It was a poignant sight. Just the exchange of one meaningful look, and the realization sank in. The understanding of an eternal bond. They were all mothers after all. They had never met before. But they all knew that their brave sons had died fighting the enemy—hand in hand—in the high and dry mountain battlefields of Kargil 24 years ago.
Then they both hugged and cried. Not a word was exchanged. Yet they knew it all.
Choking with tears, Duluprabha Gogoi, 78, told THE WEEK: “I have never met her (the mother of a fallen solider) before. But we share a unique bond as our sons lived, fought, and died together. It is as if we have stayed together always in the past.”
“Maake he jaane putrok heruwar dookh” (Assamese for 'Only mothers understand how it feels when their sons die').
Gogoi, the mother of Captain Jintu Gogoi, had come to Kargil from Khumtai in Assam’s Golaghat. “I came here for my son. But I found many many sons. This will keep me going”.
“Whenever I see all these young soldiers and the officers I am reminded of my son and I feel happy that he lives among them. Everyone here is like Jintu for me.”
On the 24th anniversary of the Kargil Vijay Diwas on Wednesday at Drass’ Kargil War Memorial, battle-scarred veterans—both of the mind and the body—families of the valiant fallen soldiers and other top serving officials of the Indian military, including the Chief of Defence Staff, the Army, Indian Air Force and Navy chiefs, were welcomed.
Drass, where the memorial is located just next to National Highway 1 (NH-1), is also touted as the world’s coldest inhabited place after a town in Russia’s Siberia.
Captain Jintu Gogoi of 17 Garhwal Rifles, not yet 29, was tasked to take on the enemy on the night of June 29, 1999, as they positioned themselves in fortified bunkers in the Kala Pathar ridge line on the Indian side of the Line of Control (LoC) in the Juber Hill area of Batalik sub-sector.
Leading by example and braving heavy enemy fire, Captain Gogoi reached the top at the crack of dawn. On being surrounded and asked to surrender, the young Captain chose to lay down his life as a soldier would, but not before taking down two enemy soldiers. His valiant action in securing cover for his men and ensuring overtaking of the post earned him a Vir Chakra.
An emotionally overwhelmed Duluprabha Gogoi, still fighting for breath because of the oxygen-depleted air, said, “I have lost my son but what I am also touched by is the reverence and respect shown by the Indian Army to my son even after all these years.”
