterland to access India's fabulous wealth and fertile territory. Alexander had just about won his battle against Porus on the Jhelum (Hydaspes) the year before in 326 BCE. His Army had thereafter laid waste to Sagala (modern Sialkot in Pakistan) after the king there refused Alexander's demand for capitulation. The Greek General had thereafter turned towards the Beas across Mamoon Plateau after transiting through today's Kathua and Madhopur on the Ravi River.