Barefoot at Baba Harbhajan Singh Mandir

The first thing I felt at Baba Harbhajan Singh Mandir was not devotion, but cold.

It had snowed there a few days earlier, and ice was melting slowly all around. We left our shoes at the designated area and began climbing the steep carpeted stairs. Splotch! A careless step into an icy puddle at the foot of the staircase soaked through my woollen socks. By the time I realised what had happened, there was no turning back. I had no option but to remove my soaking wet socks and continue the climb barefoot.

It was strenuous. Given my arthritis and complete lack of fitness, I had to stop several times to catch my breath before I finally reached the shrine. The chill cut straight through my bones. And this was in May — peak summer. What must this place feel like in November or December?

When I finally reached the top, I sat quietly for a few minutes waiting for my heart rate to settle down. Around me, colourful prayer flags fluttered wildly in the mountain wind, while rows of bells jingled softly along the stairways. The red roofs stood out sharply against melting snow and dark rocky mountains.

And suddenly I found myself wondering — what exactly was this place?

Was it a war memorial? The samadhi of a saint? Or simply a temple built for those who needed faith in an unforgiving landscape?

The story of Baba Harbhajan Singh lies somewhere between military history and folklore.

Harbhajan Singh was a sepoy of the 23 Punjab Regiment posted near Nathu La in Sikkim. On 4 October 1968, he was assigned the task of escorting a mule column carrying supplies from his battalion headquarters at Tukla to the forward posts. Somewhere along the icy route, the young soldier slipped and fell into a fast-flowing stream. He was only twenty-two years old.

Initially, his body could not be found. But according to the legend that soldiers still narrate with complete conviction, he appeared three days later in the dream of a fellow soldier named Pritam Singh and revealed the exact location of his body.

That, however, was only the beginning of the story.

Over time, stories began to spread among the troops stationed in the region that Baba Harbhajan Singh continued to patrol the border even after death. Soldiers claimed that he warned them of enemy movement, avalanches, and dangerous weather conditions through dreams and premonitions. Gradually, the dead sepoy transformed into a guardian spirit of the mountains.

Today, a small temple stands where his bunker once existed.

The first thing that strikes you inside the shrine is how young he looks. A youthful turbaned Sikh soldier with intense eyes greets visitors entering “Babaji ka bunker.” His room is carefully maintained. His bed is still made every morning. His uniforms are neatly pressed. His shoes are polished and shining. There is an almost domestic tenderness in the way the space is preserved, as though the soldiers posted there still expect him to return from patrol.

Outside, plaques and inscriptions from different regiments line the walls. Each carries its own personality — some solemn, some poetic, some deeply emotional. One plaque simply read: “Baba Ji Walk With Us.”

That single sentence stayed with me.

Perhaps that is the real significance of Baba Harbhajan Singh.

Standing there barefoot at nearly 13,000 feet above sea level, I found myself imagining the lives of soldiers stationed in these hostile terrains for months at a stretch — isolated in snow, breathing thin air, living in dangerous conditions with the enemy barely a stone’s throw away. In such landscapes, where survival itself is uncertain, perhaps stories like these become more than superstition. Perhaps they become companionship.

And suddenly, it no longer mattered to me whether every story surrounding Baba Harbhajan Singh was literally true.

On the way down, I borrowed one of my husband’s gloves so that I could grip the freezing metal handrails. The steel was unbearably cold against my skin. Prayer bells trembled softly beside me as clouds drifted slowly across the mountains.

And I kept thinking — if I could barely manage twenty minutes in this stunning yet hostile landscape, what must it mean for the soldiers who spend months here guarding our borders while the rest of us sleep peacefully far away?