1971

Dr Neelam Batra-Verma has been writing professionally for about 30 years and published thousands of articles in national and international mainstream newspapers and magazines. After earning a doctorate degree in Forensic Science, she decided to indulge her passion for writing and took up journalism as a career. She wrote on social and political issues till she moved to Vancouver with her family in 2002. While working for print and electronic media for decades in India and Canada, she successfully published and edited the first Hindi magazine in Canada. This is her first work of fiction based on true events. While working on an article, her research led her to meet the families of missing defense personnel who had gone to the 1971 India-Pak war, but never came back. Despite consistent pleas by the families and evidence that their loved ones were languishing in Pakistan jails, both the Indian and Pakistani governments turned a deaf ear. Talking to the families, Neelam felt the pain and saw with her own eyes the suffering the families were going through - parents waiting for their missing sons, longing to see them just once before they leave for their heavenly abode; wives living like widows despite evidence that their husbands were alive; children growing up not knowing who their father is. After moving to Canada, Neelam felt the pain of missing family first hand and resolved to put it on record, albeit in fictionalized form.. She dedicates this story to all forgotten Bravehearts and their families. Their legends will never die!