Twenty-two soldiers are at present braving enemy fire to inch steadily up Pune's very own 40-feet high snow-capped Tiger Hill at Shahu Chowk, while two Bofors guns directed at the militants on the peak go bang! Every 45 seconds from evening to 4 am. Thousands watch transfixed, and sometimes let out a collective gasp.

``War,'' is what all mandal organisers call the Kargil conflict, the motif of hundreds of Ganesh mandals in Pune, while their speakers blare only rousing patriotic speeches, war sound effects and desh bhakti tunes. The Kargil cassette, (Rs 30 only) they all call it.

``Kargil is a big issue, so we wanted big decorations,'' declares Sanjay Khudwad, secretary of the Shahu Chowk Sarvajanik Ganesh Utsav Mandal which has blown up quite a packet on the mandal, work on which began in May. He is sure they will walk away with all the top prizes for the eighth time this year.

``At least 35 lakh people are expected to visit this mandal, so we hoped this theme would inspire more youth to join the army in its hour of need,'' says chairman of the mandal, Rajendra Thorve, adding that he wanted to take the balidaan of the jawans to the common man.

The details are meticulous. As you enter through the 35 feet high India Gate, you face Ganesh in a chariot drawn by seven horses, but Kargil steals the show. The details were executed after studying media photographs of the conflict, fatigues bought all the way from Dighi, and the electronically animated guns and soldiers made to order in Pune, though the engineering behind it still has the organisers looking perplexed. But uttam, declares an army man in the crowd, after some long staring.

Four soldiers wave the tricolour energetically at the Chaturshrungi Mitra Mandal, Ganeshkhind Road, standing taller than the Ganesha, in a backdrop depicting the conflict, with light effects trying hard to look like flashes of gunfire. ``It is a smruti for the martyrs of Kargil,'' says chairman of the mandal, Janardhan Ranawade, which had donated Rs 18,000 to the family of a martyr in Shindewadi before the festival. ``We want to inject patriotism among the thousands of commuters who pass by every day,'' he says. Their procession this year will include a floral cut-out of India, Bharat Mata, they all call her.

Far less fancy, but Kargil nonetheless, are the paintings of `Operation Vijay', the Amar jyot, celebrating jawans, or sombre pyres of martyrs that dominate the backdrop of humble handcarts to looming structures dotting the city. Desh ke liye kuch karna tha, says chairman Bhagwan Wayal of the Ekta Mitra Mandal at Camp repeatedly, which has toned down this year's lighting in honour of the Amar Jawan. A gesture adopted by a majority of mandals.

The Janjagruti Mandal, Shukrawar Peth, cancelled the installation and immersion processions, and will donate the money thus saved to any fund for disabled soldiers. In an effort to enthuse the city to extend any possible help toward the families of martyrs, their Ganesh stands amidst a martyr's small home, with his grieving wife and two children present.

Or the Hanuman Tarun Mandal, whose organisers tell you their decorations are purposely simple this year, all because of Kargil -- which inspired the Chaturshrungi Mandal to display across its length, ab na hoga batwara, Hindustan rahega hamara.