Sepoy Chandan Yadav of Bhojpur, Bihar, was all of 22. When border tensions made him nervous, he relied on his Armymen brothers for advice.
New Delhi: Sepoy Chandan Yadav, 22, of Bhojpur, Bihar, had stopped talking to his parents since earlier this month. The 16 Bihar soldier had informed his family about the tensions at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh, where he was posted, and his mother’s constant worrying was getting to him.
This silence from their young son, however, will now be a permanent aspect in his parents’ lives. Chandan was one of the 20 Army soldiers killed in a clash with the Chinese army at Galwan Valley late Monday evening.
“He used to say that the atmosphere along the Chinese border had been tense for the last two-three months, but several violent clashes took place in June,” said Chandan’s 43-year-old cousin Satyendra Kumar, who is one of 26 members of the family who have served in the security forces.

When his worried mother expressed concern, Kumar said, Chandan “chastised her by saying that you easily get nervous and it scares me too”. “That is why he avoided talking with his parents. However, he continued interacting with his brothers regarding the prevailing situation,” added Kumar, who retired from the Army in 2016.
“He last spoke to his parents on 2 June. His last conversation with his siblings was Saturday,” said Kumar.
According to Kumar, getting enrolled in the Indian Army was “Chandan’s only dream and he started to prepare for recruitment soon after clearing his Class 12 exam”.
The strain of tensions on the border did worry the young soldier at times, but his brothers always stepped in with advice from their own experience in the field.
“I had seen the Kargil war from close quarters, so I used to assure him that the situation was not that bad. All this is a common thing in a soldier’s life,” said Kumar.
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A shared pain for villagers
Speaking to ThePrint over the phone, Kumar said as many as 26 members of their extended family served in various security forces, from the Army, the Navy and the Air Force, to the Border Security Force (BSF), the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) and the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB).
Chandan’s father was a member of the Bihar Home Guard, but took premature retirement about 10 years ago due to ill health, he added.
“Chandan’s three brothers are also in the Army. Chandan was the youngest in his family. He joined the Bihar regiment in 2017,” said Kumar.
The young soldier, Kumar added, was to get married on 10 May but the wedding was postponed on account of the nationwide Covid-19 lockdown.
Chandan’s family came to know about his death Wednesday morning. At Gyanpur, a village of 950 residents where the family is based, the news brought a surge of well-wishers to the house to offer condolences.
The pain of losing a son in the battlefield is, after all, a shared fear in the village.
“Around 50 people from this village are in the Indian Army. Boys even younger than Chandan are currently serving in the security forces,” said Kumar. “His neighbour Deepak Kumar is also posted in Ladakh. The entire village is in the grips of tensions as well as rage (against China).”
Chandan’s mortal remains, it is learnt, have already reached Patna. They will be taken to the Bihar Regimental Centre at Danapur before being dispatched for Gyanpur.
On Wednesday, the local MLA and sub-divisional magistrate, among other officials, visited Chandan’s village. According to Kumar, after their visit, work was begun to repair the road in their village for the arrival of mourners eager to pay their tributes to Chandan.
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