AFVOA Newletter August 2020

Section 5 - Memoirs CV 2 No. 02 / 2020 Page 97 of 237 became the Chief of Army in free India. But I do remember Capt Lakshmi Swaminathan. (Netaji’s Indian National Army). I also had the good fortune to listen to her addressing a small gathering of a curious and interested audience out on the road. Her image, representing “Courage and Bravery” of an extraordinary woman of that era, is still fresh in my mind, though little is known of her among the young members of today’s generation. Alongside the war years, was Mahatma Gandhi’s call for the fight for independence which resonated, the magic words, “Quit India” in every household, every educational institution and every corner, even in the small towns, when the only means of communication was through the newspapers and the radio. Waiting to catch a glimpse of Mahatma Gandhi’s address at a prayer meeting in the crowded open ground, in Madras, and stilled, when catching a glimpse of him, even from a distance, volunteering services there, and sadly, in 1948, being part of the long walk from Mount Road where the urn containing the ashes of the Mahatma had been kept for public homage and later moving along with the procession for its immersion, in the Marina Beach- memories are all still live and fresh. It was Post Independence that brought Defence Services with the British Administration into becoming our own Defence arms.