AFVOA Newletter August 2020

Section 5 - Memoirs CV 2 No. 02 / 2020 Page 122 of 237 that evening! A virtual Bodhi Tree sprang up from nowhere and that is when I realized what I had been missing all my life! Poet Kalidasa wouldn’t have felt very different when Goddess Saraswathi bestowed enlightenment on him by writing on his tongue! I could literally feel a warm glow descend on me virtually, instantly pitchforking me to the most elusive social gracefulness! That Ladies and Gentlemen, is how the cookie crumbled! Involuntarily I clinked my glass with the Colonel who was more happier than I. Tailpiece One : I was in touch with my good friend Col K till 1995 through exchange of New Year Cards, but it all stopped abruptly thereafter. In 1997, I ran into another Afghan Army Officer in Delhi Airport while in transit and enquired about the Colonel. Sure enough, he knew. The good Col was grievously injured in a suicide bomb attack in Kabul during 1993, discharged from the Army and relocated to his home town Herat, near the western border with Iran. This Officer promised to share the Col’s address but that never happened. Tailpiece Two : If ever I have given an impression that I took to alcohol like a fish to water after my first drink, it would be a perfect anti-climax! Life progressed as it were, with a discreet Scotch here and a thoughtful Single Malt there. Looking back, I would like to believe that I matured into a perfect social drinker and a connoisseur of Single Malts. And, all three women in my life, my Mom, Wife and Daughter have contributed to my Bar collection some time or the other – a rare accomplishment for the male of the species in India, more so in South India. More on this in a later post! Do you now believe that the incorruptible could be corrupted? I do. Jai Hind! About the Author Wg Cdr C Ravishankar was commissioned into the Accounts Branch of IAF in June 1977. His indoctrination into EDP was during 1984 in Military College of Telecommunications Engineering (MCTE), Mhow. He had a long tenure of 5 ½ years at a stretch in EDPWing of AFCAO, revamping the computerized Officers Pay System between 1985 and 1990. Many of his colleagues knew him to be the ‘F 1517 man’ (F 1517 is the AF Officers’ Pay Slip, which underwent many refinements during this period). He is a graduate of the DSSC, Wellington. He also holds PG degrees in Business Administration and Computer Applications. He availed PMR in Jul 1998 to make Chennai his permanent home and to make a second career in IT.