Remembering Friends!!

Deepawali is that time of the year when one opens up the closed drawers and boxes to check what is to be retained and what to give away. It is also an opportunity for me to see the old photograph albums and relive those good days.


And so it happened that going through my NDA album, I chanced upon a photograph which has seen 28 Deepawalis pass. My kid did not recognise me in the snap.


The snap has Laxmi Narayana Sahu, Ashok Karadi and self in the foreground and some other cadets in the background. The occasion is Deepawali celebration in our Squadron.


Sahu was a good boxer and a very good cross-country runner. I remember that he used to help me in practising for the physical training tests, at which I was not good. Barely used to clear the mandatory tests. Sahu always encouraged me whenever I showed signs of giving up. He had got commissioned into the Madras Regiment. He died under unfortunate circumstances.
Ashok Karadi was a great athlete and he used to sketch as well. In fact I still have a sketch of Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore he made for me. Karadi joined the Navy and went on to become a navigator in Naval aviation. Karadi was in an IL38 which was involved in an accident with another aircraft during a flypast commemorating 25 years of their unit. He did not survive.