HIRA (KALKA): Life has come full circle for Naik Sarup Singh, who turns 106 on July 15. He spent his prime fighting wars for Britain and later independent India only to realise their futility a century later.

ANIL DAYAL/HTFREEZE FRAME: Naik Sarup Singh showing his photos from another era.

“Ladaiyi barbadi hai. Kisi bhi mulk mein nahin honi chahidi (War is destruction, it should not happen in any country),” says the soldier recruited in 15 Punjab to fight the Japanese in World War II.

“I took part in the Burma campaign. Our job was to cut the Japanese soldiers’ lines of communication and halt their advance towards India. We were surrounded, but survived,” he says.

His grandson pins the medals on his white cotton shirt that sags under their weight.

“Fighting for the British was a duty but fighting Pakistan in Jammu and Kashmir from 1947-48 was for honour. From Zojila Pass to the plains of Chamb Jaurian, I have fought on every morcha (front) in J&K,” he says.

The irony is not lost on him as he recounts the heroics 70 years on. LONE SURVIVOR

He came from a poor family in Kalka and was the fifth of seven brothers. The British were drafting Indian youth to fight their war and he was trained at 15 Punjab’s Ramgarh headquarters (now in Jharkhand). “Wahan toh maarna hi sikhate hain (They only taught us to kill),” says the veteran who retired in 1959.

He married Naseeb Kaur, 20 years younger, when he was on the verge of retirement. “I saw her for the first time when I went to look up her ailing father at a Patiala hospital. Her sister was married to my brother,” he says.

The couple had six children of which two are no more.

“My grandfather gets emotional when we talk of family members and friends who have passed away,” says Gurdeep Kaur, 26, a mother of two daughters.

“At his age, it’s more about the mind than the body. He prays twice a day. He helps around the house and is a vegetarian. He enjoys barfi (a sweet) at times,” she says.