On April 12th, 1983, an Indian soldier, Barber Kailash Chand, 29, of the 10 Para Commandos, was returning by train to Jodhpur with some other jawans from Poona, where they had just completed their training.

The 5 Down Ahmedabad-Agra Fort Express in which they were travelling was moving at full speed between Jawali and Somesar stations. Barber Kailash Chand was standing near a window and enjoying the breeze when suddenly he saw a jawan of the Ordnance Corps falling out of the open door of the next compartment. Momentarily stunned, Kailash Chand still lost no time in pulling the chain to bring the train to a halt; but as luck would have it the system was inoperative: the train continued to speed along.

Kailash Chand then shouted for the guard who was in the next compartment. Unable to attract his attention because of the din of the fast-moving train, Kailash Chand suddenly decided that something else would have to be done. With utter disregard for his own safety, he rushed out of the compartment and, grasping the safety bars of the train, inched his way towards the guards van. With flailing legs, the paratrooper finally managed to reach the compartment after about ten agonizing minutes. The guard brought the train to a halt, but it was for the soldier to convince the engine driver that he should reverse the train six kilometres to pick up the wounded soldier who had fallen out of the door. The loco-driver pointed out that he could not take the train back without official orders: The jawan insisted that the soldier would have to be picked up first and the consequences, if any, faced later. As a result, the soldier, who was seriously injured and bleeding, was picked up and rushed to hospital. His life had been saved.

Paratrooper Barber Kailash Chand was later awarded a medal for bravery, the “Vishisht Sewa,” by the Government of India. Narrating the sequence of events, he said that while inching his way towards the guard’s van, he had been thinking only of the soldier who had fallen out of the train; he had not thought about his own safety. All he wanted to do was to stop the train somehow, so that the soldier could be saved.

In order to save the injured soldier, Barber Kailash Chand had to forget himself. After that nothing could stand in his way. Dedication to a cause makes one rise above thoughts of oneself. One is then able to surmount any obstacle. Obstacles are only obstacles for those who seek to save themselves; they present no hindrance for those who have no thoughts of personal safety.

So it is with any purpose in life. To succeed, one must do what Kailash Chand did with such success: one must lose oneself, for only then will one be able to find one’s true self. Self-fulfillment does not lie in making oneself secure in life, though that is where most people seek it; it lies in putting aside all thoughts of one’s own safety, and relentlessly pursuing one’s goal.