The sun god blessed us and we took off for Jammu. A Mi-17 helicopter was waiting at Jammu airport to fly us to Poonch. It was almost sundown when we landed at the airstrip carved out by Brigadier Pritam Singh with the support of local `Poonchis' in 1947 to save the area from Pakistani aggression. Poonch was saved and I was part of a group of hacks covering the anniversary of that historical event.

The chopper landed at the airstrip worshiped by the locals and the army. The sound of guns booming and the rat-a-tat of heavy machine-guns firing not far from us at the adjoining hills was ominous. The night was suddenly still. After being split into two trucks, with a four-minute interval, we started for the Line of Control. So farI had only read about the ``active LOC'' where Indian and Pakistani troops exchanged fire every day.

The troops deployed for our security said a silent prayer as the trucks started with a jerk. ``Why no headlights?'' I asked, as the driver drove along the meandering Poonch river. There are no bridges, for each time one is constructed either Pakistani shells or terrorist bombs blow it apart. ``The hills opposite are his (the Pakistan's). He sees the headlights and fires. So we travel without lights,'' the driver explained.

Photographs of Guru Nanak and one of Bhagwan Ram with Sita were pasted on the dashboard and every time he negotiated a hairpin bend on the virtual vertical climb, he touched the photographs and thanked God, as did other troops in the truck. We all said a silent prayer. The Poonch river glistened in the distance.

After about an hour the trucks stopped. ``From here it is a half-hour climb. No talking and please do not light a cigarette for you will not live to inhale,'' commandingofficer Colonel Ankalesaria cautioned. His eyes had acclimatised to the darkness. But we hacks kept slipping. Bullets kept thudding into the trees around us. A swish and then a dull thud.

``See the trees tomorrow morning. They have hundreds of bullets embedded all over. Occasionally you will see a red light streaking across from his hill to ours and from ours to his. That is a tracer bullet. So that we may see where our bullets are going,'' he explained.

We reached a post. Soldiers there gave us hot tea and biscuits. Even as they served us, they wore their bullet-proof jackets with personal weapons slung across their shoulders. We went to a forward post where Indian and Pakistani troops have their posts within 10 ft of each other. Soldiers on either side spend the day and night staring into the barrel of the other's gun; non-stop. The gun remains cocked and a finger is always on the trigger.

We spent the night at an underground bunker. Halfway through the night a colleague who too could not sleepbecause of the staccato of machine-gun fire joined me outside. We walked over to a group of soldiers. ``Nobody cares about us?'' asked one. It seemed less a question and more of a statement. ``Not even the army,'' he added. ``Not true, I am sure the army cares. Why, what do you lack?'' I asked. ``We are fine. We joined the service to die for the nation. But nobody cares about our families, what problems they are facing; being evicted from our property, living without electricity. We do not get leave easily. The peace station army should take care of our needs but nobody does that,'' they lamented.

Part of their ire was directed towards the top brass in Delhi. ``The generals have to take the initiative and protect us. Then we've no problems dying,'' they said. But is Delhi tuned in to these echoes from Poonch?