Field Marshal is fit

The deteriorating health of Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw had made front page news in different editions of The Times of India in November until it was reported in its issue of November 15 that "the hero of the Bangladesh war has been discharged from the Army Research and Referral Hospital.”

Manekshaw: living legend

Complaints of breathlessness had led to his hospitalization and subsequent shift to Delhi’s Army Hospital from the Army Hospital at Wellington in Tamil Nadu where he was undergoing treatment for acute pneumonia. A special plane flew him to New Delhi, noted the Afternoon Despatch & Courier of November 7, 2005 adding that although Manekshaw retired in 1973 after 40 years in the Army he has continued to be adviser to the government on military operations. Ninety-one-year-old Sam Bahadur, an inspirational legend among the Gur­khas of his regiment had been honored with a rank higher than any Indian soldier and is also known to have had the gumption to tell the formidable Indira Gandhi, then Prime Minister of India, "You keep your long nose out of my business and I’ll keep my long one out of yours.”

The report that he is breathing easy now with his long nose should be a relief to all his admirers.