The idea of writing this book popped into my mind on a short flight from Indore to Delhi. I was flying back after a talk on Military-Media relations at the prestigious Indian Army War College in Mhow.

That morning the military audience had bombarded me with a barrage of questions about the recently concluded war in Sri Lanka since they knew I had just returned after reporting the conflict which had evoked worldwide interest.

As I shared my experience with Indian Army officers, it dawned on me that several aspects of Eelam War IV, as the conflict in the island nation came to be known, were largely unknown. Many were curious about the Sri Lankan Army's "winning formula," if there was one. Others wanted to know how and where the LTTE went wrong.

As I landed in Delhi, my mind went back to May 15.

That evening, a source had called from Sri Lanka saying "its all over, you should be here NOW."

I was not too sure whether Sri Lanka would find any news space given the fact that the entire nation would be glued to the story of Indian election results in less than 12 hours from then. Yet, as a precaution, I told the bosses that the denouement in Sri Lanka appears to be near and I may have to rush to Colombo at a very short notice.

The next day, May 16, as I prepared to do my bit on election results day, another source, in fact a very high official, called in at 7 am and said, "It is all over, bar the shouting. Try and be here by this evening."

Since this official had been dead right with information in the past too, I decided to take a chance. The bosses were also game. So, as India was glued to its TV sets getting the latest election results, I rushed to the airport at an hour's notice to catch a flight to Bangalore and from there to Colombo. By 4.30 that evening, I was in the Sri Lankan capital.

Am I glad I did that? Oh yes!

By taking that off chance and believing in my sources, I was right there when the biggest war story of the decade unfolded.

A decade ago, one was fortunate to be in Kargil, reporting on the India-Pakistan conflict. But there is one major difference between 1999 and 2009.

I had reported Kargil for print, for Outlook magazine, to be precise.

This time, I was reporting the war in Sri Lanka for NDTV, a completely different medium which requires an altogether different set of expertise and resources.

In less than 12 hours after landing in Colombo, the difficulties of broadcast journalism combined with the obstacles posed by an obdurate and cussed bureaucracy, so very typical of south Asian nations, became apparent.

My colleague Dhanpal, incidentally a Tamil, reached Colombo International Airport early next morning and got stuck in Customs. They won't let him out, saying papers for the television equipment that he is carrying are not in order. So began battle of another kind. One was not sure if Dhanpal had been stopped because he's a Tamil. Assuming the worst, I made two or three calls and asked him to wait. Fortunately, a couple of hours later, a fresh set of requisite documents reached the obdurate customs officer and he let Dhanpal go, albeit reluctantly.

An hour after his arrival, we straightaway plunged into work.

There were pieces to camera to be done, stand ups to be uplinked and phone calls to be made to different sources. And then there was the constant stream of demands from the office to be met. "Do a phone in at the top of the hour," "give the details of the latest battle casualties," "Our competitors are saying the army has sighted Prabhakaran, what do you have?" --the demands were unending.

As Eelam War IV neared its climax, there was virtually not a minute's respite since one was reporting for both for NDTV's English and Hindi channels.

Each desk had a different requirement. If English wanted me to do a stand-up, Hindi wanted a fresh phono-in every half hour; If Hindi wanted a full story at the end of the day, English wanted a full story and a 'simulated Satellite' link or sim-sat which in simpler terms means a reporter recording answers to pre-determined questions which would be played out as "live" in prime time bulletins.

Twenty four hour news broadcasters are insatiable in their appetite for news, any fresh information. So, the telephone calls would begin at 7 am since each shift editor would want his or her bulletin to have new information.  The news from the battle front was coming in thick and fast. The challenge was two-fold: to relay the information by putting it in the context for Indian viewers and second not go wrong on facts since NDTV 24x7 is the most viewed Indian channel in Colombo.

Reporting from Colombo posed another challenge. The high level of security in the Sri Lankan capital meant that you couldn't shoot in the streets. All my pieces to camera and stand-ups had to be therefore done from either the hotel lawns or in the hotel lobby, robbing the coverage, the actual feel of the place.

On a previous trip, me and another colleague, Sukumar had been escorted to a police station because we were shooting on the street!

But 19th May changed all that overnight.

Prabhakaran was dead and the LTTE, decimated.

Suddenly it was as if the entire nation was liberated!

Jubilant crowds thronged the streets, bursting crackers, stuffing the armed forces personnel with sweets and garlanding them. For TV cameras too it was a liberating moment. No one stopped us now. We walked between processions, on the streets awash with Sri Lankan flags, local singers singing paeans to the soldiers at impromptu street corner gatherings, doing our walkabouts, our pre-recorded interviews and pieces to camera amidst the celebrations absolutely unhindered!

It was an historic news event but also a sad one.

Through the day, we managed to remain on top of the news but as night fell and prime time bulletins were over, the reality hit us both.

All said and done, Prabhakaran was an extraordinary personality. The outfit that he created and led had no parallel in the history of terrorism. As we sat sipping our chilled beers, Dhanpal recalled, how, as a college student in Chennai in the late 1970s, he was part of a group that had mobilised support for the Tamil cause in Sri Lanka and how Prabhakaran was even then a celebrity in the Tamil brotherhood.

Unlike Dhanpal, I had no such personal memory but as a student of insurgencies and conflicts, I only had grudging admiration for Prabhakaran's military genius and innovative mind. After all, he invented the suicide bomber; he perfected the cyanide capsule culture and applied innovative and daring tactics to combat large professional armies. But in the end, not knowing when to quit and compromise cost Prabhakaran his life. So, in different ways both of us, felt sad at the turn of events.

Over the next three days, we managed to get exclusive, one on one interviews with Sri Lanka's Defence secretary and Army chief, Gen. Fonseka among others. These interactions helped me confirm some of the conclusions that I reached about why Eelam War IV was different than earlier military campaigns in Sri Lanka.

A book detailing the planning and execution of a military campaign that eliminated the world's most dreaded terrorist outfit was therefore waiting to be written.

As I started working on the project, old friend Shubho Bhattacharya introduced me to Narendra Kumar of Har-Anand Publications, who immediately showed keen interest in the book. From then on, it has been a race against time.

To be honest, the book does not pretend to be a scholarly analysis of the Sri Lankan conflict. My focus has been on the politico-military strategy adopted by Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his military commanders to defeat an outfit which looked unbeatable in the past. I was of course fortunate to report from the frontline since 2006, thanks to my bosses at NDTV who sent me there in the first place.

(Nitin Gokhale, NDTV's Defence and Strategic Affairs Editor, has been reporting on military affairs and militancy from hostile terrains like India's north-east, the Kashmir valley and the Naxal heartland for the past 26 years. Author of two earlier books, his latest offering Sri Lanka: From War to Peace is based on his reportage of the 33-month civil war in Sri Lanka. The book  is published by Har Anand Publications, New Delhi and is priced at Rs 395. It is already available in select bookstores)