AFOVA New Letter 2 of Year 2021

Section 7 – Panorama CV 2 No. 02 / 2021 Page 279 of 332 14 Silver Coins........a True Story AVM Rajiv Hora Genre: Reminiscence ewspapers in the last few days have been awash with Mehul Choksi’s potboiler exploits which appear to give the James Bond franchise a run for their money. Not that earlier episodes of Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi were any less exciting but Season 3 of ‘ India’s Most Wanted Fugitives’ takes it to an altogether different level. While I soak in these runaway-bride dramas on a daily basis, my analogical thoughts can’t help but go back to a chance meeting with a fascinating man, 'also in distress' more than three decades back. Year of the Lord 1989, it was. Posted to a fighter squadron in Gorakhpur, life was simply restricted to flying three sorties per day and far removed from the ways of the world. One big stress-buster in those days used to be the annual Squadron Mela (fete) which was conducted with lot of fan-fare and gusto. The squadron families, especially the children used to look forward to the event with great anticipation. Fun-rides, games stalls, food counters, raffle and sporting events; it used to be a joyous occasion spread over two days. Money to finance the show however used to be always short and we used to resort to sponsorship from local contractors, businesses and organizations in the form of advertisement pages in the annual squadron booklet. Such a practice would evidently be frowned upon in today’s world of probity checks and conflict-of-interest issues. But in those days, no one ever saw anything wrong in such an action in the name of squadron-spirit. So prior to one such grand mela, yours truly found himself nominated as the Chief Fund Raiser or CFR for short. Taking my duties of CFR very seriously, I set about my liaison activities in right earnest to get in touch with prospective donors who would buy my story about contributing to national security if they bought a Page (or even a half) in the squadron magazine with most of the articles repeated almost every alternate year. One lazy winter morning, my search for one such prospect took me to the premises of a rather well-known real-estate Developer in town. The Developer’s office was a fairly big edifice in the heart of the city. While I was being ushered into the building, I could not help but notice a fairly large number of people squatting peacefully in the waiting hall. The mood was sombre and a local tea-stall boy handing over small glasses of the hot elixir, was the only activity that was noticeable. N