SOARING IN THE SEVENTIES

Maj Gen Gagandeep Bakshi, what more can one say about the enthusiasm you exhibit in defence of the motherland as you did so well in your days of military service when valiantly you fought for the nation to safeguard its security within and without! You remain an inspiration to so many of us impelling us into patriotic action and you are a tower of strength to the youth as they falteringly channelise their energy along lines of national development and defence. The nation needs to recognise the yeoman service of a septuagenarian ex-serviceman beyond his martial decorations.

It is the passion with which you speak that is the highlight of your personality as every word rings with transparent sincerity and sounds so true, for they are forged in the chambers of your feeling heart where flows the current of national love, pure and simple, valorous and fervent. Swami Vivekananda had once said that very often it is seen those who are innocent in the bloom of their lives, become lying masks of men in their advancing years. How true his words are in this age of terrible pretension and falsity but how utterly inapplicable they are in your case, armed as you are in love for our motherland. The Swami's blessings seem to be on you for you have defied the trend of the age, the temptations of the times and the frailties of failing idealism in the backyard of life's experience. Perhaps this is your martial spirit, innate and self-given, or is it the tempering of the steel of the army-man in training that has lasted you through a lifetime of struggle for the national cause? Whatever it be, India gains from every pulsation of your being geared as it is to her defence against marauders and mercenaries, terrorists and traitorous neighbours. And what blessedness for us that you have been born among us to show us the path of martial courage, sacrifice and zeal in defence of the motherland at an hour of history when our nation feels threatened in its security both from within and without! Souls like you are rare, valorous and virtuous, erudite and emotional, a symphonic blend of head and heart, rooted to the past, yet, ever foraying into the future with childlike enthusiasm so uncharacteristic for your age. Such a one, if I may be permitted a brief dalliance with chauvinism, could have been born only in India, for where else would you find such supernal synthesis of the intellect and the emotion, its edifice rising on the bedrock of an adamantine character rooted to the soil whence sprang the most glorious poesy of the soul.

Maj Gen Gagandeep Bakshi, what remains unsaid, remains in the silent corridors of our selves as we wend our way towards the great ideal of national renaissance guided by the beacon that you are in this dark night of self-delusion that has gripped the minds of millions. We honour a thing when it is dead and gone, and often we do not honour it at all, for appreciation of virtue becomes a virtuous people and not one fallen from grace, honouring one lies in the eye of honour and not one tainted with dishonourable intents galore. Let us value you while you are there with us and not decades hence, posthumously. Let us honour you for you are rightfully honourable and, in so doing, let us set up a precedent for priding in our national glories among which you, Maj Gen Gagandeep Bakshi, occupy pride of place.

Netaji would have been proud of you for the yeoman service you are offering his cause at this late hour of your life in bringing to light the exploits of his liberation army but for whom we would have been in colonial shackles for heaven knows how long. That spirit of the springing tiger which the hero had aspired to quicken in his countrymen has seemingly gripped you for good and it augurs well for the country that gave you birth. More and more of your type, valiant soldiers of the soul, will yet arise out of the womb of the future and reshape the destiny of this nation which is to shower peace and benediction on earth. Jai Hind!