In the Garhwal regiment, the question was asked from the recruits, "After all of your training gets over, who wished to go for the selection of Special forces commando?" A hand stood up. The man who raised his hand said, "Sir, I'll go. Recruit Gajender Singh Bisht."

He spent 3 months in training. Gajender Singh was no less than steel who had willing jumped into the fire. He went in there as rifleman Gajender Singh but when he came out he was paratrooper Gajender Singh Bisht, ten special forces para commando.

His one habit never changed; to every question, his answer remained- "Sir, I'll go." He wasn't a man to back down no matter how perilous the task was. Then came the opportunity to join the NSG (federal counter-terrorism force) black cat team. Of course, his famous reply was the answer. He went there, fulfilled every task given to him successfully. When he came back the Kargil War had begun.

He and his team set out to war. After they came back, he again went for the NSG training. He never went idle. By this time he was married and had two kids. He was a man of great humility. If someone were to knock into him while walking, he would immediately apologise. The nicer he was to people around him, the more dangerous he was to enemies of his country. In NSG different tasks are taken up by different commando interchangeably. Gajender was the in-charge of armoury when on 26/11 in Mumbai when the enemies attacked us.

All the commando went on alert mode. He handed over weapons to every commando that went in there with a word of farewell. This time he didn't wait for the question. When everyone left, he went to his senior and said, "Sir I will also go."

Before confronting the terrorists inside the Nariman house the task was to evacuate the entire area. But the entire area was heavily populated. The buildings were all clustered, extremely adjacent to each other, touching boundaries. How were the commandos supposed to empty all these buildings? Also, there was always the possibility of other terrorists who remained silent just to jump on the right opportunity when the commando came to evacuate other houses.

The houses were so adjacent that people could jump into a different house through the windows. Gajender Singh volunteered- "I'll evacuate the people" People weren't opening their doors. They were scared to even breathe, cowering away in corners and the entire procedure had to be done extremely quietly. The people were crying and shivering. The procedure went on with great difficulty

Then there was a place where there was no option but to climb in through a different building. But it was secured with an iron net. One couldn't use an iron cutter for the terrorist would have known their position.

Then the plan to fast-rope onto the roof of Nariman house was made. A helicopter was called. The question was asked who will go through the roof. The answer came from Gajender Singh, "I'll go." He got on the helicopter and made one last call to his wife and told her, "I'm okay but I have very little time."

After dropping on the roof, he led his squad onto the first floor. Cleared all the rooms, gave the okay sign. But the room that terrorists were in had already taken the cross position, which means they were going to attack him from two parallel positions. The second Gajender Singh entered the room, bullets and grenades hit him. He went down but didn't lose the fight. He took down one of the terrorists and gave his squad more time to think by creating a chaotic situation for the terrorists. His plan worked his entire squad was able to take down the rest of the terrorists.

Gajender Singh act of courage and sacrifice for his comrades against grave odds was honoured with the Ashoka Chakra award on 26th January 2009 by the president of India. Thousands of people from his small village Ganeshpur turned up while his mortal body was consigned to the flames with full military honours to bid farewell to their hero.