1. Nearly 19 years back, the US struck Afghanistan, a fallout of the 9/11 attack. For several months, @ajaishukla and I were on the front-line as the Taliban and Qaeda were defeated. Its unreal to see this US-Taliban peace deal - the US, like the Soviets earlier, have lost. 
2. From a personal standpoint, Afghanistan was by far and away the toughest reporting assignment I have had, my second war, after Kargil in just 2 years. I was a kid.
3. For a month and a half, I slogged it out as we travelled from Tajikistan, across the Amu Darya to Khoja-Bahawuddin, the military headquarters of the Northern Alliance, up the Anjuman pass, into the Panjsher Valley right up to Charikar, on the outskirts of Kabul.
4. After all that, I missed the actual fall of Kabul. Short of cash, it was my turn to try and return to Dushanbe, Tajikistan to stock up. Ajai had made the trip once earlier from Khoja-bahawuddin weeks earlier.
5. After pleading with Northern Alliance pilots, I managed to get onto one of their Mi-8 choppers, promised a ride into Tajikistan. Instead, they dropped me off at in Khoja-bahawuddin, that hell hole if ever there was one.
6. I spent the night in a tent provided by the Iranian Red Crescent and ate air-dropped rations I found and witnessed the most intense sand storm in my life - it was one of those situations where you are too scared to be scared !
7. The day after, the KGB (they still manned the border) refused to open the border on the other side of the Amu Darya. A resourceful Russian journalist made the breakthrough and after several hours, we were back in Tajikistan, but Dushanbe was still several hours drive away.
8. I must confess, I never expected the fall of Kabul that winter. No international journalist, perhaps with the exception of @ajaishukla did. Bathed, funded and stocked up with rations, I attempted to fly back to the Panjshir Valley.
9. As it turned out, the weather had changed. My flight out of Panjshir was the last flight out of that area and despite my best efforts, and active assistance from the Indian Embassy which was keeping an eye on us, I couldn't get back.
10. Ajai hunkered down and managed. And witnessed, first hand, the fall of Kabul when it happened, a month later or so. Recently retired as a Colonel in the Army, he was strong, mentally and physically. When the going got tough, he dug deep and managed.
11. Very few international journalists, if any, had been on the war front for as long as we had in one go. They would be relieved by a back up team within a week. Desi journalists don't work that way.
12. Earlier, one day in Chariker, when I was on the front-line, I gazed up to witness US Navy FA-18s commence their bombing runs at targets in Bagram/Kabul. Many years later, I flew an F/A-18 with one of those same pilots who I had witnessed from the ground ! Its a small world.
13. Our home in Charikar was a burned out cement factory - bombed by the Taliban Air Force just a few weeks earlier !
14. There were several stories we did ... I doubled up to do camera - My one big exclusive - being perhaps the first journalist into the now bombed and sanitised Bagram airbase. As I climed up the ATC steps, machine gunfire right on top of my head piercing some windows.
