On July 15 this year, I finished 22 years my loan life and cutting custom cakes that read: “Happy birthday and birthday birth”.
On this day in 1999 when, as part of the Vijay operation, I ordered a protective post on the LOC in the Akhnoor Cargil sector and mortar bombs fell behind me.
Immediately, the other falls right next to me.
I fell unconscious and the brave boys 7 Dograda, my battalion, rushed to the hospital.
The trip took two and a half hours where, heavy blood lost and a heart attack led the doctor to say I died on arrival.
It was an anesthetic experts Lieutenant Colonel (DR) Rajinder Singh who revived me.
Three days later, when I came, my right foot was found by Gangren.
I was sent to a bigger hospital in Udhampur where my leg was amputated.
While Medicos made me stay in Del (a dangerous sick list) and shared updates with my parents who were worried, I listened to Gurbani (composition by Sikh Gurus) and dialogue from ‘Sholay’ like “Jo Darr style, so Mar style”.
This made me leave.
My weight dropped from 65 kg to 28 kg in 40 days due to many injuries and muscle loss.
After being repatriated, I have an acute post-traumatic stress disorder and often offended and angry because I can’t live.
my previous self before.
I have to learn to walk again.
I am amputated through the knee, which means I don’t have my natural knee.
Many falls later, I managed to walk.
I closed the shoes in 2007 in 2007 in 2007 medical reasons.
I was entitled to retire a war injury but was wrongly paid very little.
It took me four years to get the judgment of my favor and three more to implement it.
After stepping out of the army, I realized that ‘Cargil.
Picture of hero is a joke because many look at me as a good thing for no disability.
The soldier in me was injured and decided to reply in the action.
The most difficult action for unlimited people: running long distances.
In 2009, I became the first Indian amputation marathoner and in 2011, my alma mater imported a special prosthesis called Blade means running exclusively.
Even though no one in India was enough to give me properly with the bar, I started running with him.
Immediately I was known as a “runner knife” but every process will have me in a bandage for 15 days stretching.
So far, I have run 26 and a half marathon and one solo marathon 42 km full for my 42nd birthday.
Since 1999, I often return to cargil.
In 2005, I did a car rally for peace from Cargil to Kanyakumari.
I run the cargil marathon.
I brought fire for drass war memorial on the 20th anniversary of Vijay’s operation.
My war perception has evolved.
I believe it’s wrong and naive to consider war to become a permanent solution.
Yes, sometimes, it is important to defend humanity but there are costs.
73 bomb particles still nesting in my body are proof of it.
As told Sharmila Ganesan
Veterans of the Cargil War became the first Indian blade runner
