Flight guru
The HT-2 trainer of the IAF, on a routine flight over the Bidar Elementary Flying School, had been up for 20 minutes, flying like a dream. At the controls was K.N. Mirji, on his third solo. Time to land, and air traffic control cheered him with a “Bravo Delta!” But as Mirji attempted a landing, the aircraft bounced and jolted, and the frantic message from air traffic control was: “Abandon landing! Go around the airfield, climb 5,000 feet.” He knew the undercarriage was damaged. A crash-landing was inevitable.
But then a cool, detached voice came through: “Bravo Delta, how do you read me? Something wrong with your left wheel. Land on two wheels. Just follow instructions, it’s not difficult.” It was Squadron Leader Ronnie Mitra, a hotrod flier adored by trainee pilots. Mirji followed instructions, managed to make a “soft kiss” landing, got out and checked the undercarriage. The entire left wheel assembly was missing, sheared off with the shock absorbers. “Thank heavens for Ronnie Mitra,” sighed Mirji. One more chapter to the Ronnie Mitra legend.
This is no ‘Drama in Real Life’ feature from Reader’s Digest. I learn of this rescue from a 1985 issue of a Defence Services Staff College magazine I find at Ronnie’s house in Mysore. Idol to the scores of IAF pilots he has trained, Ronnie now lives a quiet retired life with his wife Geeta, who keeps herself busy with social work. He doesn’t talk much of his flying days, but doesn’t deny a stormy petrel side to his younger days, when he often faced disciplinary action. But so did Douglas Bader. Fitted with artificial legs, Bader rejoined the RAF after a flying accident and earned fame as an ace fighter pilot of World War II, seeing action in Dunkirk and the Battle of Britain. He was taken PoW after crashing behind German lines and even made a few attempts to escape.
Distant star
I am glad to have met Ronnie, an unsung hero in retirement, but disappointed to be given the cold shoulder by a well-known local hero, K.B. Ganapathy, founder-publisher of the tabloid Star of Mysore. I’m always keen to meet fellow journalists to talk shop, and things have been happening in Karnataka. So I seek an appointment at his impressive office and get it for 11 am the next day after assuring him it’s just a courtesy call. The next day I reach his office and end up waiting for 45 minutes. When I call him, he says, “I’m on the other side of town and can’t say when I’ll return. But why do you want to meet me anyway?” I explain again that I’m on a visit to the city and want to talk journalism. The lack of responsiveness is quite surprising and I have nothing to do but return home.
Indian editors, I have found, are not all that keen to meet fellow journalists. The editor-in-chief of a south Indian daily for which I’d been a columnist for over 20 years has never met me even once. He’s always busy in meetings. In my 50 years in the profession, I’ve learnt that editors, very visible now on TV news channels, do not seem to have time for fellow journalists—especially if they are freelancers or columnists.
Slow roll
Every four or five years, we visit Mysore and return refreshed. The outskirts of this quiet but changing town, I am happy to report, are still green. We experience two storms, and the power goes off for hours. One unusual sight we catch this time is a huge white bull that lumbers past our house every morning and returns the same way to halt in front of a temple. I ask a few people about this peripatetic vahana of Lord Shiva. No one seems to know who owns it and why it roams about, no one goes near it, no one tries to feed it. The bull doesn’t seem to bother at all. Such mutual disinterest was on display here during the assembly elections in May—in the last few days to the election, when the campaign pitch usually shrills, there were hardly any morchas, hardly any public meetings or house-to-house canvassing for votes. Like the bull, Mysore’s politicians and voters seem to have realised the futility of it all.
Shop tales
Among the Brahmins of south India, the Iyengars have generally been ranked pretty high on the scale of orthodoxy, especially in the degree of professed vegetarianism. Mores have changed, but many Iyengars still avoid onion and garlic. But right since the 1960s, Mysore and Bangalore have always had more than their fair share of ‘Iyengar bakeries’, displaying a variety of cakes, pastries and other goodies in wooden, glass-paned counters. I have always wondered if they are egg-free. Another shop that catches my attention is ‘James Bond Cleaners’. Would Daniel Craig and the Bond film producers have cared about the copyright infringement?
The fame bug
On the way to the airport for our flight back to Mumbai, I catch sight of a building with a signboard that says ‘National Bureau of Internationally Recognised Insects’.
V. Gangadhar, a Mumbai-based freelancer, is a former assistant editor of Reader’s Digest; E-mail your diarist: vgangadhar70 AT gmail.com
