Javed Akhtar ‘disturbed’ by visit to Kargil
Well known poet and lyricist Javed Akhtar has said his visit to Jammu and Kashmir during the Kargil conflict and the bus ride he undertook with Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee to Lahore in February have been the most moving experiences of his life. Akhtar says what he saw in Kargil and the military hospital in Srinagar was an emotionally disturbing experience that he will write about some day because “it has to come out of my system”. In an interview with The Indian Express, he said: “The military hospital in Srinagar was choc-a-bloc with wounded soldiers, all young people, most of them in their 20s. They were badly wounded soldiers, with bullet and shrapnel injuries. But despite all the pain the soldiers were smiling, their morale high. Nobody who visited the wounded in the Srinagar hospital walked out with a dry eye.”