Yudhveer The Warrior of Kargil

The present novel is significant in the sense that it unfolds a diversified panorama of rural lifestyle and the mindset of the people of Haryana. It portrays artistically and aesthetically the rich heritage of the philosophy of life of the Haryanvi masses sacrificing their lives for the sake of the values of life and the security of the country to which they belong.

All writings are a quest for value, for truth, for reality, and the novel is a perpetual quest, as Trilling opines it, for reality, As an artist, Dr. Jagbir Rathee explores reality, not only individual but also social and national. He is not only interested in human emotions but also social and patriotic concerns. The novel-Yudhveer: The Warrior of Kargil contains rich material full of customes, rituals, cultural references, linguistic nuances relevant to the rich heritage of Haryana. It comes before us as a literary presentation of powerful thematic concerns including not only individual concerns, but also the familial and the national issues.

Dr. Jagbir Rathee is Director of Youth Welfare Department at Maharshi Dayanand University, Rohtak, Haryana. An academician, anchor, theatre and film actor, director, and above all a crusader against social evils, Dr. Rathee is devoted to the Haryanvi regional cultural and folk arts. As a renowned poet, he has earned name and fame not only in India but also abroad.

Born and raised at Jind in Haryana, Dr. Rathee holds MA degree in English and PhD. degree in Mass Communication. He is on the Panel of advisors of All India Universities Council for Cultural Afairs. He has also worked as a project director at Haryana Kala Parishad. Credited with over 25 Comedy albums in Haryanvi TV serials and feature films besides three Haryanvi dilect music and many video albums. His collection of poems entitled Chup Chaap Chirdi, Bedai ke Geet, Matti Ka Chulha are widely appreciated. He has been conferred upon the Best Literary Creation Awards by Haryana Sahitya Akademy for his novel Yudhveer in Haryanvi dilect.

As a director of the Department of youth welfare, Dr. Rathee has been working to promote Haryanvi culture and has brought laurels to the University and the state of Haryana. He has been working in a comedy serial in Focus Haryana TV channel. He has added a number of items relating to Haryanvi and Indian cultural ethoes in the organization of youth festivals of the university.

Prof. Suresh Singhal is Pro Vice Chancellor and Dean of Foreign and Indian Languages, and School of Management at OPIS University, Churu, Rajasthan. He is the member of Doctoral Research Committee at Singhania University. He has formerly been Professor and Dean at Satpriya Group of Institutions, Rohtak It is indeed arduous to designate him with a single sobriquet as a number of influences get amalgamated in the persona of Prof. Singhal. An academician, researcher, author, career motivator. communication mentor, translation professional, speaker freelance journalist, and poct. Prof Singhal has been a multi-tasking scholar. He has a fine flair for cultural activities too.

Prof. Singhal is a proud possessor of MA, MPhil, and PhD degrees in English. He has also carned MA. and PhD Degrees in Hindi with specialization in bilingual translation. Not only this, he also holds MBA and PhD degrees in Management with specialization in Business Communication, Leadership Skills, and Spirituality. He has Postgraduate Diploma in Translation, and Bachelor degree in Journalism and Mass Communication. Besides, he also has certificates in German, Personality Development, and Spoken English.

Prof. Singhal has been an invited speaker, resource person, subject expert and participant in more than 160 national and international conferences, seminars and workshops besides delivering a large number of guest lectures. He has published more than sixty research papers. He has the honour of receiving national awards and prizes. He has been awarded research fellowships for three projects by UGC. He has been the external examiner for PhD candidates at various universities. He is a member of Editorial Boards of various research journals.

Prof. Singhal has visited a number of universities in the USA in connection with his independent interdisciplinary postdoctoral research work. He has been a volunteer speaker, and researcher at University of Texas, Texas State University, St. Edward University, St, Mary University, University of Houston, South western University, Georgia University at Atlanta, Austin Community College and has participated m academic events.

Prof. Singhal has been associated as Visiting Faculty with All India Translators Association, New Delhi, CTB, Ministry of Home Affairs, Govt. of India, New Delhi; School of Translation, IGNOU; and a number of institutes and universities. He is mentor at the Institute of Research and Development. India.

When traditions are healthy and creative, the process of carrying them forward gives us ecstatic delight. I have attempted the present fictional writing with the view to carrying forward such a tradition. There is no such literary tradition in my own family. My mother can only read not write. My father spent his life while writing and reading the medical and legal documents in the courts. But here I am talking about that literary family in which I have a large number of seniors and much experienced literary giants whose tradition has been carried forward by me. This novel is my maiden attempt. I felt motivated when people appreciated my poetry written so far. I am so crazy about the fact that I am son of the soil of Haryana. I am proud of being Haryanvi and take my birth in this state as a gift of God. My state of Haryana happens to be the best in the world from the geographical point of view and this is my firm conviction irrespective of difference of opinions.

My birthplace is Jind, a town of Haryana, that has given a large number of martyrs to the country. Some of the children whom I witnessed playing in my childhood, have become a part of history now. I become stunned when I look at their pictures and photos. This could have been the influence of the heritage of Haryanvi cultural value-system that they had tremendous proportions of courage in their thought process. There are certain names such as rifleman Ashish Kumar, Major Vinay Choudhary, Major Rajiv Dahiya, that I fail to forget. All such people are present with their sweet memories in this novel.

These days I have been beckoned by a buttallion in the literary battlefield that are bitten by the bug of wishing me the similar literary initiatives without which they would have isolated me from the fraternity. Hence the present fictional writing came as a creative compulsion for me. I wish you to be with the characters of this novel and come to feel and share their sensibilities. All the characters are positive, bold and beautiful. Negative ones are not part of the narrative, nor do I have the right to call anybody negative or so.

I thank first of all my son Chinmay because he made me teased and uncomfortable when I was working on it and also tested howmuch I could retain my flights of imagination and visualization. This novel of mine has got the blessings of high-profile literary scholars like Prof. Harish Chander Verma and this is a great honour for me. My affectionate friend, Shri Ram Phal Chahal, has not been acknowledging my sense of gratitude for the last two decades because whatever both of us have been writing in Haryanvi is a part of our daily routine. This novel could only be published due to this keen interest shown towards the writing.

Some of the stalwarts of literary art left us during that phase when Haryana needed them the most. I shall never be able to reconcile the loss of literary giants such as late Shri Shrivardhan Kapil and Shri Raghubir Mathana before this composition came to existence. I know had they read this novel, they would have encouraged me a lot. This novel is a tribute to them.

Dr. Jagbir Rathee's Yudhveer: The Warrior of Kargil is a welcome fictional composition that bears the testimony to the fact that fiction writing is a creative process of emotional thoughtfulness ultimately maturing into a powerful narrative. Though the novel has been written in Haryanvi dialect, it presents a queer amalgamation of literary, cultural, patriotic, philosophic, linguistic and stylistic characteristic features leaving a strong impact of fictional performance on the minds of those who have the capacity to understand and appreciate fiction writing of all languages.

The present novel is significant in the sense that it unfolds a diversified panorama of rural lifestyle and the mindset of the people of Haryana. It portrays artistically and aesthetically the rich heritage of the philosophy of life of the Haryanvi masses sacrificing their lives for the sake of the values of life and the security of the country to which they belong.

All writings are a quest for value, for truth, for reality; and the novel is a perpetual quest, as Trilling opines it, for reality. As an artist, Dr. Jagbir Rathee explores reality, not only individual but also social and national. He is not only interested in human emotions but also social and patriotic concerns. The novel-Yudhveer The Warrior of Kargil contains rich material full of customes, rituals, cultural references, linguistic nuances relevant to the rich heritage of Haryana. It come before us as a literary presentation of powerful thematic concerns including not only individual concerns, but also the familial and the national issues.

The wide spectrum of Dr. Jagbir Rathee's themes includes the portrayal and analysis of the turbulent characters caught in various trap situations in the Haryanvi social, cultural, and emotional contexts; the establishment of positive and ideal value-system in life, the celebration of the sense of social, national, and emotional or personal fulfillment of the characters in the Indian family environment; and the resolution of human relationships that are baffling in nature in the sense that man's actions and volitions often take an uncertain and complex ways under different situations in the family.

In the present novel, the writer doesn't make human relationships only of peripheral interests, rather he makes them central to his main fictional concern. He handles his various themes by means of various human relationships. Since human relationships in the rural Indian family tell upon the cultural, social, and emotional springs, they often tend to be strained and complicated out of which a talented creative artist like Dr. Jagbir Rathee can weave gripping story-patterns based on various themes relating to conflicting situations in the family. In such situations, the cultural, social, emotional, and national idealism and fulfilment and practical relations are also very often at variance. The innermost psyche of his protagonists such as Yudhveer, Swarna, Jaage, Sujaani, Dalipe, Kitaabo, Suresh, etc is revealed to us through their interaction with those who are emotionally and socially related to them on the basis of kinship.

**Contents and Sample Pages**