Wife in Shining Armour

The concluding para is important but could not be included in the newspaper article probably due to lack of space. 

Wife in Shining Armour !! 

Vikram Jit Singh / TNN

Chandigarh: When the men go to war, the wives lend critical emotional support, look after the children and hold the fort back in the Unit and at home. They also knit woollen socks and manage other vital resources for the soldiers. But there was one war lady, Shobita Asthana, who went way beyond the standard support. She managed to arrange and send to the deep Batalik-Yaldor battlefield of Kargil War critical equipment and resources required for the war effort of her husband's battalion. All the way from Delhi, Shobita sent magneto telephones which were critical for communication.  She then sent light and sturdy water jerricans, Flagyl Medicine, she got war photographs printed at a secure photo studio, and later sent in much appreciated ‘Achaar’ to the Gorkha Soldiers. 

Lt Col Amul Asthana was the officiating CO initially and later the 2IC of the legendary battalion, 1/11 Gorkha Rifles which was conferred the coveted title ‘Bravest of the Brave’ when their officer Captain Manoj Kumar Pandey was awarded the Param Vir Chakra, posthumously; the Battalion was also awarded the Battle Honour ‘Batalik’ and Theatre Honour ‘Kargil’ for OP Vijay 1999. 

   

Shobita's effort is to be seen in the context of the extended and tenuous supply lines of the Batalik sector, where it took anywhere between 12 to 48 to even 72 hours on foot from the road-head along the River Indus to reach the battling troops; unlike the Drass-Mashkoh battle zones where the national highway conveniently ran close the embattled ridgelines. 

Now, picture this scenario in June-July 1999 during the Kargil War, not in the battle-field, but in the hot summer of Delhi. A lady with a ‘mission to deliver’ – setting off to the secluded transit area at Palam Airport at 4:00 am with two little children in her red Maruti 800 car. The rear seat and boot were stuffed with the precious cargo; of hand-cranked magneto telephones or jerricans or pickles and such like items. A day prior she would tie up with the Load Manifest JCO at the transit camp to help her find officers or soldiers flying to Leh and then onward specifically to the Batalik-Yaldor war zone. She would then request those officers / soldiers to take the war stores that she had mustered for 1/11 Gorkha Rifles, at Yaldor-Batalik.  

Doting, loving Army husbands always fall back on their 'Home Ministry' in the critical periods of professional life, as a recourse to the proverbial "last resort". And so it was with Shobita Pachnanda and Amul Asthana. 

They had fallen in love when he was a young officer of the 2 / 11 Gurkha Rifles in Dehradun in 1983 and they got married in January 1988. The business man father-in-law did not relish the thought of his daughter plunging into the extreme rough and tumble of an Infantry man's marital and martial life. But the very patriotic Pachnanda came to accept the love tryst and later went on to play an inspirational and supportive role for his son-in-law's battalion during the Kargil War. 

"The Batalik sector (in comparison to the Kargil Sector) was on a low priority for the Army's higher command by way of provision of war resources. Deep in the Batalik battlefield of Yaldor, a tough 12-hour march on foot from the road-head on the Indus, the Battalion faced an acute problem of communication equipment.  The main-stay ANPRC 25 were very few and not cyber secure. The 2 km range VA-Mk II radios were in-effective as they worked on re-chargeable batteries, which required 220 Volts – which was obviously not available in the rugged mountains. There was thus a critical need for military ‘line’ communication to troops up front and also all the way back to the Gun Positions. This required military telephones.  But, somehow, there was a critical shortage of these very telephones.  As a ‘Last Resort’ he decided to task his wife to purchase 7 Black- ITI type Railway telephones, similar to Fauji hand-crank phones which an army wife is well familiar with. 

He sent a ‘parchi’ (a hand written slip of paper) all the way down to the Base and  the Brigade Major conveyed this message to her on the phone.   

These magneto-phones were not at all easily available. She thought that Chandni Chowk was a good bet to find them. Her father had his business office in Chawri bazaar, and he came into the picture with zeal.  After much hunting, Shobita and her father got seven ITI telephones for Rs. 900 each. 

She found out that an officer of our own Battalion, Maj Christopher Correa, was flying to Leh from Delhi and then to the battlefield.  So he carried the first seven phones to Batalik which were used for the battles" Brig. Asthana (Retd.) told the TOI.

Realising the importance of the magneto phones, and seeing this novel chain of supply opened by the Asthanas, the Brigade Major of Batalik's 70 Infantry Brigade, Maj. M. Indrabalan, requested Shobita to purchase seven more telephones and send them to Batalik for the Brigade's use.

"Since Major Correya had already left, I was wondering how to get the next 7 telephones to Batalik. I was worried and spent a sleepless night thinking “what if someone dies in operations due to lack of telephones or some other mission is effected due to lack of reliable communication?”

“The very next day I engineered my own 'green channel'! I went to the Palam transit area, where I had dropped Amul on 9th of May and spoke to the Load Manifest Desk. I also went to the transit camp and spoke to the Transit Camp JCO.  I found out that one Capt. GP Singh of the 15 Field Regiment was flying to Leh and then going onwards to the Batalik war zone. I met him at the entrance of the airport and he very graciously took these telephones.”

“On his way up in the war zone Capt GP coincidentally met me and said  'Sir, Are you Mrs. Shobita Asthana's husband?; I had met her and she has conveyed her good wishes, and sent telephones – which I have carried Sir”  Lt Col Amul Asthana told the TOI.

Fighting at altitudes ranging above 17,000 feet, the Gurkha soldiers faced an acute shortage of water as they had to lug the water from the nallahs thousands of feet below. The Army-issue jerricans and Pakhal containers were too huge and heavy to carry few thousand feet up the steep slopes.  So, Asthana again sought the intervention of his 'Home Ministry'. Shobita and her father bought 40 plastic jerricans of 10 litres capacity. "My father being a pedigree, astute Punjabi undertook a thorough check of the jerricans to ensure they could survive the test of war and extreme weather conditions. And, lo and behold, he arrived at our apartment on the 5th floor in Cariappa Vihar in the elevator. It was a comical sight. My father in his signature white shirt was camouflaged in the elevator packed with the white jerry-cans!  I was able to send the first lot of 20 jerricans to Batalik through Lt. Akshay Chandran, a young officer of 1 / 11 Gurkha Rifles who had come down from Batalik to Delhi with the body of our brave martyr, Capt. Manoj Pandey, PVC(P) in the first week of July 1999. The rest of them I sent through my own ‘Green Channel’ at the Palam departure area for the Armed Forces. By this time, our battalion's Load Manifest JCO Bhanu had been stationed at Leh airport and he was in communication with me over the telephone from Leh. Bhanu would ensure that whatever I sent was picked up from the aircraft at Leh and then dispatched to the battlefield via the battalion's rear area base at Nurla," said Shobita.

The soldiers in battle were melting the ice to drink water, but the ice was contaminated with the gunpowder from heavy artillery shelling, and this water was causing severe stomach ailments. Flagyl was magic for loose motions and vomiting. But flagyl had been discontinued in the medicine supply chain and its replacement had not yet reached the frontline troops.

The Jerry Cans were thus followed by the doughty Shobita coming to the rescue of the sick soldiers.  She sent in cartons of Flagyl which were very useful. 

Next were Achaars! Her Bhabhi’s family runs the  Avon Agro Greenz industries and she sent many kilograms of their mixed pickle.  The pickle was relished by the Gurkhas because in the initial days of the war they were making do with just stiff, leathery 'poories' sent to the front in gunny bags once in three to four days. Later, Maggi noodles packets came their way from their own canteen. It was only when sturdy Ladakhi porters and their native load-carrier donkeys were allotted to the Battalion that the Gurkhas cooked meals of rice, dals and vegetables at their ' fauji langar' set up at Yaldor. To add to the culinary flavour, Shobita sent these pickles in July 1999, through her ‘Green Channel’!

 "My two little sons, Aakash and Anant, who were studying in class II and VI, took the initiative and pasted hand-written notes in Gorkhali on the jars of pickle, wishing the soldiers good luck and victory. I was keeping a steady nerve but inside me I was so tense. These activities of hunting out war resources in Delhi, purchasing them and sending them to the battlefield kept me busy during the day. At night, I could not sleep and kept reciting the Gayatri mantra. Since I thought that our soldiers would attack the Pakistani positions at night, I dared not stop reciting the mantra as I feared that if I did so, something untoward may happen. In fact, I had a big scare in early June 1999 when it was wrongly reported in the TV news that a Lt. Col. had been martyred in the Batalik war zone. I was worried. I thought - afterall how many Lt Cols could be there in Batalik?  While it eventually turned out to be another officer, I was relieved all right, yet felt very disturbed because he was a friend and my husband's course-mate, recalled Shobita.

The last of the critical tasks carried out by Shobita for the war effort was the printing of exceptional war photographs taken by her husband with his personal camera. "I needed those photographs to attach to the gallantry citations, which I was writing in Yaldor in the second week of July 1999. However, I felt it may not be correct to get them printed in Kargil or Leh as these were very sensitive pictures, such as those of enemy bodies and tactical locations etc, and the war was still on. So, I had the rolls sent to Delhi where Shobita had them developed from a secure and trusted photo studio. The studio owner promised Shobita he would not keep extra copies of the prints nor the negatives with himself after developing them. Two sets of prints and the negatives were then taken back to Batalik by Major Indrabalan (The Brigade Major) who was coincidentally on a visit to Delhi," said Shobita Asthana.

Shobita adds, “During those days, my children and I also had the opportunity to look up Lance Naik Gyanendra, who was wounded in battle and was admitted in the Military Hospital(R & R), Delhi. 

On a very sad morning I was amongt the few who attended a very solemn ceremony at Palam when the body of our own Battalion Martyr, Captain Manoj Pandey arrived at Palam Airport.

Later in March 2000 I got the opportunity to look up a few of our Kargil war widows in Nepal. In the year 2001 I could join the Battalion at Pune and finally meet all the brave soldiers and families of the Battalion. 

As I look back, I feel that any military lady, given a chance, would have done the same, in the true spirit of the Indian Army. I am grateful to God and the Indian Army that I got the opportunity to contribute to the Battalion’s effort in a very small way; and for giving the means to accomplish these tasks”.

In these days, my children and I also had the opportunity to look up Lance Naik Gyanendra, who was wounded in battle and was admitted in the Military Hospital(R & R), Delhi.

On a very sad morning I was amongst the few who attended a very Solemn ceremony at Palam   when the body of our own Battalion Martyr, Captain Manoj Pandey arrived at Palam Airport.

Later in March 2000 I got the opportunity to look up few of our Kargil war widows at Nepal.  In the year 2001 I could join the Battalion at Pune and that is when I got the great opportunity to finally meet all the brave soldiers and families of the Battalion .

As I look back, I feel that any military lady, given a chance, would have done the same, in the true spirit of the Indian Army. I am grateful to God and the Indian Army that I got the opportunity to contribute to the Battalion’s effort in a very small way; and for giving the means to accomplish these tasks. 

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