It was July 1965. Major General Samarth Singh Virk’s jeep came to a screeching halt on the driveway of his house in Jalandhar. Bibi had been escorted to their official residence in the city from Khem Karan earlier. The small, olive-green flag bearing his rank on the front bonnet stopped fluttering. Before the driver could jump out of the vehicle to open the general’s door, Virk alighted and rushed into the house to find Bibi standing on the front porch. He looked at her, smiled, but said nothing. She accepted the shining, eighteen-inch-long black ebonite baton from him. Placing it over the wooden stand, she asked, ‘What’s the matter, you look worried?’ Virk tried his best to look normal despite being aware that it wasn’t easy to hide much from her razor-sharp eyes. Without responding, he headed to his room. Bibi followed close behind, her ears tuned to pick up even a whisper from her husband’s mouth.

Entering the spacious, well-lit but simply designed master bedroom, Virk pulled open the large teak almirah and carefully took out a sealed folder. While untying the cotton tag binding the corrugated box marked ‘RESTRICTED’ in bold, he looked into her eyes and said, ‘I have been asked to oversee the Amritsar sector. We have a serious situation on hand that needs urgent attention. The Pakistanis are armed to the teeth with advanced armoury, machine guns and, above all, the US-built Patton tanks. With our limited resources, it is not going to be easy to stop them from charging into our territory. We are therefore thinking of different strategies, thus the importance of out-of-the-box experiments.’

Amrit was unfazed by his response. ‘Will that mean you’ll shift base to Amritsar?’ she asked.

Virk smiled, admiring both her composure and query.

Her face was bereft of tension and undue excitement. After a brief pause, he said, ‘Temporarily, yes. But the operation should not take much time. Those are mostly diversionary tactics. Our main focus is elsewhere. I just want you to know that I may not be able to communicate with you from the front. Please do not worry in these situations. In fact, you should interact more with the families of the jawans and provide whatever help you can,’ he concluded.

Bibi heard him but remained calm and nodded gently. She turned and left the room while Virk buried his head in the voluminous bunch of sheets of paper.

She went to the kitchen and came back with a steaming mug in her hand. A smartly uniformed steward followed her, holding a tray of biscuits. Handing over the tea to Virk, she resumed her queries. ‘If they are so well equipped in armament, tanks, etc., how are we going to defeat them?’