Stars are shining nice & bright

Lt-Gen Tejinder Sahrawat (retd)

On January 30, 1971, a good 10 months before the India-Pakistan war, an Indian Airlines Foker Friendship aircraft, named Ganga, while flying from Srinagar to Jammu, was hijacked by two Kashmiri militants to Lahore. 

I had joined my battalion located at Ambala Cantt two months earlier as a young officer barely out of my teens. My battalion was one of the only two battalions of the Army which were equipped with anti-tank guided missiles. The battalion was a fully motorised unit based on jeeps which could be swiftly moved to an operational area. Due to the operational necessity, all our jeeps were open without any canopy.

On February 3, after mid-day, the battalion was ordered to move to the operational area at a six-hour notice. The move started around 9 pm with about 50 vehicles. I was detailed as Intelligence Officer to the Commanding Officer (CO) and was travelling in his open jeep. The cold winter wind in the open jeep was piercing through my bones. As we were approaching Sirhind, at midnight, the CO, who later rose to become an Army Commander, asked me: "Do you know Pup Mann?" Those days we were not as smart as today’s youth. I was confused. Having studied in Punjab for some time, I knew that Manns were full-blooded Punjabis. So was it a pup that was dashing and aggressive, and, therefore, had been nicknamed Mann or was it that a Mann, who was as sweet as a pup, and, therefore, had been nick named Pup Mann. 

The CO soon cleared my doubt by saying let us go to his farm. So it was a Mann who was nicknamed Pup. We got into his farm. The Manns were a landed family of Sirhind. Pup Mann was actually an outstanding officer, Major Mann, from my regiment but not from my battalion. He was on annual leave at his family home. He later rose to become a Lt General. Our noisy arrival woke up the Mann family. After a while, my CO told Major Mann’s father, “Sir, I am going to war, could I ‘borrow’ your son to accompany me?" Major Mann’s father said: “Yes, by all means.” Major Mann quickly packed up his rucksack and got ready to go with us for the war. So an officer from another battalion got himself attached to my battalion to fight a war without permission of the Army Headquarters. That was the ‘josh’ those days and that was the Army.

Early in the morning, we crossed Pathankot and saw a heavy vehicle of our unit broken down. On enquiry, the vehicle commander said their vehicle had run out of diesel. In a professional unit this was not acceptable so the CO was furious. He asked the Subedar Major, who was travelling in our jeep, "whether the driver had drunk the diesel.” The Subedar Major quickly ran to the driver, sniffed him, returned and said “Yes, sir. The driver has drunk the diesel.” The CO’s word was law! If it was day and the king said it was night, the wazir would say. “Yes, sir, the stars are shining nice & bright!”