1.

Everything was dark and hazy…nothing could be seen. Gunshots roared across the smog-invaded valley of Ladak. Someone yelled there and someone moaned here… occasional thunder of battle tanks rocked the valley…Sounds of shout, shoot and panic all over…

I lay on my back, on some rock or so…in the rugged valley of Ladak…I stared into the smog, anxious to find someone. But, nothing was visible… All hazy, all dark! Where are Elias and Rahman? Where have they gone? Where…?

I held my breath, and listened to the sounds around, hoping to find some familiar human voice. None! I kept listening, and listening until all sounds subsided…
The gunfire gradually subsided….and all sounds plunged into a deep, long, agonizing silence…!

Has the war ended? Then, where are Elias and Rahman, my companions?
I must find them. I tried to get on to my feet. Oh! My goodness! I have no legs! Cut off below my knees! All alone in this dark frosty valley, cut off from all my friends, and amputated…Oh God!

“Uncle, why do you yell so…?”
A female voice! Female voice in this battlefield? In this frosted valley?
“Who are you…?”
“What happened to you, uncle? Have you dreamed?”
“Dream…? Isn’t this Ladak? Where are Elias and Rahman? Tell me… where are they?”
My voice was creaky. Frightened and bewildered, I tried to open my eyes.

“Ladak? What are you saying, uncle? You are in the hospital, not in Ladak. It is Cochin, Naval Base hospital…in the post operative unit…” The female voice spoke again.

“Cochin…? Then where is Ladak, the smog and the gunfire…?
Was I dreaming?” I thought as I struggled to open my eyes. Pale yellow light glimmered before my swollen eyes. Smell of medicines I always hated, lingered in the air around. Hospital beds with groaning men and women, dark-glassed windows on the cream-coloured walls mirrored yellow lamps. In the pale light I could see the source of the female voice, a dark-skinned nurse with bright brown eyes.

“Child, how did I come here?” I asked her.
“Uncle you have forgotten everything? Yesterday you had your legs amputated beneath your knees. Your legs, festered with acute diabetics, had to be removed. After the operation, you had been sleeping under sedation for a long time, and now you are waking up for the first time. And it is not yet daybreak. Sharp 2 o’ clock.” She looked at her wristwatch. “Forgotten everything?” She asked again with a smile of pretended amazement.

I was trying to remember. Yesterday, it was evening when I was taken to the operation theatre. Moving fast into the theatre in a stretcher, I watched Maggie and children following me. When I crossed the entrance of the theatre, the heavy steel door shut behind me…