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Write up by Ash

Inder Pal Singh Bindra had that rare compassion, by which he could look into the centre of his soul, right at where the spirit met the bone, discover what all could ever give pain, and then refuse, under any circumstance whatsoever, to inflict that pain onto anybody else. His sense of compassion for everyone he met had that unquestioned genuineness, a soothing gentleness – the very nobleness of spirit defined him. The ever so polite Sikh from Meerut joined Hunter and then came to Fox and left his imprint on not only both but on the whole of the 55th. If ever a person came closest to the saintly gentleness that all faiths profuse, then in its most sublime humility, it would be him.

To me, remarks made by Seneca, a Roman stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, continue to haunt, “Ponder for a long time whether you shall admit a given person to your friendship, but when you have decided to admit him, welcome him with all your heart and soul”. To then lose a friend who has earned such wholehearted admission into your soul is one of life’s most devastating sorrows. Whatever shape the loss takes whether by death, distance, the various desertions of loyalty – it hollows out the heart. It is also one of life’s most absolute inevitabilities that we will each lose a beloved friend at one point or another, to one cause or another.

Sanjeev Sekhri remembers Bindra as a guy with a fantastic sense of humour and a real happy go lucky guy. Also that Bindra wasn’t fond of cabin cupboards and liked to live with a degree of freedom unencumbered by orderliness. After one such inspection, he got to the squadron and started spreading things all over. When we saw him doing it, we asked him, ’बिन्द्रा कभी कभी तो तेरी कैबिन अच्छी लगती है क्यों खराब कर रहा है!

He would reply with a 😃, “यार ये रहने की जगह है, अस्पताल नहीं!

During POP his Mother and Uncle were to attend. In the form to be filled up for guests he wrote in food preference, “Pure Non-Veg”.

The imprint of him in the NDA passing out journal very briefly narrates, “A smiling sardie who was known to have calculated the arrival of tea and eats to the second. As reliable as the weather in Tantland. Specialised in nothing”. To Bindra, life was enjoyed as a blessing in which there was no evil, the minor imperfections were only human ones, easily overlooked where the overall goodness of the other was what that really mattered.

The brutalities of the riots that followed the assassination of Indira Gandhi claimed him – his gentle smile will however, forever be a constant in our memories.

Ladies and gentlemen of the course, this day is IPS Bindra’s birthday. He was a bachelor and the youngest in his family and is survived by his older siblings, both sisters – one of whom is settled in Mhow, she and her husband often interact with Murali. They are aware of the Pachpan Association and wish all of us well.

Penned with inputs from Sanjeev Sekhri

🙏 May his soul rest in peace 🙏

Write up by Ash

The imprimatur posted by the fifth termers on the NDA journal published on 55th passing out parade on Wagh read as: “The imported General who was rarely seen and never heard, especially by the officers. A decent soul who wouldn’t look for taking extra eats. Good at football and MLs.”

Wagh had joined NDA in Foxtrot Sqn with 53rd Course, parachuted to 55th and passed out in his final (8th) term from Golf Sqn after which he went on to don the Air Force blues to eventually fly the MiG-21s. This morning, ladies and gentlemen of the course, his birthday marks the day.

Remembered by the entire generation of 53rd to 59th courses as a very fit, agile and nimble person, possessed with a remarkable dancing talent, probably the best in NDA at that time when the albums of Boney M, “Saturday Night Fever” and Abba were the rage. He embraced life with its fun and fullness, his eyes lighting up his smile with just the right mischievousness. His calm and macho exterior hid a softness and mushy interior. He and Noel Washington were very close buddies, two course mates who had ridden together the roughness of two relegations with an amazing fortitude.

Ashwini still remembers the day soon after his Regiment had moved to Mamun Cantt, close to Pathankot’s Air Force Base, when Hari called to inform that Wagh had flown that heavily overcast morning in a sortie over Pong Dam in Himachal Pradesh, on his MiG-21 and was missing. The greyness of the sky and of the water in the reservoir would have not been distinguishable from each other and it was that opacity that God used to call Wagh to the Valhalla. It was to be his final sortie in the MiG-21 before he was to move to a Jaguar Sqn.

He loved his doctor wife Sooneita, then close to ending her confinement, with both looking forward to the delivery of their son. The unevenness of life came with a suddenness that devastated all whom he left behind. Anant Anand Wagh (Anu) is now doing his Masters in Real Estate from Cornell university in USA. Sooneita is happily married to Sushil and practicing her medicine (Dermatology) in Hari Nagar, N Delhi.

Thank you Devika Hari Kumar for the additional inputs.

🙏 May his soul rest in peace 🙏

 

Write up by Ash

We had joined Fox together and went to Echo in our third term. I returned to Fox thereafter but Echo claimed ownership on him. He did brilliantly there and was the CSM of the Sqn while passing out.

In IMA, when I joined, I found Ram Bhaj yet again adorning the wrist band of being the CSM of Zojila company. When you are an appointment in IMA, the power of terror that comes with that, is not confined to the junior course only and is often used to even keep own course mates in line. Ram Bhaj was a soldier to the core and made sure that discipline wouldn’t ever be diluted in execution and was agnostic to any softness – and yet in that strict disciplinarian, I discovered a gentleness that was layered below that tough exterior. Ram Bhaj went on to be commissioned in to the elite 18 Cavalry, a Regiment whose distinction is well known to all. I followed a term later in to the same “Black Beret” community and the association that had commenced in January 1976 would continue on the same highway.

The passing out NDA journal catches the elementals of the no-nonsense person that Ram Bhaj was – “Bull headed Jat from Texas who murdered English every day and got away with it. Believed in the doctrine of shooting first and asking questions later. Academy Athletics Captain.”

And in the last sentence is displayed that complete sportsman that Ram Bhaj was – a lean and mean boxer, a runner with undiminished stamina, a person who could get on to any sports field with a familiarity that comes to the very few.

“The Emperor of all Maladies” written by Siddhartha Mukherjee is a book that has been written yet again by an Indo American, a seminal work on the dreadfulness of cancer. And that was what that came and claim, in his full prime, Ram Bhaj from all of us.

Krishna Suhag now lives in Gurgaon, and is a member of our Association. I admit that I don’t have the complete details of the children, which will be addressed very soon, but I do know that Krishna was in Canada with one and will be with the other at Singapore in the coming December and January.

Penned with memories a somewhat smaller account which will have more recollections going ahead.

🙏 May his soul rest in peace 🙏

Write up by Ash

 

 

 

 

 

 

To most of us who went to NDA in January 1976, geography lessons would remind us that Odisha (Orrisa then) was nestled on the east coast just below West Bengal and above “Madras’. To the slightly more aware, they would know it as Utkala of the ancient and medieval times; Utkala the name itself means – the land of excellence in art and craft. When I joined NDA and went to Foxtrot, the state that had sponsored the Squadron and whose name is permanently and proudly adorned on its front facade is “Orissa”.

NDA has demonstrated that the association of phrases like “Cradle of Leadership and Training” and the “Maker of Men” with it hasn’t been made by erudite penmanship but by the many reminiscences that embellish it. Ladies and gentlemen of the course, it is from that memory vault, that we recall that to the 55th, Odisha sent many of its ambassadors, including Bijay Kumar Patnaik, ‘Pattu’ as he was fondly called. It is his birthday, this day.

Ramesh, his Eagle compatriot and fellow Naval buddy remembers, “Pattu, Nishi band I used to play golf together in Mumbai. Pattu always insisted on being Nishi’s partner as Nishi and I would invariably land up fighting when in the same team. While they would invariably lose, Pattu would position it in a manner when I used to wonder as to who had actually won. I very fondly remember as to how much we would argue, during the game over a preferred lie or a relief where he would stand next to me and watch carefully.”

Going on Ramesh recollects, “I visited Pattu’s home in Bhubaneshwar in 1982 and we enjoyed eating plenty of fish. Pattu’s Dad had bought a small moped and It was quite a comical sight when we both set out on that poor small machine exploring the ancient city.

The NDA passing out journal’s pen picture effaces him as “This self-appointed Black Knight rode a rough horse till his Vth term but chose to live his last term in honourable retirement.”

Pattu went on to become a submariner after he specialized in the Anti-Submarine Warfare course from the Naval Academy at Leningrad. Arun Jyoti, Pattu’s submarine electrical engineer and crew member too remembers Pattu’s fondness for fish, being a fellow piscivore. Long submarine sorties medically mandated salacious, raunchy pictures to be carried onboard to address long term libido issues. Pattu would insist on seeing all the publications of such content and would do so in public view in the Ward Room. His opening sentence would invariably be *Bloody phukker* but said with a smile that would melt the crew. A people’s submarine Commanding Officer, prominent amongst his notable habits was that if he was touching his head, it would mean that he was in a deep-thinking mode.

Pattu last posting was as DDG, NCC at his beloved Bhubaneshwar from where he decided to hang up his uniform in August 2014. He fought a long and valiant battle with his medical affliction, Vandana had stood like a rock with him, frequently travelling between Bhubaneshwar and Delhi till eventually it claimed him.

Vandana connects also through her sister Kanchan to the 55th, who is married to Sunil Jetley, a Lima submariner. Her remarkable effervescence and joie de vivre keeps the 55th Bindass Eagles WhatsApp group vibrant and bubbly. Her enthusiastic support and participation in the Association charter and build up has been instrumental. Their daughter Anubha now works in theatre while son Ajay is running a start up in Bangalore with another Naval Officer’s son.

Penned with inputs from Ramesh and Arun Jyoti.

🙏 May his soul rest in peace 🙏

write up by Ash

Being from the same squadron, trying to take the mind back to remember a person with whom you have spent so many years – it in a manner becomes a way of looking at life, bit by bit, using memory to string the bits together almost like examining a dark room with a flashlight, with a very narrow beam. After all, memory is the most elemental thread, by which the tapestry of experience is actually revisited, feelingly. And in that rich embroidery, there is patch that belongs to Koustuv.

The NDA passing out journal depicted Koustuv’s pen picture, mildly smoothened here, “A complete innocent case, who used up all the OG paint in the squadron for himself to little avail. Good at academics and outdoor games like crossword puzzles, etc.”

Assiduous by nature, serious by his disposition, Koustuv as we remember him, was a giant of a man with the heart of a monk whose even temperament wouldn’t allow even the fiercest provocation to disturb of what could have been the outcome from his typical Bengali ancestry, turbulence. He could find kindness in other people, after all kindness enriches our life; with kindness mysterious things become clear, difficult things become easy, and dull things become cheerful.

The Grim Reaper came early in his life, the ravages inflicted by an ailment, provided the excuse. Ladies and gentlemen of the course, this day is Koustuv’s birthday.

🙏 May his soul rest in peace 🙏