AFOVA New Letter 2 of Year 2021

Section 6 - Memoirs CV 2 No. 02 / 2021 Page 133 of 332 3 Cometh The Hour Cometh The Man Maj V Raghavan VSM Genre: Travelogue ne of my bucket list wishes amongst other things is a Konkan road trip. All of us have heard so much about the beauty of that stretch. But it was surprising that I could not find a man who had done that whole stretch. Most guys were either like me who had touched the coast and been to Goa or like Ajit Kulkarni who went to their Konkan origin birthplace but close to Bombay. Golden Jubilee celebrations at AFMC (1968-2018) gave the opportunity and we, Navneeth and I, grabbed it with both hands. The vendors from whom we had ordered mementos also helped the cause by delaying the delivery so much that the only way they could have reached Poona on time travelling in my car. My car Toyota Innova was like a pick-up truck when we left. The drive up was going to be plain Jane like, reaching Poona by the conventional route, Madras- Bangalore-Belgaum-Poona. Guru, my classmate, was excited about driving up in his new Mercedes, bought just a few days before the journey. He wanted to book the stay at Belgaum at Marriots there. I had said I’d take care of it and he was worried. First hour: Navneeth and I went to have a game at the golf course and Col Francis was just finishing his. Col Francis is from the Maratha Infantry and their centre is in Belgaum. I told him my requirement and the purpose. He said he was leaving town next morning but promised to try. By late evening there was a message two guest rooms had been booked. Col Francis was the cometh the man of our first hour. Incidentally Col Francis is a military historian and has written a few books. We left for Bangalore on 28th January. We were crossing Kanchipuram, famous for ancient temples and silks, the capital of Pallava dynasty. We decided to visit our family deity at Varadaraja temple, built sometime in the first millennium. It was a Sunday and there was a milling crowd, festivities were on. It looked hopeless, a visit to the sanctum. Then there appeared an orthodox pundit whose name I did not know but I had operated on his grandfather who was a great Vedic scholar and whom, out of reverence I had operated free. This must have been two decades ago. Not a word was exchanged, the young Brahmin just did an about turn, led us to the sanctum. I was given the full temple honours and we were out O