Living way beyond the edge: Inspiring Stories from SF | Colonel Kaushal Kashyap SC | TEDxJSPMRSCOE

[Applause] yeah good evening everyone I can't express how delighted I am to be here standing in front of you and uh interacting with such bright and Youthful Minds gentlemen my life with my background of Special Forces and having commanded one of the most elite Commando units of the country has been enviable for most I mean a lot of people can just dream and aspire to do what I have kind of gone through a life of full of passion and living absolutely on the edge we pushed our luck too far and too often so much so

that luck pushed us back we've fallen down quite a few times got up everyone time fell back again even harder did so many stupid stuff jumping out of aircrafts getting shot running after militants and at times even without weapons yeah but then absolutely enjoyed every bit of it and trust me if I had an option to do it all over again I won't think twice I would just do it the same way probably make the same old mistakes gentlemen what I'm going to do today is I'm going to share with you couple of stories of

my life that I have come not exactly my life something that I have gone and something that has had a huge impact in my life in how I see things 1999 when I filled up my form for National Defense Academy I had opted for Navy I had opted for Navy not because I was Charmed by their white uniform neither was I in love with the ocean or I would to see the world no I'd opted for Navy because I was scared to off for the Army yeah that's the truth with all this mumbo jumbo of

Special Forces energies short chakra whatever I have achieved I was scared to join the Army to start with when I started my career that's a fact the country was going through a very bad phase of Insurgency be it in the northeast or be it in the Jammu and Kashmir Army had couple of setbacks and I could not come to to terms with the fact that somebody's going to actually aim at you and engage you so there I was scared young guy much younger than probably most of you are here but then I read along the

way I read a book on genocides and that changed the way I looked at things 1947 15th August where the country became independent Kashmir wasn't part of us it wasn't part of India as we know it 22nd of October the same year Pakistan launched its Raiders the tribes men into Kashmir by 26th of October the Raiders had reached balam baramula after taking over MOA DOL and mujaffar Abad now baramula is just 50 kilom from shagar and you can see it on the map had shagar airport been taken over on 26th of October I don't believe

anything is impossible but then it would have been a damn difficult task for the Indian army to regain back what we would have lost the same day 26th of October maharajah haris Singh he signed the instrument of accession and 27th of October Indian army the first siik Battalion it was air landed in shagar airport and that's how we gained back the area what I want to drive here is the pakistanis wasted one full day in baramula why did it do so that one day more than 11,000 people were killed raped over 44,000 women the entire

bir was born by one St Joseph Convent there where there were about four European nurses they went on a rampage killing murdering and ping everything that they found you look at other examples you look at 1971 Bangladesh 30 lakh people were killed there or you see much recent here in the gaja of what happened gentlemen the point I'm trying to drive is if the army of a country is not strong that is the Fate that the country is going to face and the Army cannot be strong if people like you and me are not prepared

to go out there and fight it's us we have to go there and fight and protect our nation if we don't don't motivate ourselves what is going to happen who's going to fight there somebody is still going to fight but then he doesn't want to be there I this story actually moved me so gentlemen all this talk of we need growth we need economic Prosperity we need our country to develop but all this will happen only when brave men like you are going to stand there and fight that is my first lesson moving on to

my second lesson that is on Special Forces you know all everybody knows what special forces is they are the bad guys who are supposed to be dropped Behind Enemy Lines and surrounded by the enemy they going to fight so when there's no war one this Special Forces Unit will moved to Kashmir and there just moved there and they were out on a familiarization petrol with this just just going and seeing the area normally when the Special Forces guys go out you don't see them you're not supposed to see them but because they had to orient

themselves they had to fize themselves it's called a familization petrol where they had gone out and they were just seeing how the area is around at the same time incidentally there was another freshly infiltrated group of militants they were also new to the area and they were sitting in an ambush and they see this Special Forces Patrol coming and very excited yo we has just come and we getting success so this guy calls up his handlers kiman we going to get real success I can see a petrol coming and we are going to engage them

soon I'll give you good uh I'll give you a good news so the commander is a little curious and he says uh can you just describe to me and this guy descri oh they are just normal people but all of them are carrying those huge rucks you see that the huge Ruck and they all black and they all wearing those pkas around their heads so gentlemen that was a time when we it was a very characteristic Norm of the Special Forces we were the only ones carrying those we had to carry about 20 to 30

cages of weight when we're moving around we have to be self- sustained and we wear those PKA it comes very handy in combat the commander realizes and he says and it's been caught on radio you just don't even think of engaging them they are the Special Forces they will kill you and skin you the lesson that I learned gentlemen it's a cruel world out there very cruel to be respected you need to be strong the world respects only strength that is a fact and is all there in the scriptures V bhund the pleasures of the

world shall be enjoyed by the brave that's my message for all you guys strive to be strong always 3 months into Special Forces and 6 months of my service I was shot a 9mm bullet went right from my knee here came out from here I've got about 9 o stitches I was doing all kind of monkey tricks getting mad yeah I was a foolish guy there but then whatever just imagine somebody like me who's motivated himself seeing those kind of stories wanted to serve with Gil and Special Forces opting for special forces and cleared my

probation and see what had happened 6 months I was shattered so doctor tells me you really have to be really have to work very hard on your quadriceps if you want to ever run again and in Special Forces somebody who is not able to run I couldn't imagine that so every minute of waking for the next five months I was just exercising just exercising and bang on the fifth month I was out there again running after militants I was lucky I didn't get shot again but that's a different story for another day but but but

I I know this story of mine doesn't have that kind of a vow factor that I still wanted to drive to you so I'll give you two more stories much much better than my personal example this friend of mine colonel s Sam you all know him there nowhere there in the social media as of now in August 2022 he was diagnosed with cancer okay before that a small background we did the same counter inen jungle warfare course together and uh which this course has a lot of emphasis into physicals and with guys like us with

the Special Forces guys he was the one who was adjusted the best in physicals so that he is that kind of a guy so August 2022 he was diagnosed with blood cancer and the time from there to March 23 this guy underwent a heart attack two angioplasties 12 camos drug induced diabetes and acute pneumonia and fibral neonia anybody who is undergoing this kind of a thing would have given up on life but he is a fighter otherwise I wouldn't be talking about him here this guy he realized that there's lot of negativity around me he

shut the doors he shut out all negativity I'm not going to interact with anything that is negative in life and try and commit to creating something constructive in life and see in the same time frame what did he achieve he's done about 10 Global certifications and degrees from world over five of them from the United States of America one from London School of Economics one from Australia one from Malta and two from India you see that somebody who's undergoing camos that's the spirit that's the spirit I'm talking about there's one more I have there's some

photographs of his when he was undergoing through the worst of the time is much better now this colel vikran parasher again a very dear friend of mine he's from again the parachute regiment the 10 Paras Special Forces 25th of September 2012 because all paratroopers go out for regularly for par jumps so he had gone out for a par jump in the morning and he was expecting his wife was on the family way he was expecting by evening he'll be back and attend to his wife but the parachute did not deploy it happens sometimes and from

200 ft this guy falls T Like a Rock entire spine was crushed burst injur fracture the doctors had to spend 9 hours to stitch and get titanium and then make him at least be able to sit down he was waste down paralyzed the doctor said it will take a miracle for you to ever even get up on your feet and stand up that's what the doctors said now again this guy is a fighter he won't give up just because some doctor says something he read up completely on his injury what exactly is it how much

damage has happened how can I actually get over this he's not happy just lying down there and gentlemen two two years the Same Day on 2015 25th of September thisy guy was there on the same aircraft the same desert and the same parachute he jumped again can you beat [Applause] that that's what the spirit is gentlemen what I want to drive is what I want to drive is never give up spirit all of you guys all of you will fall sooner or later sometime or the other but you don't lose when you fall down you

lose when you fail to get up from there so every time you fall promise to me you guys are going to get up and strike harder yeah so I'll come on to my next story that is again about the Special Forces my unit in 2004 we had just moved into Manipur and for anyone who knows of Manipur Den that time was bad the militants were running medical camps they were running recruitment rallies large sweats of the entire state were liberated Jone under Rebel control and we had just we had operated a lot in the valley

we were newly converted Special Forces Unit and we had gone there for operations and we were going to raid two camps they were on two Spurs like this my party was being led by Colonel tongam jotin Singh he's a sh chakra bar that is he has got two sh chakras I have got one he's got two he has been shot twice I have been shot once he's been shot twice yeah the other TP party was being led by Colonel tum sorry nectar sanjin bam he's a kirti chakra and the sh chakra he's the one who

led the Myanmar operations the surgical strikes so we were going for this raid one of the first ones when we had gone into B and uh just 200 M short of the camp that we were about to strike we're very careful and going there the first Scout goes and the second he just blows up bum I see his feet about 10 to 15t up there and he falls face down and then guys all around me very simple mechanism a bamboo bent like that piece of metal piece of metal cable joining little explosive and a and

a piece of Detonator and uh some charge a battery you step on it and the circuit completes and boom you go and there's so many of them just around us I had my feet up there like that and trust me it took me a lifetime to keep it back down there and we were all tensed now the other guys they got into a fir fight we had to move because the militants will know that something has happened they'll come looking for us that that was the tense kind of a situation and it it's not like

walking here it's a jungle you don't see what's under the grass it's uneven terrain it's not like I can just look around here there's nothing there isn't an ID so we were tense trying to get over what what should be our next step here the guy who was lying down there Kaki sea one of the finest Scout a scout is one who works ahead he's one of the best of the soldiers he was one of the best of the soldiers a Naga boy he's lying down there and he calls go and check it wasn't exactly

as but then it was somehow there so he said it's okay you're fine then he says okay you know what he says then he says he says I've got an excuse to go and leave can you beat that a joke this guy just been blown off is fallen down he can't even see anything de in his eyes and he's joking but it lit up the entire environment all of us guys were there for the first time it relieved the entire tension it just vaporized like that and Colonel TJ he just picked up his Rag and

he said okay follow me and he walks ahead as if nothing is there we pick up Kaki and we walk behind him we go and raate the damn camp we were pretty successful there now there are two lessons that I want to bring out here first is a little dash of humor can ease out the tension of most of the 10 situations try that especially when you in a team and you see that the entire room is filled with tension they don't know what is to be done at least you guys are not going to

lose lives try out a humor it leads out the situation and the second is leadership leaders arise in the face of adversities the leadership that we go by is don't do what I say do what I do and that's what I learned from colel TJ that day gentlemen I finished I'll just leave you with a small something that I really connect to my heart if something is not been done it is only because we have chosen not to do it thank you so much it was one ful interacting with you have a good day