The Fighter Pilot I Never Became

Part I - Born to the Roar of Fighter Jets

My association with the Indian Air Force began even before I knew what an Air Force was.

I was, quite literally, born into it.

My father served in the Indian Air Force for 37 years in the Medical Assistant trade, finally retiring in 1997. So, for me, the Air Force was never merely an institution. It was the world I grew up in—the uniforms, the aircraft, the air stations, the constant movement, and the unmistakable sound of aircraft tearing through the sky.

My first schooling was at Air Force School, Pathankot, where I studied LKG and UKG. From Class 1 to Class 2, I moved to Kendriya Vidyalaya, Air Force Station Chakeri, Kanpur. Then came another posting for my father, this time to the Air Force Academy at Dundigal, about 43 kilometres from Hyderabad. At that time, Dundigal was in Andhra Pradesh.

I joined the Kendriya Vidyalaya at the Air Force Academy and studied there from Class 3 to Class 5.

And that was where the trouble began.

Not the trouble that parents worry about—the academic kind. I was doing quite well in studies, usually topping the class and collecting full marks almost as if the question papers had been personally designed for me.

The real trouble was happening in the sky.

The Sky Was the Blackboard

The Air Force Academy was where officers of the flying branch, including those coming through the NDA route, underwent training. And every day, on our walk to school, my close friend Nageshwar Rao and I had a front-row seat to the greatest air show imaginable.

Nageshwar was the son of Squadron Leader Rao, an instructor at the Academy.

We would walk to school looking up at the sky, watching aircraft flying overhead—sometimes performing aerobatics. The roar of the engines, the speed, the manoeuvres and the sheer spectacle were intoxicating.

We were ten-year-old boys.

Naturally, we reached only one possible conclusion:

We had to become fighter pilots.

There was no Plan B.

We would walk around pretending to fly fighter aircraft, moving our hands like control sticks, tilting our heads and bodies into imaginary turns, making aircraft noises and performing aerobatics that, fortunately, existed only in our imagination.

At that age, we had already mastered fighter-pilot tactics. The only minor problem was that neither of us had ever sat inside a fighter aircraft.

One day, I asked Nageshwar to find out from his father how exactly two schoolboys could become fighter pilots.

He did.

The answer was straightforward but sounded like a gigantic adventure to us:

Sainik School → NDA → training → fighter pilot.

That was enough.

We decided we were going to Sainik School.

Operation: Sainik School

Halfway through Class 5, we announced our ambition to our parents.

My father knew very little about Sainik Schools at that point. He probably had other ideas for me. I was good at academics, reasonably good at sports and, from his perspective, perhaps destined for some conventional professional career.

But I was determined.

My father investigated the admission process, completed the formalities and I appeared for the entrance examination in Hyderabad.

Both Nageshwar and I cleared it.

We were then called for an interview for admission to Sainik School Korukonda. Unfortunately, the interview date clashed with my Class 5 final examinations.

My father wrote to the school requesting another date.

The answer was essentially:

“We don’t conduct interviews twice for one candidate.”

But then came an unexpected twist. Since I was a native of Kerala, they directed me to attend the interview being conducted later in Trivandrum for admission to Sainik School Kazhakootam.

The dates were perfect. I could finish my Class 5 examinations and then attend the interview.

And that is how a boy from an Air Force station in Dundigal found himself travelling to Trivandrum, unknowingly heading toward one of the most defining chapters of his life.

My Mother’s Battle

There was, however, one major obstacle.

My mother.

She was completely against the idea.

It wasn’t that she disliked the Air Force. Quite the opposite. But the thought of sending her ten-year-old son to a residential military school was unbearable.

My father was regularly transferred. They were posted in different parts of the country. And now her son was going to be sent away to a boarding school where she could not see him whenever she wanted.

She resisted.

But I was relentless.

Then, as fate would have it, my mother’s own family came to my rescue—or perhaps betrayed her.

Four of her six uncles had served in the Air Force. Two of the eldest had actually served during the British period in India.

They told her, in effect:

“If the boy wants to go, let him go. Look at how well we lived during our service and how well we are taken care of even after retirement. He is good in studies, good in sports and already has the ambition. Let him pursue it.”

They had also recognised something my mother perhaps didn’t want to acknowledge yet:

There was a spark in the boy.

My mother’s resistance gradually collapsed.

Reluctantly, she agreed.

I cleared the interview and now had one more hurdle before I could officially become a Sainik School cadet—the medical examination, scheduled about a month later.

And then, while waiting for my medicals, I did what any sensible ten-year-old aspiring fighter pilot would do.

I broke my arm.

The Great Jasmine Operation

It happened during the summer vacation when the whole family had gathered in Palakkad.

Being from a Palakkad Nair family, I had quite a collection of murapennus—my father’s sisters’ and cousins’ daughters who were traditionally considered prospective brides within the extended family.

At that age, I had developed quite a fan following among them.

I also considered myself their personal protector, hero and all-purpose problem solver.

One day, my closest murapennu asked me to pluck some jasmine flowers from the higher branches of a plant.

I surveyed the situation like a military officer assessing a tactical obstacle.

The jasmine plant was too high.

But there was a guava tree conveniently nearby.

Perfect.

I climbed the guava tree, reached toward the jasmine plant and began plucking flowers. I deputed my younger brother to collect them from the ground and put them into a cloth.

The operation was progressing beautifully.

Until the guava tree decided to terminate the mission.

The tree was slippery. While reaching for a farther branch, I lost my grip and came crashing down.

When I looked at my right arm, it appeared to be slightly bent in a direction that human arms are generally not supposed to bend.

My brother and my murapennu ran to report the disaster.

The entire family came rushing.

I was in considerable pain, but I refused to cry.

After all, I had an image to maintain.

My murapennus were watching.

The Fighter Pilot’s First Casualty

We rushed to a well-known orthopaedic doctor in Palakkad.

The X-ray revealed a hairline fracture.

The doctor asked my father and uncle to hold my other arm and legs. He then took hold of my fractured arm.

Before doing anything, he congratulated me on getting admission to Sainik School.

Then, without much ceremony, he gave the arm a sudden pull and twist.

I screamed.

I also kicked my uncle, who happened to be holding my legs.

The doctor put on the plaster cast and told us to return after a month.

I came home looking like a decorated war hero—except that my decoration was a massive plaster cast on my right arm, hanging proudly in a sling.

My murapennus welcomed me as though I had returned from a successful military operation.

At least, that is how I interpreted their reaction.

My paternal grandmother, however, had a more accurate assessment of my military prowess.

She jokingly remarked in Malayalam:

“Murapenninu mullappoo parikkan poya veeran kayyum odichittu vannu.”

The brave warrior who went to pluck jasmine flowers for his murapennu had returned with a broken arm.

My biggest concern, however, wasn’t the embarrassment.

It was the medical examination.

My entire Sainik School dream was now hanging—quite literally—on that plaster cast.

Fortunately, two days before the medical examination in Trivandrum, the cast was removed.

The fracture had healed perfectly.

The only evidence left was that my right arm looked unusually thin after spending a month in what felt like a military detention facility.

I cleared the medicals.

And then, in June 1983, the letter arrived.

I was going to Sainik School Kazhakootam.

And, ironically, after all those dreams we shared under the skies of Dundigal, I still do not know whether my co-dreamer and childhood friend, Nageshwar Rao, ever made it to a Sainik School—or where his own journey took him.

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Part II - The Day the Boy Became a Cadet

I was ecstatic.

After all the examinations, interviews, medicals, parental negotiations and, of course, the Great Jasmine Disaster, I had finally secured admission to Sainik School Kazhakootam.

I happily travelled with my father to Trivandrum.

For me, this was the beginning of the journey toward my ultimate dream:

NDA.

And after NDA:

Fighter pilot.

I had the entire career plan figured out at the age of ten.

The admission formalities were completed. I was handed over to the care of the matron.

And then my father said goodbye.

That was when reality struck.

Until that moment, I had been excited about uniforms, discipline, aircraft and becoming a fighter pilot.

Suddenly, I was a ten-year-old boy watching his father walk away.

I cried.

My father consoled me and assured me that one of his Air Force friends in Trivandrum would act as my guardian, visit me and take care of me.

Still, weekends were difficult.

Other boys would have their parents visit with homemade savouries and feed them.

I had no such luxury.

My guardian came once a month.

Back at the Air Force Academy, my mother was missing me terribly.

She insisted that I be brought to Hyderabad during the ten-day Christmas vacation.

The journey itself consumed almost four days—two days each way by train—leaving me barely six days with her.

But those six days were pure indulgence.

My mother pampered me like never before.

Returning to Sainik School was another matter.

I travelled back alone, entrusted to the care of another Air Force uncle travelling to Trivandrum.

I was terribly homesick throughout the journey.

My guardian and his family received me at Trivandrum Railway Station.

Seeing my gloomy face, they immediately took me to a movie:

“Ente Mamattukkuttiyammakku.”

Baby Shalini did what the Indian Air Force and my guardian had failed to do—she cheered me up.

Within about six months, the homesickness disappeared.

I settled into Sainik School life.

The little boy who had cried watching his father walk away slowly became a cadet.

The uniforms became familiar.

The discipline became routine.

The hostel became home.

And the homesickness gradually gave way to something stronger—a sense of purpose.

I had a mission.

Study hard.

Excel in sports.

Get into NDA.

Become a fighter pilot.

It was a simple plan.

I had already seen the aircraft.

I had already chosen the profession.

I had already imagined myself in the cockpit.

All that remained was to make it happen.

Or so I thought.

Because somewhere ahead, without my knowledge, destiny had already started writing a very different flight plan.

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Part III - The Fighter Pilot I Never Became

For the first few years at Sainik School Kazhakootam, I lived with one overriding ambition:

NDA—and then the cockpit of a fighter aircraft.

I approached everything with that dream in mind.

Then, in Class 7, destiny introduced its first serious objection.

I had to start wearing spectacles.

For a boy dreaming of becoming a fighter pilot, this was not a minor inconvenience. It was potentially the end of the dream.

My family refused to give up immediately.

Through one of my uncles, we consulted a homeopathy doctor who gave us hope that the power could somehow be corrected.

I took the medicines for years.

Unfortunately, my eyesight didn’t improve.

But the medicine did have one unintended side effect.

The sugar pills contained alcohol.

And alcohol has a habit of announcing its presence.

Years later, when I was in Class 10 in Ashoka Seniors, our housemaster, SVS Sir, apparently became suspicious of the smell coming from my cupboard.

One day, he came checking whether I had been secretly stocking alcohol in the dormitory.

He must have been imagining a completely different kind of Class 10 delinquent.

Instead, he found homeopathic medicine.

My cupboard had unintentionally acquired the reputation of a bootlegger’s den.

The fighter-pilot dream, however, was quietly slipping away.

The First SSB

I continued through Sainik School and completed Class 12.

Immediately after my board examinations, I was called for the Army SSB at Allahabad.

That meant missing practically all the traditional Class 12 farewell celebrations and functions.

I went to Allahabad hoping that perhaps the military career I had dreamed of since childhood could still become reality.

Thirty-six candidates appeared.

Only eight were selected.

I wasn’t one of them.

For the first time, I had to seriously consider the possibility that my childhood dream might remain exactly that—a childhood dream.

I returned home and turned my attention to engineering.

I cleared the Kerala Engineering Entrance Examination with a good rank and secured admission to NSS College of Engineering, Palakkad, in Mechanical Engineering—the branch I wanted.

There was one pleasant surprise.

Three of my Sainik School batchmates also joined the same college, though in Electrical and Civil Engineering.

The Air Force connection was refusing to disappear completely.

The Second Chance I Walked Away From

During my first year of engineering, I was again called for an Army SSB at Bhopal for selection to the NDA.

This time, I chose not to go.

Perhaps the fighter-pilot dream had finally been pushed into some distant corner of my mind.

Or perhaps I had simply started thinking more pragmatically about life.

Engineering was progressing well, and a conventional professional career seemed increasingly attractive.

Then, in my seventh semester, I saw an advertisement that changed everything.

The Indian Air Force was recruiting engineering graduates for Permanent Commission and Short Service Commission in the engineering branch.

The Air Force had come looking for me.

Or perhaps I had been waiting for it.

By then, my younger brother had also joined the Air Force in the SEW trade.

Ironically, this time my family advised me not to join.

Their argument was practical.

They warned me that as an engineer in the Air Force, promotion beyond Wing Commander could be limited because of the availability of vacancies at the higher ranks.

You may have to live and retire like a “Ghuta hua Wing Commander” as the saying went those days.

They strongly suggested that, with my academic record, I should join a good private company, build a career and perhaps go abroad.

It was sound advice.

It was also completely irrelevant to what I felt.

Because this wasn’t about career planning anymore.

It was about unfinished business.

I had missed becoming a fighter pilot.

I wasn’t prepared to miss the Air Force altogether.

So I told my family:

“I will apply for the Short Service Commission. If I get selected, I will serve for six years and then come out and pursue other opportunities.”

That was the agreement.

I applied.

Ninety-Two Went In. Two Came Out.

My SSB was at Mysore.

Ninety-two candidates appeared.

Only two were selected.

I was one of them.

The boy who had spent his childhood looking at fighter aircraft from the road outside the Air Force Academy had finally found his way inside.

On 29 May 1995, I was commissioned into the Indian Air Force as an Aeronautical Engineer (Mechanical).

After years of watching aircraft from below, I finally wore the uniform.

Not as a fighter pilot.

But as an Air Force officer.

And that distinction mattered much less to me than it might appear.

Because the dream had never really been about the designation.

It was about belonging to the Air Force.

Three Men, One Uniformed Family

For a brief period, something quite special happened.

From May 1995 until my father’s retirement on 31 May 1997, my father, my younger brother and I were all serving in the Indian Air Force simultaneously.

Three members of the same family.

Three Air Force careers.

Three uniforms.

My father, who had served for 37 years, had initially opposed my decision to join as an engineer.

But when I finally got commissioned, he was immensely proud.

There is, however, one thing I deliberately never did.

I never visited him in uniform with my officer rank.

Why?

Because I knew what would happen.

My father was an old Air Force man.

If his son, now an officer, had walked into his presence in uniform, his instinct would have been to get up and salute.

And I would have been mortified.

So we avoided the situation altogether.

Sometimes the most profound father-son moments don’t require a salute.

Six Years Later

I had made an agreement with my father and brother.

Six years.

I would serve my Short Service Commission tenure and then move on.

So, on 29 May 2001, exactly six years after my commissioning, I completed my tenure and left the Indian Air Force.

I had not become the fighter pilot I had imagined when I was ten.

I had not spent my career flying combat aircraft.

But I had achieved something that, in retrospect, was perhaps more meaningful.

I had completed the journey from watching aircraft in the sky as a little boy to standing on the ground as an Air Force officer.

The cockpit never became mine.

The uniform did.

The Air Force Never Really Let Me Go

One might think that leaving the Air Force in 2001 marked the end of the story.

It didn’t.

It merely changed the nature of the relationship.

I continued to maintain close associations with my serving and retired course mates, officers with whom I had worked, and the many Kazhaks who went on to serve or retire from the Armed Forces.

The Air Force remained woven into my life.

Perhaps it always will.

When I look back, the journey seems almost amusingly circular.

I was born into an Air Force family.

I spent my childhood on Air Force stations.

I watched aircraft from the road and dreamed of flying them.

I became obsessed with becoming a fighter pilot.

I joined Sainik School to pursue that dream.

I lost the dream because of spectacles.

I went to engineering college.

I turned down another opportunity to pursue NDA.

Then, just when I thought the Air Force chapter was over, I saw an advertisement and walked straight back into it.

I entered as an engineer instead of a fighter pilot.

I served six years.

And then I left.

But perhaps the most important thing is this:

I never really left the Air Force.

The boy who used to look up at the sky every morning is still somewhere inside me.

Only now, when I hear the roar of an aircraft overhead, I don’t just look up and wonder what it would be like to fly one.

I look up with the quiet satisfaction of someone who, despite all the twists, turns, spectacles, broken arms, failed SSBs and a few missed opportunities, eventually found his way home.

Not to the cockpit.

But to the uniform.