IT'S TIME TO GO

IT’S TIME TO GO

Azimuddin looks at me and wonders if I need to be bothered with the ration that is yet to be collected, since he is too old and can’t do it alone. He wonders if he should tell me about the unit cook that has been attached to a sister unit just because their cook is not cooking. He pauses hoping that I would look his way and acknowledge his presence. I don’t and keep gazing at the aeroplane taxying out for yet another sortie. Obviously the trainee is on controls since the water mark of the tyre is leaving a voluptuous trail. I shift to the ground crew kneeling under the wing of another parked aeroplane, checking for something that shouldn’t be there or should be, but is not.

Azimuddin is six feet two and in his days must have been one striking hunk. Age has caught up with him and he tends to get too bothered like all us with white years. He has put in over thirty five years in the IAF as a waiter, cook, helper, safaiwala, father, mother, guide and mentor. He has ensured no trainee went without a meal irrespective of the pressures of training flying. He has been dutifully keeping watch while trainees came and went. A life time spent managing a small kitchen and a small complex. He complains now and then about how the service has changed. If you pretend to listen he will tell you about the all the senior officers who still acknowledge his presence whenever they come visiting. I don’t pay attention since I cannot take away his misery of rations and cooks. He waits, ponders and leaves, muttering on the standard of officers in the service these days. I still pay no attention as I am 18 years away.

Same complex, same kitchen, same corridors and same him. One long trip which started back when this town was one half its size and had one main arterial road. The only place to eat was near the gurudwara, where a lady, christened aunty would make aloo paranthas and serve us with butter and yogurt. A major slice of our salary went to her. Little wonder her daughter joined the family business and lives in a house now. The gurudwara was also a favourite haunt before a check sortie. It didn’t matter if you believed in Sikhism as long one of the ten gurus believed in you for that one hour when you flew. I started my jet career here along with my batch, a patch of which has diminished and moved on. I am diminishing too and somehow it hurts that another year and I won’t be able to fly a jet ac in the service, fulltime. I am, like they say, over and done with. I have reached my pinnacle in these twenty one years since I left home. I am going to miss it so much, for I have just hung on for morning to dawn, every night. The thought of one more trip in to the third dimension, one more seduction, and one more joint of this medication called flight. You know it is the most awesome contract to have and the government also puts a significant something in your account, like a ritual, every last day of the month.

One is taught to walk in step from the first day and then, as you grow, others keep time with you. The uniform is bare when it wears you for the first time, with just the crisp wing on the chest and the skinny stripes on the shoulder. You are called; well you were called, a Pilot Officer. A pilot and an officer. No other rank had such eminence attached to it. No one was ever in doubt as to what you did and what you were meant to do. Shopkeepers, bankers, relatives, uncles, clerks, railway staff, almost everyone knew who you were. That was the power of that small stripe and the wing. Pity they changed and promoted the lowest rank a rung higher.

They also changed the officer cadre in a way that will never be the same. I remember off hand at least two dozen names of pilots, controllers, technicians, logisticians, administrators, meteorologists who made a difference in our lives. They worked diligently, so we made our mark. These days, nobody has the time to walk even a few steps, including me. We are the most awful thing to happen to today. No wonder, Azimuddin mumbles, as he strolls back to the kitchen.

I am shaken out of my reverie by the sound of a formation approaching directly above. The novice wingman tucked in tight. The formation does a peel off and comes in for landing. As I watch them, I recognize that one more lesson in warfare has just got over; this tradition of teaching has been handed down in the most honourable way for generations and is a revered assignment. To not be here in a few months is a sinking feeling. To be resigned to a desk, pushing files and lettering notes makes me judder. To not lean on the bar on a hot afternoon, with a chilled beer, drinking with my brethren, makes me insecure. I never want to leave this womb.