Siachen Theatre

After seemingly endless short days, long nights and snow,
An avalanche kills 19 out of my 20 men

And who remains
One fool –
One fool pacing with a baton on the rooftops of the Himalayas

And I look at him with tiered eyes –
Of tired eyes of someone who has seen too much

I

look at the remains of my platoon – one weary man
A galloping heart begging for oxygen

And I follow him
And I follow him, for I am a soldier

Like black ghouls on the soundless snow,
We preserver to the giddy heights of Icarus

Captain X started off with 20 men but now the others were all dead – not by bullets or mortars. No, not the way warlike men usually die. It was an avalanche that threw icebergs of sudden death, taking 19 of his 20 men to their resting place. It was an avalanche that killed his platoon.

He could not believe what had happened. He cried – a lone voice crying in the wilderness. “All my immaculate planning. For what! For this! An avalanche!”

And who remains
One fool –
One fool pacing with a baton on the rooftops of the Himalayas

“The height of absurdity,” he said to himself. Then, all of a sudden, his lips cracked into a smile. “The height of absurdity,” he said again and again… and then he was left rolling around the snow and ice, giggling and laughing in fits… “The height of absurdity, the height of absurdity, the height of absurdity…”

Amid the lofty peaks of the Himalayas, on the roof of the world (22,000 ft. above sea-level), where the air is so thin that hearts gallop to grasp for breath, where the temperature is below -50C, blood on the ice of Siachin reads, a frozen soldier’s diary reads:

We / them, fighting a war with no regard for the Armageddon
We / them, the silly schoolboy provoking war like a cricket fan
We / them, keeping the flag high
We / them, without hearts and minds
We / them, fighting a war of attrition
We / them, the Captain throwing myths and metaphors on Napoleon and Sikander
We / them, grenades taking away arms, legs and lives
We / them, stuttering rifles, fire for fire, attack for counter-attack
We / them, BANG! BANG! A mixture of ground-burst and airburst mortar
We / them, beating the war drums
We / them, keeping up the morale
We / them, collecting dead bodies from no man’s land
We / them, sending condolences to widows and orphans
We / them, India / Pakistan
We / them, Pakistan / India
We / them, Siachin, 1984 to ____

We / them, rallying the ranks
We / them, the morning bugle call
We / them, the mess tent, the martyrs’ pictures all over the walls

“And how did your comrades die!” Captain X interrogates himself.
“They died on the ice-capped peaks of Siachin, 22,000 ft. above ground!

“And how did they die?” the demons on his shoulder cry.
“Without a war! Without a fight!”

“And how did they die?” the demons on his shoulder cry.
“Without a war! Without a fight!
“Without grenades taking away their arms, legs and lives!
“Without stuttering rifles! Without deafening mortars!
“Without the thud thud, thud…”

Dawn 22,000 ft., above sea level:

Snowy pyramids are toying with the sun,
Whiteness is spreading out like a virgin (like a virgin Captain X wants to rape)

Like black ghouls on the soundless snow,
We preserver to the giddy heights of Icarus

“Icarus is a figure in Greek mythology who used a pair of wings – made for him by his father – to escape from an island where he was being held prisoner. He flew so well that he went higher and higher, ever closer to the sun, until the heat of the sun melted the wax that held his wings together and he plunged to death in the Aegean Sea.” (Strategic Management: An Integrated Approach, Charles W. L. Hill, Gareth R. Jones)
Siachin – God’s sanatorium, the biggest glacier outside the North and South Poles

Siachin – where Heaven’s clouds are at arm’s length,
And a misstep on a thin layer of snow can lead to the abyss of hell via crags, craters and crevasses

We / them, India / Pakistan
We / them, Pakistan / India
We / them, Siachin, 1984 to _____

Footnote:

Whatever its meaning or meanings, ‘Siachin Theatre’ is a legacy of the ‘divide and conquer’ policy of the British colonialists.

Today – in the year 2002 – there are many dragons to slay between India and Pakistan, but the Kashmir Valley is the penultimate dragon. Meanwhile, as a side show, the Siachin Glacier is turning out to be the struggle of two bald men over a comb (to paraphrase Stephen Cohen of the Brookings Institute).

Illiteracy and poverty rates are amongst the highest in the Subcontinent… with India and Pakistan suffering in ‘brain drain’, in the fleeing of talent and capital…

The vital question for Indo-Pak relations is how not to yield to the line of least resistance, imperilling the prosperity of over a billion people, and running over the cliff to physical destruction like the swine…