It should come as a relief to us all that the government only very judiciously exposes us to our defence brass, who keep offering truly frightening glimpses into what really went on in Operation Sindoor. The latest by Deputy Chief of Army Staff Lt General Rahul Singh had the remainder of my hair turning shocking white almost overnight, but we will come to that presently. First, it is important to understand the chronology. Aap chronology samajhiye.

First, we had Air Marshal A.K. Bharti, who assured us that our pilots had returned safely. Which was such a relief. Then the Chief of Defence Staff, Gen Anil Chauhan, said in Singapore that the numbers of the aircraft did not matter, which is a somewhat scary thought. Not him saying it in Singapore, a foreign country, even Rahul Gandhi tends to be loquacious when he is using his passport, but that Gen Chauhan was not attaching much importance to the numbers of the aircraft because losses are part of combat. “What is important is not the jet being down, but why they were being downed…,” he told a media organisation. He told another, “Why they (the planes) were downed, what mistakes were made… that is important. Numbers are not important.” He also gave us the comforting news that had us falling off our seats that for two full days out of an episode of war that lasted only four days, most of our aircraft had been grounded as a result of a devastating Pakistani first strike that took out a number of our aircraft. He did not tell us what happened, but he told us ‘something’ happened. Gen Rahul Singh gave us a clue to what might have........

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