Review: Param Vir Vikram Batra

There are books you read sitting in the library, some you travel with and some you keep on the bedside for a very long time as it’s somewhat symbolic of keeping something close to the heart. Param Vir Vikram Batra – The Sher Shah of Kargil, A Father Remembers is one such book, not because it talks of the valour of a soldier, who died very young, serving the nation and was posthumously awarded the greatest award of bravery, but because it’s written by that very dead soldier’s father.
GL Batra’s modest ode to the hero of his family and the country, the late Captain Vikram Batra, who died protecting his motherland in the infamous Kargil War of 1999 is the most unpretentious account of a son, who was born to die for the motherland.
If you’d know how hard it is to even write a letter to a loved one, then you would be able to empathise with GL Batra, and imagine how hard it must have been for a father to put to words the life story of his slain son and the events which led to his death.
From sharing how extraordinary Vikram was as a child to opening his heart out about why he was destined to be martyred, the book leaves the reader with a number of lumps in the throat, burning tears in the eyes and a nose as red as that of a soldier sitting inside a freezing check post in Drass or Kargil areas of Jammu and Kashmir, making a supreme sacrifice every day of his life and not sleeping to shield his countrymen.
What begins as a journey from Vikram’s early days to his IMA days, leads to chapters on the nail biting ‘Operation Vijay’, the conquest of the much talked about ‘Point 5140’ to the final heart-breaking battle of recapturing ‘Point 4875’. Well, having missed a bullet from a militant during a previous encounter in Kashmir, the happy-go-lucky Vikram couldn’t dodge death the second time despite successfully snatching away the Indian peaks from the Pakistani enemy – he died saving a fellow military man, who he deliberately pushed aside in lieu of his family and bravely took the bullet himself. The only difference being that the bullet was not meant for him, this time either.
While many accounts of Vikram’s bravery have already been made public and are much revered by army enthusiasts and countrymen alike, what’s exclusive to this book are the heart wrenching letters written by Vikram, in the sub-zero temperatures of Kargil, to his father, mother and identical twin, Vishal, some even shouting aloud that he knew if there was anything hardest in the world, it wasn’t fighting the war but coming back home, that too alive!
Absolutely unmissable are the tragic personal details of one of the greatest war heroes India has ever seen, especially an anecdote about Vikram calling his sister before his death and telling her, “Main upar ja raha hoon,” while explaining how he was headed towards the peak, where he later lost his life. Also worth mentioning is GL Batra’s tear-jerking account of Vikram’s relationship with his girlfriend Dimple (who he met while in college) and who, after his demise decided to remain single forever, living with Vikram’s eternal memories. Well, the cards and gifts given to her by Vikram still adorn the shelves of her Chandigarh home and Vikram still remains in her heart.
According to Kamal Kanta Batra, Vikram’s mother, despite suffering an irreparable loss, she is honoured for bearing a son who did not flinch from his duty and sanctified her womb in his martyrdom.
The biography of sorts is only proof of the fact that some hundred pages would never be enough for people like Vikram, who achieved so much and touched so many lives at the tender age of 24. It’ll be only appropriate to conclude this piece by quoting one of GL Batra’s lines from the book, “People like Vikram are neither born nor do they die; they come and go after performing their duties.”