Sumit Mukerji And The Tempo

THOSE WERE THE DAYS

Air Force Station, Tezpur, bred the by-word of that era in the corporeal shape of a Sqn Ldr Parsuraman. His aim in life was very simple: to stay drunk. An excellent Met Offr, he was at his sharpest at the half-bottle stage. A fair Bridge player, he would carry on playing till he toppled off the chair. He would then request one of us to get him up, put him on the hazily lit road and point him towards our billets. He would then weave his way towards the billets, turn right as the first billet appeared and stick his left arm out horizontally, something rather unusual even for Bacchus. Later, he confessed ; His arm was to impact the pillars of the verandah of our living-in barracks and he would count each hit. At the count of nine, he would turn hard right and fall forwards, collapsing onto his bed, put in place precisely by his orderly. He never missed.

The Base  Ops  Offr would double as the Duty  Offr.  No vehicle was provided for the rounds, as they were far too noisy. One borrowed a pal’s 2-wheeler to go about his checks. Dark nights were terrifying, with stories of Hyenas and Jackals abounding. The darkness was Stygian, with dense vegetation, Sal Forest et al . Dinky Shaheed, RIP,  was into his 4^th large when somebody reminded him of his duty. He sprinted out, climbed aboard the nearest Lamby and set off. Luckily, all turns into the technical area were left turns. Having got in, he discovered to his horror that the scooter could not turn right ! Just his luck, that night was the Hyenas night out. He went onto the wagon for one full month. 

       The Army ran the RSI Club in town and we would drop in unannounced aiming to get into a scrap. We would drive down in Tushar Sen's Hindustan, which had no doors. Good fun, the drive as well as the scrap. The Army didn't find anything funny, but when did an Army Pongo have a sense of humour? The crowning glory was the hijack of a Tempo, which had a pull/push rod system for Gears. I have never yet seen anybody who could get into reverse gear from the top apart from young Mukho, who promptly overturned, luckily without injury. When you next meet Air Marshal Sumit 'Chunks' Mukerji, now retired, ask him about L the B.