AFVOA Newsletter of Year 2021

Section 3 – Value Add / Special Tasks CV 2 No. 01 / 2021 Page 30 of 123 an open invitation to all our members, the fourth objective – that of “Exchange Military News and Views” is well served too. A measure of the degree of enthusiasm of the members can be gauged by the sequence of events on a typical meeting day. In order to connect all the dots as a pre-requisite for live streaming, the Technical Consultant logs into Zoom at 10:25 AM (for a 11 AMmeeting), only to find Gp Capt and Mrs Mohandas are already there waiting, with the unmissable decorative piece of an angel carrying a torch in the background! A शुभ शगुन to indicate that things would go just fine as planned! This gracious couple were beaten at their own game just once, only once, when Col Balaswamy had logged in 4 hours in advance of the event (of Dr Sudha Raghunathan), not wanting to miss the event at any cost! The author of this article, while doing a dry run at 7 AM on that day, was pleasantly surprised to see an attendee logging in hours in advance of the event. In a matter of nano seconds between them, the next set of attendees are always Brig V A Subramanyam and Col A Krishnaswami Vr C VSM & Bar. The ever-ebullient Ms Premilla Rajan is invariably the next one to join in, at times with her mid morning cuppa of Horlicks. All these happen by 10:30 AM, a clear 30 minutes before the event proper. While the President and the Secretary (also the Moderator) take their places at this time, some of the regulars start coming in - Brig T M Sridharan, Maj Gen Chander Govindaswami, Wg Cdr Ravi Mani, Col N Viswanathan, Air Cmde S K Jayarajan, Maj Gen Jose Manavalan, Maj Gen U Rajavelu, Wg Cdr S Sukumar. Wg Cdr A N Arun Kumar (with the sacred north face of Mount Kailash in the background), Dr Rukmini Gopal, Brig Jagannathan, Brig Barathan, Brig Muthulaxmy, Air Cmde K Rajaram, Gp Capt K Balasubramanian, Col Natarajan, Wg Cdr P Arulanandam, Capt D P Ramachandran – to name only a few. Special mention need be made of the regular and unflinching patronage from