It started simply enough…he was posted to Ladakh .There was a sortie to be flown all the way across the border .With the Indo Pak hostilities on the rise things could get sticky. But that was besides the point .There was a deeper issue at hand and Squadron leader Jiten didn’t see it coming. Oh no he didn’t …He always had been a stickler for rules and the sort who stuck to living by the credo form beginning to the end. Let us say the boss said something to him. Without a squeak he would kowtow. Never once regretting…all those NDA folks were alike he smiled to himself. If they were told to jump down the Himalayas without a parachute they would …they were made of steel..
And never once did he regret it .Till the day the CO called him over for a conference.’’Jitem we want our squadron to fly over Pak. I want you to lead the boys .I am counting on your experience Jiten…’’
Without thinking once Jiten said,’’Sure thing sir…’’
It was a cold biting chill winter morn and the cockpit was freezing cold .Life in the IAF was a far cry from his childhood where he was mollycoddled by his pa ma and a whole retinue of relatives including his grandpa and grandma. After all he was the only boy child on their side of the family. Out here you would count on the mess coming out with good food but it was a far cry from the delectable fare ma dished out back at home. And Wednesdays were P.T come rain come sun. No amount of complaining kept all the boys away .The team leader,the saab never took no for an answer and no one had the liberty of an excuse of checking into sick bay!
On a tangential note, Jiten sighed as he recalled his gal Lata . He was to be betrothed to her soon in December. It was now July and he was counting the days. As for his boys they were a fidgety lot after the briefing. Some of them were greenhorns and Jiten sure hoped they would manage the sortie and come out in one piece without crumbling like a cookie all gone kaput.
‘’Jiten calling ATC. Roger over and out. Calling T1 …man the right wing .Diamond formation to be readied boys. Over and out.’’ ‘’T2 calling over and out’’. One by one his boys readied themselves taking off with the precision of a team of surgeons at work on a gargantuan exercise. Flying in Leh- Ladakh was sure taxing what with the flying strip being pretty truncated and the need for acclimatization and at times alike these he sure felt like a proud father of his brood of chicks.
So many days of flying in tandem and squadron 689 had even been giving its colours by the President …If it weren’t for the boys and their constant diligence the squadron wouldn’t have got where it would have. Through thick and thin they had stuck by him…
Even the newbies like Duke…Dwivedi or Duke as they called him was the newly wed of the squadron and had insisted he wanted to fly that day .Jiten tried hard to reason with him; it was a day off for him but it just didn’t work, did it? So there he was saying yes to the CO despite the poor visibility ,and also yes to Duke when it was his off day.Jiten recalled way back as a young lad when his dad tried hard one day telling him that in the world he would find life a tough proposition if he didn’t know how to come forward with a no when needed …
And today happened to be one such day…
Duke had just got his stripes and wanted to lead the boys into the enemy territory .He was confident of his prowess and felt that he could go in for the kill and come out a winner every step of the way. Jiten being ever the ‘’yes’’ man went the whole hog and gave a thumbs up only cautioning him that if he got caught there was no returning and also no such thing as revealing secrets of his country . Duke ever eager to prove himself agreed to all the preconditions and gave an AOk…
That indeed was the be all and end all of it all with the stress on the ‘’end’’ perhaps…Because the moment Duke entered enemy territory he was bombarded by missiles and drones alike making it absolutely impossible for his partners to rescue him. Jiten gave the sign to peel off not before those fateful final moments by Duke as he bailed off with the plane in flames ...his last words were...’’Chief…tell them back home I died for my country as I lived for it…’’
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