AFVOA Newsletter 03 of 2020

Section 5 - Memoirs CV 2 No. 03 / 2020 Page 142 of 167 19 Penning History Sudhir Kumar Khanna Genre: Military History hat kind of pens are being manufactured these days?" lamented Brig C V. Bhandari, MVC, when the expensive, gold-capped ballpoint pen refused to write. It was after the ceremonial guest dinner in our mess and the visitor's book was to be signed. "This dry weather is the root-cause," he shook the pen vigorously. I took out my pen frommy pocket, rubbed the nib, checked whether it was moist and handed over to him. Brig Bhandari and I are course mates; we were trained together. We also fought the 1971 war together. He was initially with me on the Eastern border but later shifted to the Akhnoor sector on the western front. On his promotion to the brigadier's rank, he took over the nearby artillery brigade. I had called him over to the Air Force unit I was commanding. "Did you know that in December '71 as many as four pens refused to write?" I asked him, "that the surrender instrument was finally signed with an ordinary pen after anxious moments for both Gen Niazi and Gen Aurora?" "Dacca in any case is not a dry place but it must have been a hot evening with so many helicopters landing with the top brass of all the Services!" he replied. "But weren't you all worried that something could go amiss?" Yes, the possibility was there. The general mood was pro-India and the Ramna Race Course was teeming with more than half a million troops and civil population. A few helicopters had come from Calcutta and a majority had taken off from Agartala. It was late in the afternoon. Only minutes earlier, we had landed in Dacca. The residents of Dacca had thronged the sides of the roads as if to welcome us. All cars, buses and name any other vehicle were loaded with people and were heading towards the Race Course. There was a smart photo journalist from Time magazine and I latched on to him. The Pakistani general definitely looked sad but he was calm and dignified when he handed over his personal weapon to Gen Aurora in a symbolic gesture of surrender. The pistol was accepted and both proceeded to the table to sign the surrender documents. There was much jostling W