Kargil soldiers learn to walk again at Army’s artificial limb centre in Pune

Now it is only doses of Sunil Shetty’s êdesh bhakti films at the ALC cinema hall and colourful memories of his ascendancy to the status of the local Pali hero of the 3 Rajput Regiment that light up the strapping young man’s eyes. “I have convinced 10-12 neighbouring boys my age to join the Army during my sick leave,” he beams, informing that barely 50 families from the town send their boys to the Army.

Lance Naik Sukhbir Singh from Kutina village, Rajasthan, has fond plans of donning the olive green again and send his only son, Babloo to the fauj. Losing a foot to a landmine while saving a comrade’s life during a midnight attack in Turtuk sector has not crushed his mettle, for “I look at others like me at ALC and live on.” A packed schedule of yoga, Physical Training in bed, sitting volleyball, swimming, counselling and recreation leaves no time to mope over what may have been.

Swatting flies on the hospital bed, grounded by a splinter injury in Batalik, 29-year-old B. Lama mumbles, “Now I can do nothing, all my plans have come crashing down. I am not going back to the Army.” But he has been walking since November, he adds.

For him, the first Kargil anniversary means the trip back home on June 30 to Nepal with “first-class memories,” and the small-time STDPCO business that he hopes will sustain the education of his young daughters.

But fighting the first ladai of his life at 23, with a glorious bullet wound in cross-firing at Drass to mark it, has Sepoy Krishna Rana from Pithora in Uttar Pradesh cheerfully plot a return to the Army and the second Naga Regiment. “ I have no regrets,” he says simply.

While Gesba Bahadur stoically faces the end of 16 years in the Army for a sheltered civil service appointment. “I will êpucca remember all my Kargil friends,” he insists somberly.

Between 20-40 years, the 14 soldiers in the ALC’s Kargil ward are among the 40,000 soldiers since World War II who must return every few years when the prosthesis gives trouble. For Operation Vijay’s amputees, nearly 75 imported prostheses from UK and USA are now being fitted.

The lighter, cosmetically superior myo-electric prosthesis for the upper limb is worth Rs 3,30,000 each, with in-built sensors that activate the motorised appendages. The ALC is also developing indigenous prostheses that cut costs from Rs 1,50,000 for the imported versions, to only Rs 30,000. After all, says medical officer Lt Col Rajesh Sahay, “It is a treat to watch the soldiers walk again.”

And when spirits sag, a generous week-end helping of Sunny Deol and Border rekindle the celebrated fauji fire that makes brave soldiers win wars.