These days, the life has gone out of Pathankot, the third largest cantonment town in Punjab located on the border with Jammu and Kashmir. The two sprawling cantonments here present a ghostly appearance, with a handful of jawans and just a couple of vehicles standing sentinel.Almost everyone here is unhappy - the traders complain about their plummeting sales, for their largest market is the army. Cement suppliers likewise moan about sales drying up in the border areas of Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir - down to almost nil from a whopping 80,000 bags just some time ago. With the situation still uncertain, none, it seems, is reckless enough to embark on construction.The only ecstatic folks are those in the truckers union, who have deemed this ``a good season''. As many as 1,300 civilian trucks have been deployed by the army. Beginning at Pathankot, they traverse a long route through Punjab, via Manali to Siachen and Leh, carrying their precious cargo of rations, petrol and ammunition. The trip to Leh takes12 days.Others who are raking in money are contractors in small towns near the Punjab border. One such town is Bamial, close to Kathua in Jammu and Kashmir. Surinder, a strapping local contractor-cum-sarpanch proudly displays the barracks and stores he has constructed for the army near the border. He boasts that it was a rush job, completed in a record 15 days.Surinder has a very matey relationship with the BSF and the army. He is privy to all their strategic arrangements. Some weeks ago he was hauled out of bed in the dead of night by an artillery regiment that had moved in - they were in dire need of accommodation. Of course, he rose to the occasion and located rooms in the village.Resourceful to the extreme, he was both guide and companion on our adventurous journey to the little village of Simbal-Scole on the border. Were we glad to have him with us! For while crossing over the three rivers en route to the village, the wheels of our sturdy Tata Sumo got deeply entrenched in the mud. We hungprecariously on the river bank at an angle of 70 degrees, while the driver vainly accelerated, only driving the tyres deeper into the mud. But Surinder was our saviour. He clambered out and took charge. As we finished the last leg of our journey to the village on foot, he efficiently commandeered a tractor; and when we finished our work, we found the Sumo waiting for us.Most of the village was build after 1962. Before that, it was part of Pakistan. When the UN observers arrived to demarcate the border, India got it in exchange for another village called Kakenloari. Surinder told us that his contractor father actually built the demarcation pillars on the border. He pointed to the serpentine lines of trenches dug on both sides of the village. With the aplomb of a general, he also carelessly educated us on how the forces would attack from here in the event of war.The villagers and the security forces have a symbiotic relationship. A young officer informed us that they often have to request farmers to pullout their marooned vehicles. Tall glasses of milk and frothy lassi are also supplied to the officers gratis. In return for this generosity, the forces volunteer their vehicles to transport those seriously ill to the faraway hospital.As we sauntered around the village, we could hear the Pakistanis reciting their evening namaaz. Elderly villagers pointed to a spot on the other side of the border where a village named Deenpanah was located prior to the 1971 Indo-Pak war. While they returned to Simbal-Scole, the Pakistani villagers on the other side of the hillock never came back. Today, Deenpanah is no more. Only memories remain.
