Can I do something about it? I thought as I pottered about the house. The table fan was screeching for a wash. The greasy kitchen fumes had accumulated on its pale green wings. I sat down with a mop and hot soap water. My mopful hand was clearing the soot but the mind vaulted back to the old question. Who is Ranbir Katoch? I called up my friend to know more.

``How can you forget so soon? You met him once. Remember theguy who came to visit me along with his wife at the Army Hospital?'' It hit me then. I had gone to meet this friend at the Army Hospital. ``Good Evening, Ma'm,'' the young captain had shyly smiled as he stood up in his chair. Along with him a chirpy girl, his wife, who was obviously happy to be united with her husband of just a few months. Deepa was the name. ``I am happy to have him back on leave. A few days more, and he will be off again to Kashmir.''

It made me uncomfortable to see her smile as she said it. Perhaps, time had already made her brave. Captain Katoch. Very fair. Very full of life. An Air Defence officer on deputation with 7 Rashtriya Rifles. The good-looking Delhi lad, originally from Himachal, hardly betrayed signs of a soldier who had come home from the valley of death and would soon return to it. Return he did about 20 days ago. Was made acting major soon after. And was snuffed out on Saturday, the 21st day of August, 1999.

That's all that I know about him. And chances are slim thatanybody will know any better. For not many, even in the Army, know that Ranbir Katoch is no more. No one except his buddies and co-officers from the Valley know. Or care. The guy didn't go down in Kargil. So, he wasn't much of a celebrity. Routine encounters in the blighted Valley have made short change of countless heroes. Besides, the copy isn't exciting enough. Bury a few dead under the weight of a news brief, top it with an insignificant headline -- "7 killed in Valley" -- so that the watchdog and its democracy can rid themselves of a nagging conscience and live in peace.

No sagas of bravery here. No dramatic victories. No clicking cameras, sunguns and press briefings. No politicians either who till recently and unabashedly milked the new cow on the block, Kargil. They who made a beeline for bodybags from Kargil and vied to salute the dead. The patriotism was touching. Except it has worn off faster than the starch on the khadi sleeves. There wasn't one politician to lay the customary wreath on Katoch'sbody. That many before him and many more after him are legatees of a similar destiny is the only cruel consolation. Because they have fought and died on a front where the war is always undeclared. Doesn't matter if it has happened every day for over a decade now....

Operation Fan Wash was in its final stage. Operation Vijay... perhaps we need one each time to shine up our patriotism. Or a Pakistan to revive our nationalism. There is evil in the logic. But is it not strange that our favourite enemy has internationalised Kashmir, while we haven't been able to even nationalise it?

I don't know Ranbir Katoch. But I know courage doesn't cling to territory. It can spring forth in Kargil or surge in Sungalan village of Anantnag, where Major Katoch got the enemy before death got him. The fan was now clean and running. The whirring faded away as Francis Quarles sang in my mind, sadly: ``Our God and soldiers we alike adore, Ev'n at the brink of danger; not before. After deliverance, both alike requited, Our God'sforgotten, and our soldiers slighted.''