A Plate of Fried Prawns

I must admit that I am quite confused about how to string together my story of the day.  When I first thought about writing this story down, it appeared to be quite simple and small, but as I thought about it a little more, it became a jumble of many little stories in a massive knot.   I do want to narrate this story and let my readers enjoy it.    I shall try to untangle the knot and present you with the threads laid out in an orderly fashion.

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My Time with The Bullets-2 : Bounty Hunting

In our young days, our ‘Flying Pay’ element of our remuneration was called ‘Flying Bounty’.    There used to be an injunction in the Air Force Regulations that all officers of the flying branch will do their utmost to keep themselves in current flying practice.    The accounting regulations quantified currency in flying as at least six hours per month when an officer was on a regular flying appointment and at least 3 hours per month when an officer was held against a non-flying appointment.   The Accounting Instructions made such currency in flying a precondition for payment of the ‘Flying Bounty’.    The accounting instruction considered the ‘flying bounty’ to be an annual allowance.   Thus the count of hours that could be considered for qualifying for ‘currency in flying’ would start from the beginning of the financial year.   Any flying done say in March of one year would not count for April of that year.   Conversely, if a person flew 72 hours in April, he could draw flying bounty for the whole financial year without flying a single minute from May to next March.    It was a stupid set of regulation and thank God it has been scrubbed.

My Time with The Bullets-1 : Arrival

It was nearing lunch time on 24 December 1965. I was hungry and fed-up of waiting.  At long last JP returned to his office clutching a file and wearing a broad smile.   He patted my back as he got into his own chair. ‘It is all done’, he said. ‘I have your posting order here.’   JP, my dear friend Jyoti Prasad Gupta, was the Assistant Director Personnel (Officers) -1 and I had just returned from the Royal Air Force Staff College Andover after a year long stay there.   I was being posted to Number 18 Squadron Air Force as a flight Commander.   The Squadron was flying Gnat aircraft and was located at Ambala.    I was replacing Squadron Leader DS Jafa who was moving on to another squadron.    No 18 Squadron had been raised recently, less than a year ago.   It was being commanded by Wing Commander Aubrey Michael, a very respected figure within the Air Force.

Becoming Worldly Wise

My stay in Kolkata with 12(Bengal) NCC Air Squadron was a short one.   I joined the unit in November 1959 and got posted out from the unit by September 1960; it was a couple of months less than a year.