We keep him alive in our conversations, memories: Brig. Lidder's daughter

New Delhi, Feb 8 (PTI) Aashna Lidder was barely 16 and preparing for her board exams when on the fateful day of December 8, 2021, she learned of the tragic chopper crash that claimed the life of his father, Brigadier L S Lidder.

The traumatic news of the crash of the military helicopter near Coonoor in Tamil Nadu, in which the country's first Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), General Bipin Rawat, his wife and several others were also killed, left the country shocked and their families benumbed.

Brig. Lidder's wife and daughter were also in a state of shock initially, but showed extraordinary courage and fortitude right from the next day to brave the challenge that life would be without him.

"It was the most unexpected thing at his age, at the stage of life they (her parents) were in. From the next day on, my mother told me to go for my tuition classes and she went to work 10 days later," Aashna Lidder told PTI.

"My mother garnered strength from the next day on and she took it chin up. She normalised her life, accepting the eventuality," she said.

A second-generation Army officer, Brig. Lidder or "Toni Lidder", as he was fondly called by his friends and colleagues, was serving on the staff of CDS Gen. Rawat when the crash took place. He was 52.

His wife, Geetika Lidder, has penned a memoir, titled "I Am a Soldier's Wife: The Life and Love of Toni Lidder", that will be released at the Manekshaw Centre here on Saturday evening.

Navigating grief, shock and a will to move on, Geetika Lidder has recalled the cherished memories of their lives. Her daughter says the book, in a way, will keep her father alive.

"In spirit, dad is always with us, watching us from up there. We feel his presence every single day through the people whose lives he touched and who surround us now, or through the signals that he gives otherwise. Life moves ahead," Aashna said.

The home of the Lidders in Delhi carries a large number of portraits of Brig. Lidder and photos of the time the family spent together on the walls.

"When someone close or dear dies in such a way (an accident), we tend to move on by not talking about them or keeping their photos away, so as not to trigger painful memories. But we have moved on by keeping him alive in our memories and sentiments," Chandigarh-born Aashna said.

"There is not a single day we do not talk about him. He figures in our dinner-table conversations. We recall his memories happily as he would have wanted us to," she said.

For someone like Aashna, whose birthday, December 24, was around two weeks away when the tragic incident happened, it took time to process the grief, but she says it was her mother's rock-solid strength that helped her come to terms with it.

Now 20, she is pursuing her bachelor's degree from the Sri Ram College of Commerce and credits her mother with sailing the family through those tough times.

"In the first few days, the shock was more than the grief. But she made everything seem normal.... If it was not for her, our family would not be as strong as we are now. She garnered the strength from the next day on and took it chin up, be it in terms of the last rites, the ceremony, everything," Aashna recalled.

"In fact, at the time of the cremation, she had said in a public remark -- 'I am a soldier's wife and I will give him a smiling send-off'. That is where the title of the book comes from," the daughter reminisced.

The image on the cover of the book shows her smiling parents against beautiful snow-clad mountains. The photo was taken when Brig. Lidder was posted in Pooh in Himachal Pradesh, she said.

Aashna, who grew up in many towns and cantonments studying in Army schools, said her father would "talk very little about his work and Army life" with her.

"So I knew very little about him through him. We know about his work through other people. Because that was him, he did not speak much about himself. But he did tell me a little bit about India-China, because it was his speciality, he was posted near the border for a while. And through his posting, we could see so many places close to the border," she said.

Aashna said Brig. Lidder would talk about the border and what is happening along the LAC (Line of Actual Control). When the Galwan incident happened, "we had a discussion on it".

The fierce clash in the Galwan valley in June 2020 marked the most serious military conflict between India and China in decades.

Aashna said her father also served as a defence attache in Kazakhstan and had a tremendous interest in military history.

"He had a big collection of books. And he even gave me the book, 'Apples Are from Kazakhstan: The Land That Disappeared', to read. Of course, as a teenager, it was quite a heavy subject," she recalled with a smile.

As the years passed on since the incident, the mother-daughter duo have braced themselves for the journey ahead.

"My father was a very in-the-present person. He was very sociable and warm to people, but great at his work too, striking a balance between work and life. For us, he lives through the lives of the people he knew and the bigger Army family we have around us," a proud Aashna said. PTI KND RC