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A SMALL NEWS WITH BIGGER SUGGESTIONS

Rajshekhar Pant

A seemingly unimportant news in a rather casual manner was covered by a few local papers sometime back. A thirty years old soldier namely Devendra Singh Bisht from village Padhera in the border distt of Pithoragarh had been killed in an avalanche while patrolling in the inner reaches of Kashmir. For the border district of Pithoragarh, where almost every family invariably has one or two breadwinners in regimental greens such tidings are the order of the day. The arrival of the ‘martyr’s’ body is often followed by a ritual mourning and erection of a small two tiered monument somewhere along the motor road by the district administration. And shortly the dear departed becomes a face on the wall. Right since the Chinese debacle way back in 1962, at quite a few villages in Pithoragarh district the war widows have been out numbering those who still have the streak of vermillion in their partings. 

However, the martyrdom of Late DS Bisht of Padhera was different in the sense that his daughter Kiran, an innocent student of nursery class in Manas Academy (a local school) has been adopted by her alma mater. All her academic requirements up to class XII will now be looked after by the management of the academy.

Life is marked with such an uncertainty for a girl child in the interior of these hills, especially for the one bereft of her father while still in her nonage, that no other consolation can ever replace this gesture of Manas Academy. In a small ceremony in the school campus attended by the staff, students, family members of Late DS Bisht , villagers and quite a few representatives of the district administration Dr Ashok Pant, the founder Director of Manas Academy, offered to the wife of the deceased  a White Card-  bearing the promise of extending free education to little Kiran up to class XII. The poignancy of the occasion was further intensified with his emotional outburst,  “those sacrificing their lives enabling us to have a peaceful existence must have the faith that their families will be looked after even if they are gone defending us.”  The members of the family of Bisht were so moved that they made the school administration the custodian of the flag offered by the army to them commemorating the martyr. Col SP Gularia, Vice President, Soldier Welfare Board, also present at the occasion was overwhelmed enough to say, “We forget them shortly who die for us observing at the most the ritual of erecting an uncared-for monument. The management of Manas Academy however, has set a benchmark paying a true tribute to the martyr.”

My old friend BK Bhatt, who had been watching the proceedings from distance, broke the silence while we were on our way back home, saying, “don’t you think Pant ji it is a small news with definitely a far bigger suggestion.”  

Badri Bhavan

Saket

Bhimtal, Distt Nainital

Uttarakhan

pant.rajshekhar@gmail.com

ph: 09412100304