The Killer,The Death machine – MIGs
This post has been on my mind for sometime now and every time I watch Rang De Basanthi it makes me more desperate to write this one.So this post is dedicated to my brave and precious brother Mohan. No, correction its got to be Late Sqn Ldr Mohan Kumar, one of the most daring, very capable and absolutely talented pilot of Indian Air Force.
His name gets me a faint memory of a handsome person with an height of more than 6 Feet, smart and who was extremely loved by all in the family. A person who could only be a epitome of love, sacrifice and lots of dreams. Someone who always had a dimpled smile to die for.I met him when I was around 13 or so… He was my cousin, a cousin quite different from the others. He was affectionate and would take me around his farm and tell me lovely stories. My Dad was always proud of him, not because he was a part of the Indian Air Force, but because he was one of finest pilots that Air force could have produced. He got promoted to the post of Squadron leader much ahead of his peers and was always appreciated by his superiors. He never told me stories of air crafts or of MIG 21s that he used to fly though I pestered him for it. I wanted to be a pilot just like him and that was my ambition then. Yes he used to fly the MIG-21s, supposed to be crowned as the best Indian Air force had. I must have seen him in quite a few occasions as my vacations never matched with his and my visits to Kerala was seldom once a year. But we used to have long chats with the family whenever he was around.
He was married just a little more than a year before he died in a plane crash on 13 Oct 2000 in Bikaner. That was probably the moment his newly wed bride would have never dreamed off. The ill fate that took away the life of a very young and loved man. I still remember that just a few weeks before this incident there were a series of crashes of the MIG – 21s and they were named as the death machine. Many pilots lost their lives and many were lucky to Eject. I used to wonder why the govt did not take any action to stop these accidents from happening, and that they had to be in the junk yards than in the air killing pilots.
The 13 Oct 2000 will remain in my head and heart as the day when I lost my brave brother. I was shocked and in tears to hear the brave act he put in order to save a village that was under the plane that had lost its controls and could have become the crash site. Officially only one person was killed but they say many could have been. That day he might have never thought that his routine training flight would be the killer machine for him. he dint eject fearing how many could have died, he let his life sacrifice for the tens and hundreds to be saved.I salute him and the act that he put up. Rang De Basanthi is one such movie I really love cos I see my Brother in Madhavan’s role. Yes MIGs were the killer machines, the machine that took away lives of so many pilots who werent supposed to die. I came across a site which showed that 22 incident occured in the year 2000 alone where MIGs either crashed killing the pilot or many ejected and all this due to the malfunctioning of these outdated machines. Govt did finally stop using these machines for trainings as well, but then it was late.
I still go to the place where he was buried and his mom has that pain even now I can feel. The loss of her young son is something none of us can even imagine. I feel it too for he was a loving person very dear to God. He wanted to live long, wanted to love his parents, be in the house he built for his family and live many lives as a son,a husband, a brother… when his body(hardly any of it was found) was bought to Palakkad his home town there was a lightening strike and people who dug his grave, couple of them died in the lightening that stuck there. His mother who witnessed this told us – “He dint want to go… he went after he saw us and took along with him 6 people”. For her the time stopped. His grandmother could not stop crying cos he was her favorite grandson. And for me the site of the charred tree hit due to lightening and his grave is the sign that he died before his time. It brings tears of my eyes even after a decade f his death when I go there. I am in tears everytime I see RDB and I never wanted to be a pilot after that.
I love you Mohan etta and RIP.
To all the people in the Indian armed forces(AF,Army and Navy) I salute your bravery and wish that you all live long…
I did not know this, about your cousin. Its shocking and sad. It is such a gruesome thing of the Government to have let the junk planes operate and gamble with the lives of our pilots/trainees. Hope we wont see such incidents in future.