Face of Bhagwati was slowly fading away in memory of the villagers. It was more than two years since he went to war but did not return. Meanwhile telegrams of death of Sivakumar and another of his friend who went along with him to war had long arrived. There was a lot of distress in [...]

Popularity: 7% [?]

• 0 Comments

Back home, my father kept getting fourteen rupees every month through money order. There were occasional letters from Bhagwati which used to come with a delay of minimum 45 days. These letters kept my father’s hope alive that he may be still alive. Letters too slowly started becoming less. Almost all of them had only [...]

Popularity: 6% [?]

• 0 Comments

War raged on and took its toll on everyone. Bhagwati kept loosing his friends and officers to hostile enemy or hostile nature. In six months of fighting he adapted to the jungle conditions very well. Initially, he was very emotional. He cried whenever he lost any of his buddy. Later it became a routine. The [...]

Popularity: 6% [?]

• 0 Comments

Very soon, the stress of war started showing on each one of them. Few of the soldiers became hardened and adapted to the conditions very well while for some, it was a nightmare. Few of them even lost their wits during regular fighting with Japanese and were killed by enemy fire in no time. The [...]

Popularity: 8% [?]

• 1 Comment

 Repacked into trucks, almost after two days of grueling journey and finally after long marching, they reached their base camp. Till now, their numbers were the same when they started – two thousand seven hundred of them. All of them were Hindi and Nepali speaking from Gorakhpur and Nepal. The regiment from where these soldiers [...]

Popularity: 10% [?]

• 1 Comment

After one month of intense jungle warfare training, their battalion packed up and boarded several airplanes and were moved to Kula Lumpur. The place was better than Gorakhpur and he could see strange faces and strange language around. There they got a new set of officers who were British white officers. Their language was terrible [...]

Popularity: 9% [?]

• 1 Comment

Bhagwati’s battalion moved to Gorakhpur Cant and from there took a special train which took them to Calcutta in next three days. For him, it was a great experience and he was liking it. He made friends there and time appeared to pass by unnoticed. When he was not doing duty, he and his friends [...]

Popularity: 10% [?]

• 1 Comment

Bhagwati was given three days off to meet his family and bid goodbye before his battalion was armed and was to leave for Malaya. He never wanted to go back to his home. Rather he preferred to stay with his Aunty and called my father to spend sometime there with him. Till that time, my [...]

Popularity: 9% [?]

• 1 Comment

After six months of training at Gorakhpur Army training centre, Bhagwati became “Sepoy Bhagwati ”. His battalion was to move somewhere very far off to a country named “Malaya” (Today’s Malaysia). There was a threat of aggression from Japan and British Army was hurriedly reinforcing their positions. Germany was on a winning streak and morale in [...]

Popularity: 8% [?]

• 1 Comment

Bhagwati always resisted getting married. His marriage was performed several years earlier. Unlike other boys who were dying to get their wifes by their side and share the same bed, he was always looking towards adventure and thrill of going places. He had seen his elder brother becoming a slave of his wife after marriage [...]

Popularity: 8% [?]

• 0 Comments