Most military defeats are analysed after they happen. Maps are redrawn, reports are written, blame is assigned. What is far rarer is discovering a man who predicted the defeat in advance, documented his concerns, and then watched those warnings disappear into bureaucratic silence. That unsettling reality sits at the heart of From Reveille to Retreat, the autobiography of Lieutenant General S. P. P. Thorat, one of India’s most respected military leaders. While the book spans

There’s a moment in every Indian household connected to the armed forces when history stops being a chapter in a textbook and becomes deeply personal. Sometimes it arrives through an old photograph in uniform. Sometimes through a trunk filled with fading documents. Sometimes through the way a father falls silent when a war is mentioned on television. While reading From Reveille to Retreat by Lt. Gen. S. P. P. Thorat, I kept thinking about my father. Around the time the clou