"I'd rather embrace death than be caught by the Chinese and taken as prisoners!" Yes, my father made the same remarks, and the then-officer (APO-1, Ziro, Subansiri, NEFA, now Arunachal Pradesh) reacted with the following statement: "Don't worry about that. If such a situation occurs, I will shoot you first, and then myself.”

My father, Shri P.M.S. Namboodiry, relieved his colleague Biswas from the P & T (now BSNL) wireless station Ziro (located in NEFA—North East Frontier Agency—the present name is Arunachal Pradesh) and took charge of the wireless station, Ziro, on May 13, 1962. His responsibilities included communicating from Ziro to Guwahati, maintaining the wireless equipment, accumulators for working wireless sets, and engine generators for charging accumulators, and...