Where Eagles Dare
The unsaid truth about all natural disasters runs a familiar course. In absolute distress when the chips are down; when systems have broken down, when no civic worker or state police force is within hundreds of miles, when the already minimal and overstretched infrastructure has collapsed and millions need to be rescued from certain death, it is India's defence forces that save the day for everyone – a grateful nation, its tunnel vision politicians and inept civilian administrations.
The unbridled gush of water – normally a delight in the tourist season – that subjected Uttarakhand, or more specifically Garhwal, to its worst ever disaster in the form of recent flash floods, was a searing warning of nature's fury. It was by all accounts unstoppable. In those hours of hell, it appeared that nothing would be enough to stop the holocaust – except for our men in uniform.
For those victims who had given up hope of ever seeing another day, the sight of the Indian Air Force's (IAF) green overalls, the combat fatigues of the Indian Army and Indo-Tibetan Border Police - with a helping hand from brave members of the Uttarakhand Police and the local civil administration - were rejuvenating in the extreme.
Tall, strapping and nimble footed Colonel Sandip Chatterjee, who prefers to answer in mono syllables, is one such guy. His red eyes and those of his team sending supplies to the 'boys' up ahead is a sign of the long strenuous hours and lack of sleep that have gone into attaining twin objectives: to rescue people trapped in inaccessible areas and locate the debris of the hapless MI 17 rescue helicopter that crashed on June 25.
Chatterjee, in charge of the army's Special Forces operating there, had another job at hand; he had to somehow develop helipads by blasting rocks. A wrong move or turn could mean the end of the road – quite literally.
Or Wing Commander Ravi Pathak, who has a look similar to Colonel Chatterjee's. As he speaks to his pilots sitting under the shade of a white tent along the runway of Gauchar, the nerve centre of IAF's helicopter operations, there is a black cordless phone which he holds along his left cheek, constantly monitoring the weather, looking at the skies and then again at his men.
The situation at the Gauchar air strip has an all pervasive psychological gloom, not much different from a combat station in a forward area. Words like 'alive and dead' fly around as if discussing the latest score of a cricket match. Naturally, with events moving at breakneck pace, it cannot be any other way. The only point of solace are the welcoming cheers of those lucky to be alive and their long lost family members, astounded by their good luck and the marathon task undertaken by the IAF in their rescue missions.
Family cackle, however, does not drown the high decibel generated by Wing Commander Nikhil Naidu. "Where do I start from,'' he wonders. Even for crack pilots such as him, the scenes of devastation and death are numbing. A question as to what he had seen on his rescue mission became an opportunity to vent out all spleen brewing since day one. He remembers: ''It all came as a shock to me as I had not imagined the kind of devastation that lay before my eyes once I entered the narrow valleys looking for signs of life. Life was visible but it was overwhelmed by the presence of debris and dead human beings all around."
For us and others in the tent, the emotional quotient is quite understandable. Here are men trained to fight enemies in alien lands, now combating hard against time to save every life – that every life belonging to a fellow countryman and well within their own territory. The ability to fit into any given situation is what marks out the men from the boys.
In the middle of all this activity, suddenly the black cordless springs to life and Wing Commander Ravi Pathak excuses himself to take the call on the other side of the tent. Here it becomes easy to understand how the fighters are trained to keep their emotions aside when it comes to performing their duties. The death, destruction and the sheer fury of the rivers in spate are no deterrent for them. Then suddenly a voice bawls out: "Whatever, we have to keep the machine ready and it is to fly by 4." This is Wing Commander TS Puri. Puri's team of engineers and technicians was responsible for keeping these complex machines up and ready for the pilots to take off. Puri and his crack team of two senior engineers, three chief technicians and 35 technicians are entrusted to not just keep the checks in place but also to overhaul or rectify technical snags arising due to flying in extremely turbulent weather.
Helicopters leaving Gauchar on those eventful days were testing their limits so as to save as many lives as possible. Naturally, this required unlimited sorties by every machine - as much as safety and the weather permitted.
To add to Puri's predicament, he had the daunting task of raising infrastructure at a place which is bereft of even the most basic air traffic control facility with just one hangar standing. But even with these constraints, Puri and his team were able to accomplish a 50-hour overhauling of a Dhruv helicopter with extremely limited resources.
Most officers present proudly narrate the sequence of that overhaul, a child-like sense of achievement reflecting on every face of Puri's technical team when he reached the milestone. Needless to say, it is this palpable excitement present in every man and officer involved in rescue missions, codenamed Operation Rahat by the IAF and Operation Ganga Prahar by the army.
With the operation bearing fruit, it soon dawned upon those present that this was the biggest ever chopper excercise of its kind undertaken. It has been life changing for a vast population and a learning curve for the men in action.
Often in the desperation, the rear guard action would assume different forms. For Wing Commander SM Yunus who was among the first team of pilots to reconnaiter the area of devastation, the dilemma was acute: in his 20-seater chopper near Kedarnath, there was one place to be had between a mother and her daughter. In the end he persuaded the girl to come on board with a toffee he normally carried for his two children. For the mother, it became a case of ensuring that the child was safe in the hands of the IAF, in case she was not able to make it.
For some other air warriors the deadly valleys became a meeting place. Flight Lieutenant Akshat Dubey and Flight Lieutenant Shishir Sharma were roommates while at training at the Air Force Academy, Hyderabad, three years ago. Once they were commissioned they were able to talk on phones but unable to meet due to postings in different places.
Uttarakhand changed all that. Operation Rahat came as test of the skill, training and endurance they received during their academic courses. They too are saddened like the others about the enormous loss of life but like true professionals, did not get carried away by the enormity of the occasion. Akshat believes these operations gave him an opportunity to not just test the limits of his own mental strength while working in the precariously narrow - and picturesque- valleys of Kedarnath, but also make him feel more confident of the giant machine he operates – a MI 17 V5. "My commanding officer was helping us to understand the machine better as this was new to us having arrived just a month ago,'' he says. Now, Akshat is doubly confident about the kind of tasks he as the captain of the newly-acquired machine can perform.
For Flight Lieutenant Shishir Sharma, it has been nothing short of a paradigm shift. His area of operation is Leh where there are wide valleys and no obstructions but this was different. ''Leh is like a highway where you need a different attitude and to fly in the narrow valleys of the mountains of Uttarakhand is like flying into a narrow lane with huge and powerful machines," he recalls.
Says Group Captain Sandeep Mehta, Defence pro at Gauchar, "The kind of professional hand our young officers have displayed bodes well for the services and the country. Young impressionable minds have not only performed but are also carrying with them lessons which will serve as an inspiration for them in raising their services' performance.'' Truly onerous tasks undertaken and executed, but as the saying goes, when the going gets tough, the tough get going.
