LEAVING ON A JET PLANE
“D/I Synchronised in R/W direction.
Engine parameters in green region.
Take off path clear.
Release Air Brakes and Open full throttle.
Check RPM 2500 +- 50
80 kmph – Nose Wheel Up
90 kmph – Unstick
Climb at 105 kmph.”
“All my bags are packed..” droned John Denver as Sid (known to his mother as Siddharth) tried to mug up the ‘take-off checks’. He got up and moved to his window, drawing in a long breath of the breath-taking (no pun intended) atmosphere of the NDA. While his colleagues fretted and fumed over the rigours of training, Sid had managed a Buddha-like tranquillity, rising over petty matters, striving towards his ambition. The ambition of being a hot-shot fighter pilot.
Sid followed his train of thought and the beauty of the academy ultimately reminded him of the beauty, foremost in his life. His mind wandered to Aditi.
Aditi…., the fun of talking to her, her laugh, her ability to make him laugh, her loveliness, the tenderness of her talk, her bitching, her insults. He’d never met her and had no idea how she looked, yet, Sid was infatuated. How much? Even he didn’t know, actually. But, he knew the glow that entered his heart on talking to her got him through the whole week.
“Okay, okay, enough,” thought Sid, “My studies do take priority. After all, my first love is flying and this is the first step towards my meaning of life.” And so started, “Checks after take-off, Height 2300 ft, Reduce RPM……“
- o – o -
Sid, of course, aced his test and many more, after that, ultimately passing out of the NDA as the best air force cadet of his course. His mother had tears of pride and his father’s joy knew no bounds as journalists came to interview him.
His holidays, before joining the Air Force Academy, Hyderabad, were a blast. He and Aditi were perennially on the phone, much to the chagrin of his dad (who footed the bills). Life was bliss for our hero (even though niether he nor Aditi could pucker up the courage to decide to finally meet up). Getting set to step out into the real world, desperate to get back to his flying, Sid made the best of his time talking to the girl of his dreams.
Air Force Academy beckoned him, he responded in kind. They expected his dedication 24 hours a day, he gave 25. He ate, drank and slept with flying foremost in his mind. His dreams were interspersed with flying and a final rendezvous with Aditi. She remained an ethereal, supreme being, his vision of her loveliness based on the beauty of her thoughts. Her visage was immaterial, he saw her as the most beautiful girl in the world.
The training gave him great joy and when he got selected to get trained on the Hawks in England, no one was surprised. He spent six months in the pristine English countryside, taking in the land of Wordsworth, Milton and realized what inspired the beauty of their poetry. Flying in the English dales was an experience in itself, and Sid was in seventh heaven.
He never forgot Aditi all the time there and he imagined her to be prettier than all the girls in Woolwich and stayed faithful, ignoring all the pretty girls flitting around hoping to go on a date with the smart pilots from the sub-continent.
- o – o -
Sid returned to India into the arms of his waiting mother. After the family reunions were over, he rushed to call up Aditi. The phone kept ringing and he soon guessed that she must have moved. With a heavy heart he realized, that he’d have to wait for her to call him up. Time flew, and when Sid heard from some friends that Aditi had shifted to Shimla, he finally got the message that the contact was broken. He got his posting order to Shrinagar and set off with a heavy heart.
Flying took up most of his time and his pent-up frustration pushed him to work harder than ever and he impressed everyone with his skill and dedication. His squadron flew the Mig-21s, the workhorse of the Indian Air Force. Despite all the reputation (the newspapers condemned it everyday, forcing his aunts advice to refuse to fly the Migs), he realized the thrill of getting back to the basics of flying. He learnt every part better than even the technicians and knew how to use his plane to the maximum.
His solo sorties took him up to the snow capped peaks of the Zanskar region and he revelled in flying at the great height, skimming the razor sharp peaks of this region. These flights were his only solace in a drab, disillusioned life and he found great peace at those heights, nearest to his gods than anywhere else. His troubles were forgotten at those speeds. The beauty of the earth in all it splendour took his heart to a higher place, where only the wonder of God’s awesome work, the magnificence of the world, struck him.
On one such sortie, a Pakistani Anti-Air Gun Battery spotted him and opened fire. He had faced them before and knew how to avoid the fire, which went whizzing past him like raindrops in a storm. His evasionary manoeuvres however failed him this time, as a stray shell hit his engine. He lowered his nose, pulled the throttle back simultaneously and discontinued his sortie.
But the damage was done. His plane entered a spin, and the world turned faster than ever, much faster than all the barrel rolls he’d ever done. His mind raced as giddiness sunk in. He felt a loss of motor control as the plane plummeted to the white needle like ridges.
Sid steeled himself and his training took over, as his hand flew to the ejection lever. He pulled at it, but it was too late, the plane hit the ground as the canopy jettisoned, throwing him out of the fireball, which a few second ago was a sophisticated plane. Sid went flying in his ejection seat, his back felt as though hit by a sledgehammer. In a few seconds, before he knew it, he landed with a sickening thud, feeling pain, he never knew existed.
- o – o -
The sun beat brilliantly. Sid’s Raybans were lost in the fall and his eyes hurt. His body felt numb, devoid of any feeling whatsoever. He got to his feet and walked off straight heading where he knew to be home.
Somehow, he felt at peace with the world. Never did the thought of, “Why me?”, ever enter his mind. He thanked his stars for being alive and as he closed his eyes, he saw a vision of a girl whom he’d never seen but often felt. A confused form entered his mind, no features, yet beautiful. The shape was a mist of loveliness, the warmth exuded from this apparition was enough to spur him on.
Hunger, thirst were forgotten. Pain was a foreign concept. All that remained was the vision egging him on, urging him to put one foot ahead of the other in a direction he didn’t know led anywhere but to her.
He saw greenery in those white slopes. He heard birds chirping, children laughing, trees rustling in the wind and he could feel the snow on his feet as soft as a muslin carpet. All was fine with the world as he walked on.
- o – o -
Before he knew it, he was at a forward post, walking along the track to the base camp. He knew he ought to report but logic failed, love prevailed. He saw a bus stop and waited with the only other person crazy enough to be out in he cold. A JCO stood waiting for his bus to come and take him back to his loved ones. He ignored Sid totally, and our hero realised that he must be looking like a vagabond. He coolly returned the hostility.
The bus went to Shrinagar and he faced totally vacant looks. He now knew what street urchins felt like, no one wanting to catch their eye, in case he started begging. The conductor, out of disgust or pity, didn’t approach him either. Sid couldn’t complain, he didn’t want to get thrown out anyway. At Shrinagar, he just changed buses, and this time stowed away on the bus to Shimla. He felt no guilt, no regret, no self-pity but just the love for the dream that beckoned him.
As the bus stopped at Shimla, he saw her. He had no reason to know it was her, but love defies logic. She was all he thought her to be. Her beauty was the stars in the moonlight, the waves in the sea, the freshness of daffodils waving in the wind. She had the same eyes, nose, lips as the featureless dream of his. She exuded the fragrance of the rain on parched earth. Seeing her, he realised what land must look like to a shipwrecked crew.
He got off and followed her. He wanted to stop her, call out her name, but he was worried that she’d fade away like in his dreams. She walked into a bookshop. He traced her steps inside. The owner seemed to know her and asked,” So Aditi, what brings you here today?” Sid didn’t hear her reply as his mind raced. His thoughts weren’t unfounded. His love had led him straight to her. This kind of thing didn’t just happen in movies or Mills & Boons. It had happened to him by one of those quirks in nature where god shows his presence. He was overjoyed. He wondered whether he was presentable enough to meet the girl of his dreams. He knew she had no reason to recognize him. He was torn between the burning passion, to go up to her and touch her, to make sure she’s real, or to wait, make himself presentable before the first rendezvous. He held back for some time as she started leaving the shop, before temptation got the better of him. He called out to her.
She stopped, and turned back. She smiled a sweet, apologetic smile and walked towards him. He stood with his arms out as she walked through him and back to the counter to pay up for her books.
His mind raced. He felt himself floating back, back on the road, back on the Shimla bus, back to Shrinagar, back to the bus from the base camp, back to the crash site, back to his ejection seat. He turned around and faced himself.
A pale figure wearing an unopened parachute, strapped to his seat. Eyes blank and wide open, the body with the shattered spine held up in its place by the straps, the lips set in a smile.
Sid was stunned for a second. Then as he thought of the vision which he finally got to see, he smiled as everything went black.
- o – o -
