The joy of small things

AH, the titbits of life that were shrugged off when young! But as one mellows with age, and no boss to humour except your better half, those memories waft in.

It was an afternoon back in August 1978 at the Army helipad on the Indus riverbank at Kiari, 30 minutes flying from Leh. I was getting my Chetak helicopter refuelled. Push the hollow dip stick in the barrel to pipette out the fuel, drain it in a glass, put water detection capsules — and if they remained white (and not turn pink), start putting fuel in the helicopter. And as we were having chai and hot pakoras in the aircrew tent, came the dull hum of an approaching aircraft. The jawan serving us rushed out, and I followed out of curiosity. It was quite a sight — jawans on both sides of the river craning their necks in the sky. And as the An-12 flying to Leh came into view, a tiny speck above the towering hills, the jawan said with a wide unforgettable grin, ‘Sahab, An (as the An-12 was known) aa gaya — aaj mail aaegi’. By evening, a truck carrying the most precious of cargoes — letters — would reach Kiari. The sight of the An-12 and the hum of its engines brought joy that only a jawan posted in a field area could experience.

A field commander has myriad issues to address — discipline, operational training, living areas, timely rations… the list is endless; but some things are different. Being the commander of the first IAF United Nations mission in Sudan in 2005, besides the usual tasks whose completion indicated that all was fine, there was one occurrence that stressed me. Dealing with functional toilets in our desolate location was a pressing concern. Our toilets emptied into ground pits and since the black soil had low porosity, they filled up quickly. The UN administration would send the toilet cleaning truck, called ‘honey sucker’, just once a week. The sight of the honey-sucker driving into the camp got me a smile that my wife would envy!

And talking of my wife, well, when we got engaged in mid-1979, hearing your fiancé’s voice was pure ecstasy. But there was a problem. One had to go to the Jammu head post office, book the call and wait with others in queue. And wait, and wait. The chances of the call maturing were minuscule. But those three occasions, when the booking clerk yelled ‘Rae Bareli call’, brought a joy that only those who were engaged to be married in those pre-cellphone days know!