Cab-ride with Frenemy

“…, and never the twain shall meet.”

The Mesopotamian had changed my outlook towards people and life. In the month following my exchange with him, I met people with a mind emptied of all old stories.

The first person I met thereafter was (also) a cab driver of Arab descent; he was as pleased with life as the Mesopotamian. Then, I came across an educated Somali taxi driver who played soothing Somali songs on the car stereo and hummed along. He even explained the song themes to me. Next was a Swede of Nordic ancestry, who remained silent, mostly; smiled, only when he responded to my queries about Sweden. Then there was a Palestinian, a part of whose name was synonymous with holy war. Hanging from the rear-view mirror of his cab were Palestinian colours. On a green cloth cover draping the head-rest of the driver’s seat was printed matter in Arabic which Google translated for me as: “The Green Giant.” Maybe it had something to do with consciousness about the environment. In passing, he expressed sorrow for what was happening in Gaza and sympathised with his brethren he had left behind to fend for themselves.

For good reason, I had started believing in the metamorphosis I had undergone. I even goaded myself to a greatness which is the result of looking at, and treating all people as equal beings. But, poof! It took just another interaction to lay bare how superficial and reversible the change was.

That day, we—my son, Mudit; daughter-in-law, Anjali; granddaughter, Maya and I—were returning late from an outing. Sleep deprivation was making the little one restless. So, we chose to take a cab home instead of a tram. We booked one and waited for it.

On arrival, the cabbie conveyed curtly that it was mandatory to use a baby seat for the toddler. He added that he had one, and he’d would charge us SEK 100 in addition to the fare which was SEK 160. Although I felt he was charging an unfairly high amount for the baby’s seat, we agreed to pay and quickly settled into the cab. I, as usual occupied the front seat, and the rest, filled the rear seats.

“Hum kitni der mein ghar pahunchenge (In how much time will we reach home)?” I asked Mudit with a concern for the baby. My use of Hindi was a matter of natural habit.

“Kareeb aadha ghanta lagega (It’ll take about a half of an hour),” the prompt response came not from Mudit, or Anjali but, surprisingly, from the driver.

I was overwhelmed and surprised to hear the cabbie speak in chaste Hindi. “Aap Hindi bolte hain (You speak Hindi)!” I exclaimed joyously. His accent suggested that he hailed from Jallandhar, Ludhiana or Amritsar, or somewhere there. “He could well be a Satinder, or a Kulwinder or Maninder…,” I imagined.

“I am from Pakistan, and I know Hindi.” said the man boastfully.

Silence!

More silence!

Even more silence!

For me, his matter-of-fact statement broke a barrage of discomforting memories. The menacing waves pushed me many years back, to the year 1965 when India and Pakistan were at war. I was too small then—memory of my childhood days in Ujjain had faded. Yet sitting by the side of the Pak driver, I recalled hazily that one of the sons of an elderly couple staying nearby, was a commissioned officer in the Indian Army. We were all proud of the fact that someone we knew personally was fighting the enemy at the border. Then, one day, came a bit of news which cast a pall of gloom over the entire neighbourhood — he had been taken a prisoner of war (PoW). I never saw him again, but we were told that he was a skeleton of himself when he returned home after the cessation of hostilities.

The 1965 Indo-Pak War gave a different meaning to Pakistan and Pakistani for me—now they were my Enemy Number One.

My train of thoughts chugging along its track was interrupted by the cabbie (let me assign him a name, “Saleem”). “I was born and brought up in Sialkot….”

I remembered Sialkot as the graveyard of Pakistani armour (Indo-Pak War 1965) and one of the targets of our air raids in the war games I had participated in at the College of Air Warfare and the Army War College.

“I love to travel,” Saleem continued with his story. He was blissfully unaware of what was stewing in my head, “I have been to many countries in Europe and to Australia. I have spent many years in Athens and Gothenburg. I used to be a chef but I gave up cooking because, in Gothenburg a cook has to do everything himself, he is even required to clean utensils. There is no help at hand. I don’t like to do those chores. So, I have started driving a cab.” He said, although he was able to make ends meet, life was difficult in Europe.

“What about your family?”

“My wife, siblings and children are in Sialkot. I send them enough money once in a while. They don’t need me. I don’t need them. I am happy glob-trotting. I have spent about five years in Sweden. I might be able to settle here for good. What about you?”

I was expecting that question, but I had not thought of an answer.

“I am a veteran air warrior… Indian Air Force.” I said, and looked at his face to observe his reaction. Given the strained relations between our two countries, I expected diminished warmth from his side.

Both, his answer, and his demeanour surprised me. “Sir, so nice to know that you are from the Indian armed forces. I have a lot of respect for the military. My father was also a fauji.”

That sent me on another trip.

Saleem didn’t look very old. He must have been in his early forties. If his father too was a soldier, we—his father and I—must have donned the military uniforms of our countries around the same time. And, in some situations, we’d have been happy to see each other damned. Or, was his father older? Was he one of the 93,000 who surrendered to the Indian Army in December ’71?”

For a little while I kept wondering about his father’s participation in wars against India. Infiltration in Kashmir…, Mumbai blasts…, Kargil…. Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan, Bhutto, Zia-ul-Haq, Musharraf, Kasab…. Stories! Stories! When my meandering mind took a short break, I realised that the man in the driver’s seat taking me home was not an enemy soldier or a terrorist wielding a weapon. Yet, I was finding it difficult to treat him like anything, but a foe. I started looking for a reason for my thought process.

A fidgety voice inside me said, “But, they had been trying to bleed us through a thousand cuts since 1947.”

A different, calmer, voice argued, “But Saleem, the cabbie is not the same as they. He has caused India no harm. And, having stayed out of Pakistan for so many years, he has had no opportunity to fuel and fan the fires of hatred burning on either side of the fence. Why should he be seen through the same lens as they?”

Notwithstanding the wave after wave of unsettling thoughts inundating me, I was listening to whatever Saleem was saying.

“I have been to Jammu many years ago… when peace prevailed. People there, were so cordial and caring….”

“Peacenik! What is he trying to tell me? Having left Pakistan years ago, he was a Mr Nobody to speak on these issues.” I chugged along—still bellowing clouds of dark black smoke in my head.

“The people on both sides want peace, but….”

At that point, I became more interested and waited for him to complete.

“The people on both sides are fed up; want peace. But the politicians don’t want the relations to improve.” Saleem made a sweeping statement. My experience suggests that a discussion on these lines leads nowhere. So, I didn’t nudge him any further; kept listening to his other stories.

At our destination, Saleem waived off the SEK 100 which he had quoted for the baby seat. It was a big concession considering that he was working hard to make ends meet. More importantly, when we insisted to pay for the baby seat, he declined with a guileless smile. “It’s fine. We are one people. I needn’t charge you for this small facility.”

After some ado, Saleem prevailed and drove off leaving me with a debt of a hundred SEK which, I wonder, I’ll ever be able to repay. More importantly, he left me ruminating with his: “We are one people.”

Comments

Air Commodore Anil Kumar Benipuri (IAF Veteran): This is called Hunny Tirap🥴🥴👌

Gp Capt Siba Sankar Mishra (IAF Veteran): 👌👌👌 Sir nicely written. I somehow love ur style of writing. The spontaneity, the flow of words, the subplots, the story itself. Ur writings have the intensity to grab a reader away from his other train of thoughts instantly. Thanx for sharing and keep sending ….

Aseem Jindal: This true story is not only thrilling but also serves as a profound lesson for our minds. The way you have recounted the entire event is both captivating and thought-provoking. Yet, after all, we too are but human…🙏

The Last Straw: The Air Raid on Government House, Dacca (Indo-Pak War 1971)

The Air Raid on Government House, Dacca (Indo-Pak War 1971) triggered a chain of events that eventually led to the historical surrender of a 93,000 strong Pakistan Army on December 16, 1971.

Many events led to the historic surrender of a 93,000 strong Pakistan Army on December 16, 1971; some stand out. One of them is the bombing of the Government House in Dacca which, according to many historians, was the proverbial last straw which broke the camel’s back. It is interesting how it came about.

In about a week since its breakout on December 3, the Indo-Pak War in the eastern sector had reached a turning point. The Indian Air Force was in command of the skies and was striking Pakistani military targets with impunity. The Indian Navy had achieved a blockade in the Bay of Bengal so that no assistance could reach the battered and bruised Pakistani forces from the sea. The biggest and the most successful paradrop since the Second World War (Tangail, December 11, 1971) had shattered the morale of the Pakistani forces. The Indian Paratroopers who had landed at Tangail had linked up with the troops from the north and had closed in on Dacca. Dacca with 26,400 Pakistani troops was surrounded by 3,000 Indian troops. The numerical asymmetry favoured Pakistan. Hereafter, it would be a bloody street fight between desperate Pakistani troops fighting for survival and the Indian troops and the cadres of Mukti Bahini flushing them out in an effort to wrest control of the city.

The rudderless and helpless Pakistani leadership holed up in Dacca knew that a fortified Dacca would be costly and time-consuming for the Indian troops to capture; holding on to it would give them the possible time needed to clamour for international support, and maybe, get it. Several ceasefire resolutions had already been tabled in the UN. The US, siding with Pakistan had tried to pressurise India in to a ceasefire by moving its aircraft carrier USS Enterprise and other warships into the Bay of Bengal. The Soviet Union had vetoed all the resolutions that did not link a ceasefire with the recognition of the will of the people of East Pakistan. But under diplomatic compulsions, Moscow had conveyed to Delhi that there would be no more vetoes. Under those circumstances, any prolonging of the War would be detrimental to the interest of the freedom fighters seeking independence from Pakistan and for the Indian armed forces who had brought the War so close to a favourable conclusion. Victory and the achievement of the goal was so close, yet so far. Something had to be done before a third party could intervene and ‘thrust’ a ceasefire.

To work out a concrete plan to delay the fall of Dacca until international support could be mustered, Governor Dr AM Malik had called a very high-level meeting in the Government House around mid-day on December 14. The who’s who of the administrative machinery, the military leadership, a few foreign diplomats, the representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross and the UN representative, John Kelly would be present. The main aim was to find a way to bring about a face-saving ceasefire rather than a shameful surrender by the Pakistani Army.

There were several transmissions by the Pakistanis on the radio air waves sharing the details of the meeting called by the Governor. It is a matter of chance that those communications were picked up by a vigilant Wireless Experimental Unit of the Indian Air Force. A flight lieutenant officiating as the Commanding Officer, heard and re-heard those messages because they indicated a congregation of the top Pakistani leadership at a place at a given time. He wasted no time in bringing it to the notice of his ‘higher ups.’

Thereafter things happened really fast. The Signal Intelligence Directorate, Army Command and the Eastern Air Command shared the leak with Delhi. Those in Delhi, realised the strategic importance of the leaked message. To thwart the Pakistani design to manoeuvre a ceasefire or to tether the Indian troops on the periphery of Dacca until ‘help’ arrived, it was imperative to somehow prevent decision making by the Governor. It was of strategic importance to disrupt that planned meeting. The stymieing of the meeting would also send the administration and defence of Dacca into total disarray. With the time of the meeting fast approaching, the window of opportunity to throw a spanner in the works was rather small.

Acting fast, Air Headquarters ordered the Eastern Air Command in the morning of December 14, to strike the Circuit House where the meeting was to take place. The First Supersonics, the MiG-21 fighters of 28 Squadron, Air Force based at Guwahati, were tasked with the responsibility. Wing Commander BK Bishnoi, the Commanding Officer, who had just returned from a close-support mission from Mainamati Cantonment in the morning received the instructions through Group Captain MSD Wollen (Station Commander, Air Force Station, Guwahati).

The time was 10:55 am when Bishnoi was directed to strike the Circuit House in Dacca at 11:20 am. It was a tall order in as much as, the flying time from Guwahati to Dacca was 21 minutes. And, to add to the woes of the pilots, none in the Squadron knew where in Dacca was the Circuit House located. The building was not clearly indicated in the quarter-inch and the one-inch maps available in the Squadron. Under those circumstances, striking the target without causing collateral damage would be difficult.

To help out Bishnoi with the location of the intended target, Wollen produced a tourist map which gave the location of the Circuit House. Even on that map of the city of Dacca, pinpointing a particular crossing and the Circuit House on that crossing in a crowded locality was difficult. How to strike the target in that crammed locality and yet avoid harming the civilian population in the vicinity, must have been uppermost in the mind of a conscientious Bishnoi when he took the tourist map from Wollen and accepted the daunting task. Since time was running out, he decided to fly over Dacca with the tourist map and look for the Circuit House. He could afford that luxury because there was practically no resistance from the Pakistani Air Force.

Four MiG-21 aircraft loaded with 32 High Explosive Rockets each were readied for the mission. It was when Bishnoi was strapping up in the cockpit that one of his officers came running to him and gave him a slip of paper which said that the target was Government House and not Circuit House. A major faux pas was averted.

Once the formation was airborne and was on its way to execute the mission, Bishnoi scanned the tourist map and identified the Government House on it. The other three members of the strike team––Flight Lieutenants Vinod Bhatia, Raghavachari and Malhi––were still oblivious of the last-minute change of the target from Circuit House to Government House. Bishnoi had not announced the change on the R/T, to maintain secrecy to the extent possible.

Barely a minute before the formation was over Dacca, Bishnoi shared the ‘revised’ target information with his team. He described it for them and gave them the approximate location and asked them to look out for it. Bhatia who spotted the Government House first, identified it as a magnificent old styled palatial building with a high dome, in the middle of a lush green compound, eleven o’clock to them, about 500 yards away. A few vehicles were parked on its premises.

Bishnoi orbited once to confirm the identity of the target and then ordered the attack, himself taking the building from the wider side. He aimed at the room below the dome. The others targeted other parts of the building. In two passes, the team fired 128 rockets at the Government House. Two MiG aircraft of No. 5 Squadron Air Force followed Bishnoi’s formation. They made four passes each, firing rockets at their target. The IAF aircraft remained unscathed by the half-hearted firing by the Pakistani anti-aircraft guns

Smoke and dust rose from the seat of Pakistani power in East Pakistan.

Like Wing Commander Bishnoi, Wing Commander SK Kaul, the Commanding Officer of 37 Squadron, Air Force located at Hashimara, too didn’t get much time to prepare. At about 10:30 am on the same day he also received instructions to target the Government House in Dacca. When he raised questions about the location of the building, a young officer of his Squadron came up with a Burmah Shell tourist map of the city of Dacca. It amazed the Commanding Officer to no end. But, according to Kaul, the map was more detailed than the quarter-inch and the one-inch maps used by the pilots. At least, it served the intended purpose at that crucial moment.

Before, the Governor and the people in the Government House could absorb the shock of the rocket attack by the MiG fighters, they were attacked by two Hunter aircraft flown by Wing Commander SK Kaul and Flying Officer Harish Masand, respectively. They made several passes over the target and emptied their guns. On their way back they saw the spectator gallery that was on the rooftop of the Dacca Intercontinental Hotel. Standing atop the hotel building, the foreigners and the media-persons were watching the spectacle at the Government House.

Those in the Government House didn’t have a respite; they didn’t have time to raise their heads. The raid by the duo of Kaul and Masand was followed by a raid by Squadron Leader Bose and Flight Lieutenant Menon. Again, there was a feeble response from the Air Defence elements on the ground. The Indian MiG and Hunter formations had inflicted severe damage on the seat of power in East Pakistan; the air attacks had shattered the pride and morale of the leadership.

Down below, the massive roof of the main hall of the Government House was ripped. There was pandemonium in the building as people ran for cover. The Governor rushed to the air-raid shelter. Between the raids, he quickly scribbled his resignation to General Yahya Khan, the President of Pakistan. He was seen taking off his shoes, washing his hands and feet and kneeling down for prayers in an air raid shelter. Allah alone could save him and the Pakistanis from the wrath of the Indian Armed Forces.

After tendering his resignation, Dr Malik, his Cabinet and the West Pakistani Civil Servants based in the city, made a beeline to the Dacca Intercontinental Hotel, which had been converted into a Neutral Zone by the International Red Cross. As per diplomatic norms Serving Pakistani officials couldn’t have taken refuge in the Hotel. So, the top brass dissociated themselves in writing from the Government of Pakistan to become eligible to get admission in the Neutral Zone.

The same evening, in a desperate bid, Lieutenant General Niazi rushed to Mr Herbert Daniel Spivack, the US Consul-General in Dacca with a request to negotiate a ceasefire with India on Pakistan’s behalf. The American diplomat declined the request outright, instead he offered to ‘send a message’. The air attacks on the Government House in Dacca broke the back of Pakistani command and control in the eastern sector. In the following two days, it took a little more of arm-twisting of Lieutenant General AAK Niazi by Lieutenant General JFR Jacob to make him agree to an unconditional surrender by the Pakistani Army.