Today, for the first time, I savoured celebrating the day of Basant Panchami (14 Feb 24) outside the solitary confines of the cantonment. It turned out to be a unique discovery of Punjab for me. On D-day today, even the heavenly sun God displayed his magnanimity by bringing fulsome and bright sunshine on the day of Basant Panchami, after, what seemed to be a never-ending spell of foggy and cloudy days. It seemed, that, even God had conspired with Punjabis to validate the perfect timing for this important festival of Punjab. I am personally so satisfied today. Guess why? I have just ticked off one of the important tasks on my wish/bucket list that I have vowed to complete in this life. I have very simple yet pleasurable tasks on my bucket list. You all will be surprised that one of them was to learn kite-flying and do some kite fighting just for the fun of it. I have fought with several militants during counter-insurgency operations but never indulged in kite fighting which is a lot safer and more importantly where the stakes are not too high. Kite flying and intense kite fighting around my immediate neighbourhood in my home town Patiala brought to life once again, my competitive spirit ingrained in me by the Army. Today morning, motivated by watching the youngsters of my neighbourhood, I also tried my hand at kite flying. Despite several failed attempts, initially, I couldn’t make much headway in this not-so-easy art. I kept trying hard the whole day besides enjoying the visual treat in the sky. Multi-coloured kites swooped gracefully on curtains of wind, attached with strings coated with powdered glass blatantly violating state govt orders.
All kites seemed to be well-poised to enjoin the real battle of kite fighting. All the kids seem to be well prepared to cut loose the other kite. Several teenagers atop my neighbouring house had wrapped their hands with duct tape to protect them from the glass rubbed on the kite strings. I turned out to be a complete novice by all counts, as compared, to little kids whose kites swiftly dwindled into tiny dots in the sky, unspooling up to 500 m of string, in a jiffy. It was quite thrilling to watch these children, dressed in yellow, tugging on the taut strings, and manoeuvring their fighting kites until their strings crossed. They very well knew the skill to use friction or speed to snap the opponent’s line. When it became clear that a line had been cut, the winning team would shout. The day was complete when the lady of the house, my wife Nidhi made ‘Meethe Chawal’ (sweetened yellow rice) for me and my daughters; Akshayata and Siddhita apart from decorating our home with yellow flowers. At the end of the day, I tried to delve into the history of this day. It was Maharaja Ranjit Singh who introduced kite flying at the annual Basant fairs held during the 19th century. It turned out to be my most joyful day of these winters, heralding the arrival of spring in the true sense. I winded up my day by marking this important day on my dairy in red as the ‘day’ when I flew a kite for the first time and won in two kite fights back to back. A cheerful day to remember in my life.
He commanded 15 Punjab in Lebanon under the UN flag in 2006 and was picked up to command the Assam Rifles Sector as DIG in the most sensitive sector of Churachandpur in Manipur. For his outstanding command in Manipur, he was selected as ‘Brigadier Operational Logistics’ for the entire Western Command in 2015.
