Reportage: Archana Masih. Photographs: Seema Pant. Design: Dominic Xavier, Rajesh Karkera

Captain Vikram Batra's funeral was attended by a host of dignitaries and citizens. The Chief of Army Staff visited Vikram's home and commended the young officer's courage.

'Had this kid returned from Kargil, he would be sitting at my post in 15 years,' General Malik told Mr Batra.

His father laughs heartily. The first time in the four hours we have spent talking about his son.

Vishal, Vikram's brother, had hoped his brother would be a brigadier one day. His friends would be so impressed, he thought, when he walked by Vikram's side.

Now he has lost count of the number of times Vikram has given him a chance to be proud of being his twin. It happened again recently when he was away on work in the UK. He had gone to Scotland and entered his name in a visitor's book at a tourist hot spot.

'Do you know Vikram Batra?' asked an Indian onlooker on reading his name.

"Is there any better reward than that people remember his name in a far off place like Scotland!" says Vishal, a banker, who returned from London last month.

Vikram was the family charmer. So popular that his friends, teachers -- and even the barbers in Chandigarh's Sector 17 -- remember him to this day, smiles his father.

Chandigarh was the city where Vikram went to college.

It was also where he found the girl he would have married had he lived.