My Only Intention While Writing This Book Was To Encourage Young Military Officers To Read… There are many extremely important military lessons ensconced within the book

Maj. Gen. Vijay Singh, author of POW 1971: A Soldier’s Account Of The Heroic Battle Of Daruchhian

What are your earliest memories of your father being a PoW?

I actually have no memories of my father as a PoW and the credit for that goes entirely to my mother. Whatever she was going through, she successfully kept it away from us. We had no idea of her personal travails at all. My earliest memories are of the excitement of waiting to welcome my father back at the Delhi Cantt Railway station on, I now know, 2 December 1972. I clearly remember the press insisting on my father lifting me up for a perfect photograph of a joyful reunion. It was really quite chaotic! My father with his injured hand struggling to lift me up and the press insisting for retakes!

I also vividly recall the sad memory of seeing an old man on the station refusing to believe his son was dead and pestering my father to reveal his whereabouts. His son had actually died in front of my father.

When did you first realize that there was a book in these memories and that you would like to record these?

I think sometime after 1989 or so. My grandfather, Maj. Gen. Kalyan Singh, spent a lot of time with my parents as he grew older. I enjoyed his company tremendously. He would regale me for hours with interesting anecdotes of his war experiences, while participating in the World War II in North Africa and life as a PoW in Italy. After he passed on, I realised that he had not shared his memories with many, and I had not made any notes either. As a result, those precious memories were lost with his passing.

I did not want this to happen in the case of my father. As it is, given his reticent nature, no one, including those close to him, had any idea what he had faced in battle. As young children, my brother and I got just one opportunity to hear about his experiences in the battle of Daruchhian, and it moved us tremendously. Since then, I was certain his memories needed to be recorded. But I also knew it would be difficult to make him speak about himself. We had been working on him for a long time. Thankfully, he finally relented and agreed to share his story with the world. Finding time for the project was a challenge for me due to service commitments. Finally, the Covid lockdowns provided me the opportunity to finish this project.

Memories acquire a life of their own over a period of time. Did you cross-check, cross-reference whatever your father remembered, given the sensitivity of the subject and you being a serving officer? Basically, how difficult was the writing process?

You are absolutely right, memories do acquire a life of their own. Luckily, early in my service life I stumbled upon some very relevant material amongst my father’s file