India, April 14 -- Today, there is music in the midst of desolation. In the scarred, whispering forests of Chhattisgarh, brave souls like my father fell like sacred rain in the line of duty, but their blood was not swallowed by silence. It was tempered in fire and forged into the hard, irreversible blade that severed Naxalism's long shadow.

Sixteen years ago, I was a teenager, absorbed in the trivial urgencies of college placements and annual day celebrations, when a familiar call came - the kind that came every day, brief and unassuming, almost like a ritual of care. It lasted no more than a few seconds, a simple check-in, but it meant everything. That day, I let it ring, telling myself there would be another tomorrow, another call, ano...