LONGEWALA/CHANDIGARH, July 13: Somewhere between Ramgarh and Longewala, the road blends into the desert. Suddenly, there are sand-dunes on the road, and they keep shifting. It's tough even for Army convoys to find their way ahead in the dust storm. Once you manage to cross a sand barrier, there's always another one in the way.

At Longewala, 120 km from Jaisalmer in Rajasthan, temperature goes up to 54 degrees in summer and falls below zero in winter. The Longewal tribe of Sindhi Muslims, from whom the village got the name, no longer lives here.

The only human settlement where India and Pakistan fought the decisive battle in the 1971 war, is the Border Security Force (BSF) post with a temple nearby.

A victory memorial recording the heroics of the soldiers who fought and died in the war quotes the Gita: ``You will attain heaven if you are killed in battle and enjoy sovereignty of the earth if you gain victory.''

On the desert, there are more memorials to the war: destroyed Pakistani battle tanks and vehicle carriers. Bhanwar Singh, who lives in a thatched hut in Ranao, about 50 km from Longewala, perhaps the only civilian witness to the battle for Longewala, remembers the war.

``When brave and bold Rathors are in battlefield, they fill the skies with dust and smoke,'' he quotes a local saying. Singh, who is more than 80 now, was a guide to the Indian Army. A camel tender, he supplied 200 camels to the Army for transporting arms to the posts.

The battle was unique: perhaps it was for the first time in history that Air Force single-handedly fought against enemy's ground forces and demolished them. Only four Hunter aircraft were available at air defence base at Jaisalmer when the Pakistani offensive began on December 4.

The Air Force swung into action immediately when it received information about the attack in the early hours of December 5. Three of the four Hunters were converted from air defence to ground attack vehicles.

On December 5, the Hunters made 20 sorties, blowing 18 tanks and 23 wheeled and tracked vehicles. On December 6, Air Force pilots made 18 sorties and set alight 19 tanks and several carrier vehicles.

In two days of relentless air action, the Air Force destroyed 80 per cent of their tanks and vehicles making even retreat difficult.

Hundreds of miles away from the war spot, more than 25 years and a Bollywood blockbuster later, sitting in his Chandigarh residence, Brigadier Kuldeep Chandpuri also remembers the war. ``There was no order for me to withdraw from the post. The order from my Commanding Officer was that the post should be held till the last man,'' says Chandpuri.

Back in limelight after J P Dutta's Border, in which Sunny Deol plays him, one of the real heroes of the Alpha Company of the 23 Battalion of the Punjab Regiment, Chandpuri does not wish to be projected as the hero of Longewala. ``No battle is won by individuals. It is the victory of the men who stood with me to protect the post.''

Chandpuri, then a young Major, is full of excitement while narrating the details of the battle. His tryst with the sand dunes began when he was entrusted with the task of guarding the post in Longewala when war clouds loomed large in the winter of '71.

``There was a whole brigade and an armoured regiment with the Pakistanis, amounting to about 2,500 men and 60 tanks, against us, just 120 men with our RCL guns, rocket launchers and a few mines.''``I knew the limited resources I had. But I had made up my mind, I will not leave Longewala. And to my fortune my men also stayed put with me to see the logical end to the battle,'' he says.

Small wonder, then, the Alpha Punjabis alone came out with seven gallantry awards. Second Lieutenant Dharam Vir Bhan - a Colonel now and back in the desert - got Mention-in-Despatches and Subedar Rattan Singh, Vir Chakra. And Chandpuri, Maha Vir Chakra, the second highest battle honour in the country.

Chandpuri remembers meeting his 2 IC, Dharam Vir, and his right-hand man, Rattan, a few days ago.

``I told Dharam, when you die nobody will cry this much as women are crying over your death on the screen. And poor Rattan Singh complains, Mujhe to maar daala'' (They killed me). It was in '94 that J P Dutta met him after he was granted the permission by the central government and the Defence Ministry.

However, he was not in touch with the film unit during the shooting. His only contribution to the film was a photograph showing his troops performing bhangra atop a Pakistani tank - which Dutta reproduced at the end of the film - which adorns the drawing room at his residence.

However, he feels that the film helped people realise that battles are fought and won at the junior command level, showed the close co-ordination between different wings of the Army and other services. ``It could serve as an impetus to the youngsters who are shying away from joining the Services,'' he adds.

But Subedar Rattan Singh, 82, a JCO serving under the then Company Commander of the `A' Company, Major Chandpuri, in the isolated desert outpost, is agitated that certain facts in the film which he saw recently are inaccurate.

``The movie wrongly shows that I was killed during the battle,'' says the war hero, who spends his post-retirement life with his sons and grandchildren in Village Tibba near Kapurthala in Punjab. Rattan Singh has another complaint - despite having played a key role in the battle, he was not consulted by the filmmaker. ``I could have given several more inputs for the film and scenes showing wrong people dying could have been avoided,'' he says.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.