Grateful school remembers Kargil hero on birthday

MUMBAI, SEPT 1: In the foyer of the Kendriya Vidyalaya school, Marve, hangs the framed photograph of Captain Amit Verma. A granite memori...

MUMBAI, SEPT 1: In the foyer of the Kendriya Vidyalaya school, Marve, hangs the framed photograph of Captain Amit Verma. A granite memorial with the words Lest we forget8217; inscribed on it is the contribution of a grateful school to a war hero who strode down these corridoors five years ago.

Captain Amit Verma, Mahar Regiment, would have been all of 23 years old on Tuesday. But he wasn8217;t around for his birthday celebrations. He lost his life in Operation Vijay on the craggy heights of Kargil on July 4 this year. So the school held a homage ceremony for him that morning attended by officials of the INS Hamla, the principal, staff and students of the school.

The happy birthday songs were replaced with all religion prayers, poems read out by teachers, the memorial unveiled and a lamp lit.

Arlene Gracious, Captain Verma8217;s biology teacher at the school treasures a letter written by Verma to her. Dated 26 June and written at 12.00 hrs the letter mentions the height as 15,660 feet and is the poetry of a 22-year-old.

Life at my end of the world is all fast, fluid and chaotic and I am myself in the middle of the action. Sitting here so near to God, you have lots of time to think about your near and dear ones, therefore I keep on penning letters to all the addresses I remember.8217;

The coverage by the media and the response of the gentry to the on going action is a warming and morale boosting sight,8217; writes the soldier, before ending with I have to pen off now as the Pak bang..bang is getting closer.8217;

Heartbreakingly, Verma was killed a week later. The letter reached Gracious nearly a month after she knew of his death.

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Gracious remembers her pupil as an extremely mischevious and naughty. 8220;He was always upto pranks and wouldn8217;t let me teach seriously.8221; In the same breath she adds, 8220;he was also extremely talented, participated in all the extracurricular activities and popular amongst his classmates in the school.8221;

Though Amit8217;s father was a serving Lt Colonel in the army, his mother was against his joining the forces as he was the only child. After completing two years of school in Mumbai, Amit went on to the Symbiosis college in Pune completed his BCom and later joined the Indian Military Academy IMA. He was commissioned into the army in December last year

First posted to Leh, Amit came down for a reunion with school friends in March this year. The last Gracious heard of him was a phone call, promising to drop in the next time around.

That wasn8217;t to happen. Originally headed for Siachen, the young captain and his unit were veered around to Kargil when hostilities broke out.