Non-Fiction/ Military History
A product of the Naval Officers' Academy, Kulpreet Yadav has spent two decades as an officer in uniform and has successfully commanded three ships in his career. Since his retirement as Commandant from the Indian Coast Guard in 2014, he has authored several books in diverse genres, including espionage, true crime and romance. Winner of the Best Fiction Author Award for Murder in Paharganj, an espionage
novel, at the Gurgaon Literary Festival in 2018, Kulpreet is also an actor and a film-maker. He lives with his family in Delhi & his latest book is called "Battle of Rezang La".
After a warm welcome by the anchor, Mr Kuldeep Yadav takes the stage and engages with the audience right away. Mr Yadav told the audience that he won’t be talking about boring things or showing them a PowerPoint presentation, he told them that he had a real story. That is followed by a question about who had heard about the battle of Rezang La before. A few people in the audience raise their hands. That’s when Mr Yadav told the audience that he’ll talk about a story of courage and valour which had been lost in the record books. Mr Yadav gives a background to the story where 120 Indian Soldiers were stationed in Ladakh to defend the Rezang La pass from the Chinese. With outdated World War 2 weapons and insufficient winter clothing, the Indian troops managed to hold on to a massive 5000 Chinese soldiers to defend the pass which was strategically important to defend the country. Mr Yadav talks about how two of his blood relatives were among the Indian troops in the battle and how it hurts his heart that their courage was not remembered in a proper manner. The session rolls on as Mr Yadav talks about the battle and how he wrote a book about it, to sum up, a beautiful session.