I know the drill. I know that the IA flight with the coffins of the men who died at the icy heights of Kargil is scheduled to arrive at the domestic airport at 4 p.m. everyday. I also know that the coffins are unloaded only once the passengers have disembarked and their baggage removed. The tacky coffins, hastily nailed, are then handed over to Army officials at the dilapidated cargo terminal, where they are draped in the tri-colour and loaded onto trucks. Now begins their journey home, with a brief stopover at Delhi Cantonment, where the bugles play the Last Post.

Just like the words Batalik, Drass and Tololing have become a part of everybody's vocabulary, the routine at the cargo terminal and the Medium Regiment ground have become a part of my everyday schedule.

Everyday, around 3 p.m. I make my routinecall to the Army Headquarters to check on how many bodies are expected. Everyday, I spend an hour standing at the parade ground, waiting for the coffins to arrive. Everyday I hear the Last Post being played with a heavy heart. And then, I come back to my office, sit in front of my computer and write about it.

I have been doing this ever since the ``war'' began. It has never been a pleasant experience. I never got used to it -- the waiting camera crews, the journalists and the men in green, all waiting to receive the coffins. On a number of occasions relatives have stood in a corner, holding back their tears as flashbulbs pop.

While the cameras chased the families, I never got myself to ask them a single question. There were some journalists who did and there were others like me who could never. What can one say to a wife who lost her husband, a sister a brother, a father a son? It has bothered me and yet when a camera crew goes up to a person and holds the mike in front of him I take down notestoo.

And, at the end of everyday, there is an image that I carry back with me from the Medium Regiment ground. The image of the silent tear that trickled down Capt Rajshree's cheek after she saluted her husband, Maj Vivek Gupta's coffin. The shocked face of Mamta Adhikari as she watched her brother, Captain Rajesh Adhikari's coffin being lowered from the truck. Swarna Sarda asking for a flower from the wreath she laid on Captain P.V. Vikram's coffin, a friend she had grown up with and now lost in Kargil.

The day Major Rajesh Adhikari's body was brought to the Capital, there was a delay. The wait at the Medium Regiment ground was longer than usual. Waiting in a corner was his sister Mamta and a few other relatives. And each time I looked at them, I remembered their Nainital home. I had visited it 10 days before the news that Major Adhikari's body had been recovered.

Major Adhikari's mother had held my hand, looked me in the eye and asked me why I was so sure her son was dead. ``He could be injured andlying somewhere in the snow'', she had said. A friend pointed out to the school Major Adhikari had studied in and the city he had grown in. Together, all of them made a small part of me also believe that maybe he was lying somewhere in the snow, wounded but alive.

It was on an optimistic note that we exchanged telephone numbers and I promised to call them the minute I got any information. I diligently checked with Army HQ everyday. The answer was always ``not yet''.

Then Mamta called me. She was in Delhi and wondered if I had heard anything. I had. Major Adhikari's body was being flown into Delhi the next day. Mamta and I met again at the Medium Regiment ground. There was nothing either of us could say. The faith had been broken. Everyone just bowed their heads to salute another hero.