Called ‘fauji’ by Kalam at 3, Lieutenant at 22

DEHRADUN: Nineteen years ago, during Indian Military Academy’s passing out parade, then-President APJ Abdul Kalam bent down and held the hands of a bright-eyed three-year-old boy standing beside his father. “Ye fauji ka haath hai (These are the hands of a soldier),” he told the child. On Saturday, those words came full circle on the same parade ground as a strapping young man got commissioned into the Indian Army. Lieutenant Harmanmeet Singh’s commissioning marked the continuation of a family tradition that stretches back to the early years of independent India. He is the fourth generation from his family to don the olive green, following a legacy that began with his great-grandfather, late Subedar Partap Singh, who joined the Army in 1948. He was followed by Harmanmeet’s grandfather,