Bipin

On the morning of 8 December 2021, General Bipin Rawat, India's Chief of Defence Staff, said goodbye to his daughter Tarini and the family dogs and left his Delhi home with his wife, Madhulika. They flew to Sulur in Tamil Nadu and boarded an Mi-17 V5 helicopter at around 11.48 a.m., bound for Wellington, where he was to give a lecture at the Defence Services Staff College. Only minutes from its destination the helicopter crashed, and all fourteen people on board died. It was a sudden end for a man who had risen through the ranks at remarkable speed. Bipin: The Man behind the Uniform looks at the life that came before. It tells of the NDA cadet held back a term because he could not make the mandatory jump into the swimming pool, and of the young Second Lieutenant fooled into losing his ID card at Amritsar railway station by a Gorkha Rifles officer pretending to be his sahayak. It tells of the Major with a leg in plaster who was carried up to his company post on the Pakistan border because he wanted to celebrate Dusshera with his men, in full view of the enemy. It also follows the Army Chief who resolved that India would answer every act of cross-border terrorism swiftly and openly, and the Chief of Defence Staff who was happiest dancing the jhamre with his Gorkha troops. Bestselling author Rachna Bisht Rawat draws on in-depth interviews with Rawat's friends, family and comrades to produce a tribute to one of India's greatest and most controversial generals.