Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir
Param Vir Chakra: Hoshiar Singh
Param Vir Chakra: Bana Singh
Maj. Gen. Ian Cardozo
Rishi Kumar
July 1987 Siachen, the world's highest battlefield, is as dangerous as it is beautiful. battles are fought on the mountains that dominate the Siachen Glacier the second longest glacier in the world. More lives are lost due to climate, weather, avalanches, high altitude sickness and crevasses, than to the ongoing war. The posts are located at heights ranging between 18,000 to 22,000 feet. At these heights the air is rarified and the oxygen content less than 50 per cent. Average temperatures range between35° and55° Celsius. Siachen has been a bone of contention between India and Pakistan, because Pakistan devious as always, took advantage of the fact that both countries had not demarcated the boundary in this area. Not only did she try to take control of the area, but she also illegally ceded 5180 sq kms of Indian territory to China, thereby altering the geo-strategic balance in an area where the boundaries of India, China, Pakistan and Afghanistan meet. Concerned at Pakistan's mischievous agenda, the Indian Army seized the Saltoro Ridge which marks the western boundary of the glacier. Since then, Pakistan and India have been jockeying for possession of the Glacier. It is in such a critical environment that the Indian soldier has to live and fight and sometimes die.
Major General Ian Cardozo was born in Mumbai and studied at St Xavier’s School and College. In July 1954, he joined the Joint Services Wing which later became the National Defence Academy. Here he was the first cadet to win the gold medal for being the best all-round cadet, and the silver medal for being first in order of merit. He was commissioned at the Indian Military Academy into the 1st Battalion the Fifth Gorkha Rifles (FF) in 1958, and was the first officer of the Army to be awarded the Sena Medal for gallantry on a patrol in NEFA in 1959. Wounded in the battle of Sylhet in Bangladesh in 1971, he overcame the handicap of losing a leg and became the first war-disabled officer to be approved for command of an Infantry Battalion. He retired in 1993 from his appointment as Chief of Staff of a Corps in the East. Author of The Sinking of INS-Khukri: Survivor’s Stories and Param Vir: Our Heroes in Battle, he has worked with the Spastics Society of Northern India and was chairman of the Rehabilitation Council of India for nine years. At present he is the Vice President of the War Wounded Foundation.
Rishi Kumar is a graduate from Delhi College of Art in the Applied Art course. He has worked as an illustrator with various advertising and publishing companies. He is currently working as a freelance illustrator. Besides art he has an interest in computer gaming. His name has been acknowledged in the Limca Book of National Records 2016 for his work.
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