JANUARY REMINISCENCES: IMAGES FROM A LIFETIME IN THE INDIAN AIR FORCE
JANUARY REMINISCENCES: IMAGES FROM A LIFETIME IN THE INDIAN AIR FORCE
January, my favourite month of the year, has just passed. Those crisp, cold, misty winter mornings that bring with them a feeling of holidays and nostalgia. A time to look back, but also to look ahead.
And although it’s been 36 years now, it seems only yesterday that we fetched up at the Air Force Academy (AFA) in early January 1986, a bunch of bright-eyed youngsters with long hair, straight out of college and the blue- and- white AFA bus picked us up from outside Secunderabad Railway Station.
At the Academy, our ‘senior course’ was waiting- and the long hair was soon gone, as the ‘Academy Barber’ set upon us with relish. Another whole new course of Flight Cadets straight off ‘civvy’ street- the 79 GDOC as we were called. And in no time all of us looked the same- a set of dazed, crew- cut Zombies who didn’t know what had hit them!
One of my coursemates, now an Air Commodore, had gone back to the Air Force Academy for his son’s passing out parade, recently. Incredibly, he found Satya, our Barber from long ago, still ruling over the Cadets Mess Barber Shop and sent us photographs of the register recording our haircuts from a lifetime ago. Three regulation haircuts for the month of Jan ’86, one every ten days, duly signed for and neatly recorded against my name in the register.
One in 45-50 days is good enough for me now…and I guess I am a lot luckier than some!
We blustered and threatened him with dire consequences once we became “Officers,” but Satya just laughed and snipped away…
He was a very young man then, probably in his first year of employment like us, which is why he has lovingly preserved those registers for so long. The records for 78 and 79 GDOC are the only ones that he still has.
I doubt Air HQs would have records that old now.
Back in the Cadet’s Mess blocks, our immediate senior course fell on us with similar relish and cries of “79 GDOC Fall Out” rang out with alarming frequency, by day and night, as we assembled at all hours. Sometimes in drill boots, sometimes in dressing gowns and sometimes in our ‘whites and tie’- and did front rolls and push ups and star jumps – while our six-month old ‘seniors’ standing watchfully by, told us in all solemnity that they were trying to make “soldiers out of us, from the pathetic little ‘cissies’ that we were…”
By the end of the first month of training, we had passed our Saluting Test and earned the luxury of our first ‘Book Out’ to town on a holiday. A whole day to ourselves, to eat out, watch movies and roam around, even if only in our regulation Academy Whites and Tie and crewcuts! How we had prayed that our Drill Sergeant, Sgt Andrews would ‘clear’ us in the first go and liberate us from the confines of the Academy.
We also got to wear our first Air Force uniforms around this time and felt that we finally belonged…
A month later I was playing in my first Air Force Cricket Championship at Delhi, ‘living out’ with my elder brother who was a Flight Lieutenant then and sister- in- law, at 57-C Rock View, Air Force Station Palam -an unheard-of luxury for a Junior Term Cadet. Ma-Baba and Didi (sister) had come visiting and it was a much –remembered, much-cherished reunion.
Training Command emerged joint winners that year and I got a good Fifty in the final against star-studded Western Air Command (my elder brother was playing for them and predictably, got a hundred), to get selected in the Air Force Team.
By the time I got back to AFA, my seniors eyed me with new found Respect…
Soon, it was on to the rigours of the FCTC camp (Field Craft Training Camp), as we set up Residence near the Narsapur Forest, some distance away from the Academy. Living in tents, wearing overalls and World War ‘Tommy’ style helmets, we went on long marches at night, carrying dummy rifles, maps and compasses. We played soldiers in earnest, monkeys crawling our way across ropes strung up between trees and crossing imaginary rivers on crazily swaying ‘Burma Bridges’ made of sets of parallel ropes.
And then came the Big Day… 06 Dec 1986… the unforgettable day when we were commissioned as young Pilot Officers into the Indian Air Force, proudly wearing the near-invisible, single stripe on our shoulders. And in one, much- rehearsed handshake with the Chief of Air Staff on the Academy Drill Square, we transformed from boys to men! As we glided out in threes in Slow March, with the Band playing Auld Lang Syne, a flight of Polish Iskra fighter jets swung low over our heads, dipping their Wings in Salute to the newly commissioned Officers. And our Drill Sergeants who had been so tough with us during our one year of training, stood at attention and gave us our first salutes as we went by. What a moment that was!
Life waited. And the world was at our feet, so to say…
Back at the Cadets Mess after the Passing Out Parade, the CTA, Chief Trainee Administrator, gave us our first pay packets – 2100 princely rupees. Few of us had ever had that kind of money in our Pockets before – money that we‘d earned ourselves! Our monthly allowance as Cadets, had been a miserly Ninety Rupees till then and this suddenly felt huge… whatever would we do with it?
We’d all got our Posting Orders and would soon be moving out to different Air Force Stations. Some of us would not meet again, ever, over the course of our entire service careers. As for me, I was to stay on for another six months at AFA and train to be an Air Traffic Controller.
But we had a months’ leave first and I was going home to my parents and my friends!
Back then we used to have the letters DLTGH written at the top right hand corner of the chalk-and-duster Board in our classrooms. With a number in front that would grow one less, each passing day. The number of Days Left To Go Home, after the Course.
At the time, we were still naive enough to believe that at the end of the course, we’d be done with it all. That we would go back home again after the Passing Out Parade.
But we never really ‘went home’ after that, ever again… not in any real sense. We just moved on – to our new lives, as our parents watched proudly – going home to them only now and then, on leave.
Life happened to each one of us in different ways as we picked up service experience and qualifications over the years. Picked up new ranks, new appointments, got married, had families… moved into ‘Status Houses’ with gardens, got posted to different Air Force stations, near and far, from one corner of the country to another every two and half to three years, accumulating boxes, both wooden and steel. And on each new posting, there would be a couple of them that remained unopened in our garages, as we acquired new stuff.
Comfortably ensconced in our own little worlds, secure behind Guard Rooms, watch towers and perimeter walls, the Blue Uniform was what defined us, shaped our personalities, made us who we are.
And the years passed quickly… till one day it was time for the Big Decision to leave and move on to other things.
Big Moment again, as I left my Office at Air Force Station Race Course in the heart of New Delhi and headed home to Dhaula Kuan Officers’ Enclave, where I took off my uniform a final time -25 years after I’d first worn it at the Air Force Academy. I put it on a Hanger as always- Rank Braids, Name Tab, Ribbons, Commendation Badge, Belt, all neatly in place.
Only, I wouldn’t be needing it again….I’d lived my Air Force Dream.
And now, in the flash of an eyelid, it’s been 36 years since that day at Secunderabad Railway Station. Most of us have taken Premature Retirement from the IAF, or superannuated, our Journey done. Our Parents have passed on and we all have our own families now and even our children are mostly settled in their lives.
And it’s time to hand over the Baton… to another generation of long-haired, bright-eyed youngsters.
As life turns the page.
