Retired general cycling 12,000 km to honour fallen soldiers

Meerut: At a time when controversies around surgical strikes refuse to fade away, an Army veteran has decided to honour fallen heroes since Independence in a unique manner.
Retirement has little meaning for Maj Gen Somnath Jha, 58, who hung up his boots on September 30, 2016. He has now taken up the daunting task of cycling throughout the country in the memory of fallen soldiers.
Speaking about the recent deaths of 19 soldiers in the Uri terror attack, Jha said, “It’s not about 19 soldiers but about 21,000 of them who laid down their lives ever since our nation got independence in 1947 that I am cycling for.”
Over the next seven months, Jha will reach every state in the country and cover 12,000 km. ‘A veteran’s homage journey’, as termed by him on his Facebook page, was finalized after an elaborate planning that went on for months before he retired from Ambala Cantonment.
“A lot of thought has gone into the mission. I found myself lucky to be retiring after serving the nation for 37 years. But a lot of my buddies, peers and superiors were not so fortunate and fell fighting for the country in various operations and wars. At first I thought I should run for them but then I got a figure that represented the total number of fallen Armymen and that came out to be around 20,600. This was four months back. So I made it a round figure to arrive at 21,000. My plan is to pass through every state because our soldiers come from every state,” he added.
Jha, who was in the 8th Jammu & Kashmir Light Infantry began the journey from Ambala Cantonment (from where he retired) on Wednesday and reached Meerut on Thursday afternoon.
Interestingly, Jha is not alone in this endeavour. His wife Chitra, a life skills coach and author of several motivational books, is at his side all the time, taking care of logistics.
“Philosophically speaking, the cycling endeavour marks the beginning of our vanaprastha. We do not own a house and have given away most of our belongings. We do not even have a home right now but that’s what life should be all about. We have lived our lives to the fullest and now have embarked upon a journey that is so satisfying,” she said.