18. Arsh's broken wings, Karan's impatience

In the meanwhile, we got to hear that Arsh had been badly injured during an encounter with some terrorists in Jammu and was very serious. The terrorists had plans to attack a temple during the festival going on during Shiv-Ratri. Arsh had been posted there for more than 7 months now, and during these he had so many encounters, but this time things got worse. He had been informed about them by an informer, but information was quite vague as they didn’t know the number of terrorists, and the scale of destruction planned by them. Anyways, Arsh took this information seriously and was ready for any attack, infact avoiding it at all. Arsh had divided his groups in two parts of which one was always around temple and others were involved with checks. One day when Arsh was on his way back to home in night, a civilian came in his way and stopped him. He informed Arsh about the movements seen in the forests 3 kms away from the temple. At once Arsh got ready and along with his group(5 more soldiers) went to see what the matter was.

As soon as they reached the forest, being the night time it became really difficult for them to locate anyone. They tried to proceed slowly into the forests, when suddenly, terrorists attacked them. Arsh’s team was taken aback seeing the their number. Some of them were civilians who were assisting them while others were those who were sent to execute the plan. They had the plan to attack temple during the next day’s morning prayer. One of the soldier lost his life at that very moment, while one more was hurt. Arsh had also been hit with a bullet who just went passed by his legs. They all somehow managed to hide behind trees and rocks. They divided themselves into 2 groups of three and two each. There were more than 12 of them and were firing randomly and desperately. Arsh immediately called for some more people, but till the time they arrived, Arsh very well knew that they could not give up. They gave them a tough fight. Arsh and team had managed to kill 4 of the terrorists.

Then Arsh decided to move ahead as he knew that it was impossible for them to strike down any further terrorists from that place. So, he rejoined the two groups he had formed, took one of the soldier with him and went ahead slowly to hunt the other left ones(terrorists). He asked for cover-firing from his counterparts and went really close to their hideouts. Seeing the soldiers proceed towards them, one terrorist came firing outside, during which Arsh was hit by yet another bullet in his hands. But then, there was no point of stopping or going back after getting so far. They killed that terrorist and broke open firing into their hide-out. All other member of Arsh’s group came following. But by then Arsh, who was leading all the time, had been injured badly, with serious injuries on the legs. They wiped off completely all of the terrorists but during all this one more soldier was seriously injured having hit by bullet in stomach, who succumbed to his injuries on the way to hospital.

Lot of blood had flowed out from Arsh’s body due to which he went unconscious. Arsh condition dropped very badly till the time he reached hospital. Operation took place for 3 hours after which Doctors came out to inform that Arsh’s left leg had been paralysed, and he won’t be able to walk properly, for next 1 year at least and the time period may exceed depending on the rate of recovery. We all were thunderstruck to hear this. A person who always wished to fly and make his country fly along with him, had to use wheel-chair for 1 year. And that too, he would never be able to serve his country as a soldier. His dreams, his wishes all seemed to have broken into pieces. Arsh was shattered to hear about this. He was too upset and didn’t talk to anyone of us and asked us not to sympathize with him, and leave him alone. We couldn’t leave him, but when his family members came then we felt it was better to leave, as they all were crying and it didn’t seem good to be there.

Things didn’t go as smooth for Karan either. Although Karan immediately got a job in a nice company and one of the leading manufactures and research centre of Solar products in America, but he wasn’t satisfied. He was just not able to accept that he was working outside his own country when it needed him so much. At a point, when all that he was doing there would have helped India so much, to reduce dependence on fossil fuels. They had been able to find an alternate and cheap material for utilising the solar energy in an efficient way and was very much feasible in our country receiving nice amount of sunlight. He tried so hard to find ways in which he could return India with all the new technologies developed. He tried to approach many Indian companies, every time he came back on leave, and convince them about the new technologies but didn’t get the desired response. Although some companies got ready to implement his ideas, but at a very small scale, which would have hardly changed the scenario.

Then, at that point of time, he decided to sit calmly and see what all options he could resort to. He recalled all the contributions he did in the R&D section of his company, and the hell lot of effort he had put in to get the new product, exclusive to that company, out in the market. Now he thought, he should put all these credentials together and get his job done. There was just one ray of hope he could see. He knew that his boss was always willing to expand his business, his markets had already crossed the borders of America and were exporting products to many countries including India. Now, Karan had the big job in front of him, he had to convince his boss about the profits they could make if, instead of exporting products so far to India, they could set up a base company there which would manufacture and handle all the markets in and around Asia. He knew that its not a child-game to say and set-up a company, so he did proper ground-work and explored all the possibilities and opportunities in India for 4-5 months, in which he even went to India once to get a complete idea of things, which he might not have got sitting abroad.

Then after all this, he finally planned to approach his boss with this proposal. One day, during an informal party, when his boss was in a light mood, he went to him, and initiated the talks, but not explaining him completely, in order to keep some excitement within him, just said some points which would tickle his mind, and left. Next day, he called Karan and asked him about everything he had thought. His boss was very much experienced and a nice person with good managerial skills. He calmly replied Karan about what all constraints were there to take such decision, and how all things work. He appreciated the way Karan worked so hard on this proposal but then all these decisions were not so simple. Feasibility, workforce, availability of resources, approval by other members of board of directors, it was not that easy. Karan was really disheartened after listening to all this. He just couldn’t wait any more away from his country to light up other country with better technology and seeing his country still relying heavily on conventional sources.