Reportage: Archana Masih. Photograph: Seema Pant. Design: Dominic Xavier

When you join the army they take your brains and give you a gun; when you retire, they take back the gun but forget to return the brains.'

That is how Vaibhav teased Saurabh when his brother was a cadet at the Indian Military Academy in Dehradun. But when he picked The Indian Express a few months later, on June 6, 1999, the reality of a soldier's life was no longer a joke.

The report said his brother and his men were missing since May 1. He did not tell his mother, who wasn't feeling too well and had taken the day off from work. 'Rest and don't answer the phone,' he told her as he tucked the newspaper under his arm and rushed to meet his father at his office.

Dr Kalia and he returned home at noon. 'What happened?' Vijay Kalia asked. 'It's about Naughty,' Dr Kalia replied.

At the nursing home in Amritsar where Saurabh was born 22 years earlier, the nurse had called her son a naughty infant. That description became his pet name for the rest of his life.

Saurabh's military uniforms and gear are preserved in the museum at the Kalia home