Captain Harbhajan Singh guards a strategically important location for the Indian Army, the border with China 'in SPIRIT'.
Sepoy Harbhajan Singh of the 23 Punjab regiment of Indian Army, resident of Kuka village in Kapurthala district of Punjab, India. Sounds like a regular army guy. Except that he died in 1968 after drowning in a fast flowing stream while escorting a mule column in Sikkim, India. His body was later found after a three-day search operation and cremated with full military honors. It was Harbhajan Singh who led the search party to his body, and later, through a dream, instructed one of his colleagues to build and maintain a Temple/Shrine after him. A shrine was built at his Samadhi in the hills. Army folklore holds Baba is a stickler for discipline and is known to admonish those who do not tow this line.
It was duly constructed by his regiment. In time, the memorial has expanded into a shrine of sorts straddling military mythology, religion and belief while Singh earned the title of "BABA".
Every year on September 14, a jeep departs with his personal belongings to the nearest railway station, New Jalpaiguri, where it is then sent by train to the village of Kuka, his hometown in Kapurthala district in Punjab. He was being promoted steadily up the ranks and retired as a Captain whose salary was sent to his family. Though it may look weird but it is true and Indian Army still honors this soldier like that.
It is believed that BABA not only protects the 3,000-odd men of the Nathula brigade who guard the 14,000-feet high border point with China, but also gives them a three-day advance notice of any attack or mishappening.
The carpeted central room in the shrine is occupied by a brass bust and large framed portraits of the young soldier. The complex is manned by barefooted uniformed personnel from the nearby army unit. The soldiers insist that they find the bed linen and pillow crumpled and the boots muddy every next day.
Such is the faith of soldiers in Baba that during flag meetings between India and China at Nathula, a chair is set vacant for Baba Harbhajan Singh.
The devotees - both military and civil - thronging his shrine leave behind sealed water bottles with their names inscribed on them, which are collected after three weeks-the time Baba is believed to take to purify them.
When Baba visits home on September 15 every year, he has a berth booked for him on the Dibrugarh Express - his portrait and suitcase are accompanied by three soldiers right up to his village where his family greets it with fanfare.
This has to be among the strangest shrines in the world and can easily be dismissed as superstition. But the men in green-who are deployed in terrain bordering on the surreal- swear by Baba. "He gives us the strength to cope with adversities here," says Maj Arora.
