About War Hero
Flight Lieutenant Prabhakar was an Indian Air Force fighter pilot stationed in an air force station near the Indo- Pakistan border. During a formation flying of five aircraft, towards the end while trying to land back, Prabhakar experienced a problem with the undercarriage and he had to do belly landing with no injuries to him, but minor damage to the plane. As per the procedure, he was admitted to the army hospital for observation and during the whole night his girlfriend doctor Sneha, the daughter of the station commander, Air Commodore Sinha, stayed in the hospital and looked after him.
Prabhakar took twenty days’ leave and went home to Kochi. There he met his uncle, aunty, and their daughter Preethi, who had come from Punjab. The intention behind their visit was to fix up the marriage of Preethi with Prabhakar, which all the elders had planned and agreed with from their childhood. But, Prabhakar was not in favor of that as he had in his mind his childhood girlfriend Sujatha, a local MLA’s daughter, who resided as his neighbor. After giving the green signal to Sujatha for their marriage, her father Rajesh contacted Kishan Lal, Prabhakar’s father, and expressed his willingness to go through the formalities. When this matter was known to Preethi, she became upset and insisted on her parents to go back to Punjab, but they were forced to stay back till the marriage ceremony between Prabhakar and Sujatha was over. The marriage date was fixed before the expiry of Prabhakar’s leave period.
On the day of marriage, Preethi tried to commit suicide by cutting her wrist in vain and she was immediately hospitalized. On the next day, she was brought back from the hospital. Prabhakar had requested the Air Force authorities, in view of his marriage, for extension of leave by ten days, but was not granted and instead was asked to rejoin as planned.
During the journey back, from Air Force station Thambaram where they had gone to meet some friends, Prabhakar learned that there was tension on the border and military personnel were being recalled back from leave. During the journey from Madras to New Delhi by GT express, Flying Officer John of his station was also in the same cabin and he learned that his leave was also canceled and recalled.
When Prabhakar reached his Air Force station, he could learn that the situation was very tense. Every day two aircraft were always in the sky capping the area anticipating possible attacks from the enemy. All personnel was asked to send their families back, but few officers withheld them in their quarters. Prabhakar who was staying with Sujatha in the bachelor’s room shifted to share with his unit colleague Flight Lieutenant Ahluwalia. On 3rd December 1971, the Pakistani aircrafts bombarded many Indian airfields near the border areas. On 4th December Indian armed forces retaliated. From that Air Force station, many aircraft took off and caused immense damage to the enemy, but two aircraft did not return. One of them was wing commander Mukherji, the unit commander. On the next day, many aircraft took off with maximum destructive materials and one among them was Prabhakar. He did all tasks assigned to him, but while bombing an ammunition dump he was hit by anti-aircraft guns. But, without caring for his own safety, he caused maximum damage to the enemy and then bailed out.
He landed on top of a tree and somehow managed to get down by cutting one side rope of the parachute, with which he made a hammock and took a rest. Few Pakistanis soldiers caught him and were taken to a bunker where he was subjected to heavy torture to get secret information from him. But, he refrained from divulging any, in spite of their constant torture. Inside the bunker, he saw two girls looking after the interests of the soldiers. After midnight, when the soldiers were drunk and asleep, one girl helped him to escape from there. While coming out, he managed to grab one grenade which he used to destroy the whole bunker with all soldiers and entire wireless equipment along with the girl who helped him to escape, for which he felt sad and was unavoidable.
He had no idea in which direction he should walk to reach India. On the next morning, by judging the direction of the sun, he started his long journey. He had to spend many days in the jungle and had to fight his sickness and hunger. He ate leaves, fruits, and uncooked fish he caught from rivulets and drank water from that, and spent many days. He continued his journey with firm determination to reach the motherland. There was one person he met who helped him to cross the border.
After crossing the border when he entered the homeland, he met with unsolicited attacks from the villagers, thinking that he was a Pakistani. He was tortured and was ill-treated until got the help of a minor girl who informed the medical team who had come for a free medical camp in that village. Luckily the medical team was from his own unit and once he was identified, he was taken back to the station where he met his wife Sujatha who was fully confident of his return in spite of compulsion from many corners to return to Kerala.
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M K Devidasan is a graduate engineer in Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering with Post Graduate Diploma in Business Management. He had served the Indian Air Force for 32 years as a Technical Officer. During his tenure, he had participated in the 1962 Indo-China war, 1965 Indo – Pak war, and 1971 Indo – Pak war.
His first work of an English poem book was published by Geetha Publishing house, New Delhi in 1976. His first novel was published by Writer’s Workshop, Kolkata in the year 1993 which was digitized by the Michigan University.
Since turning his passion into a profession, M K Devidasan has written prolifically and is constantly exploring new themes, genres, and ideas. It’s incredibly hard work, but he is never happier than when he sits down at his desk putting the opening words to a new book or story on paper