Ode to Major Vijai Singh Mankotia Titanic Falls: by Dr. Subhash C Sharma

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Ode to Major Vijai Singh Mankotia
Titanic Falls
Subhash C Sharma

It was mid-morn, Tuesday, 29 September. The news did not arrive through a formal word of mouth or a phone call, as such tidings usually do. It came instead through a casual, out-of-habit, unintended tap on the mobile, my eyes suddenly catching a glimpse of a sunlit face we all have known so well. Then the name, starkly highlighted in red: Major Vijai Singh Mankotia. And above it, a devastating headline: ‘Himachal ke poorv mantri ka nidhan’.
What followed next is beyond the grasp of mere words. Disbelief? Shock? Horror? A silent scream? A void in the heart, swiftly filled with gloom? Yes, each of these, and yet much, much more.
Shall I never again see my ‘Mankotia ji’ (that’s how I addressed him)? Never receive his philosophical, thought-provoking, inspiring messages, laced with quotations and couched in that luminescent, incandescent English he wielded with such elan? No. It cannot be true. A dark cloud of melancholia overwhelms me, and my eyes do what they must: release a torrent of tears that cannot stop. How could they? How should they? They must never. For I have lost a mentor, my philosopher-guide, my beacon, my messiah.
Not just I. My beautiful Himachal Pradesh, my salubrious Kangra valley, his own Shahpur and Tiara stand orphaned by his passing. Here, after all, was a person extraordinaire— sheer gold, and magic too. Fearlessness, courage, and righteousness were not merely his ornaments but his shining armour, lending exquisite charm to a persona clad in elegant kurta, pyjama, jacket, and the long scarf draped with effortless grace.
Purity of heart, incorruptibility, scrupulous adherence to values and principles, and an undying love for the country, the state, and the people pulsed strong in his blue blood. Beneath that graceful steel frame of a decorated ex-Army officer beat a soft, kind heart steeped in idealistic fervour.
Pity that he never ascended to the highest echelons of political success, though he was so deservedly capable of it. Perhaps he was too tall, too towering a figure, too much of a rebel, too snow-white in character, to diminish himself by indulging in political chicanery and shenanigans, and thus be sullied by its morass and stink.
His frequent party switch-overs, I am certain, sprang not from mean opportunistic greed but from a fervent wish, a burning desire, to find a platform worthy of his grand vision: to transform our hill state into a balmy, green oasis of prosperity and happiness.
Mankotia ji’s last WhatsApp message to me dates back to Tuesday, 18th August. He rounded it off with a Martin Luther King Jr quote: “In the end we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” To this he added: “How apt are these words. The courage to speak up.” And the courage to speak up was indeed what he lived to the hilt.
Alas, Major Vijai Singh Mankotia, who once shone in the sky like a lode star in the seventies, has now faded away. Titanic in human form has fallen. Yet his incandescence endures. It always shall. वो दीपक बुझा नहीं, बस लौ आकाश में मिल गई ।