Four Miles to Freedom Read online

  They slouched in their seats, heads down, pretending to doze and eventually, at around 2.30 a.m., the bus set off. They were all puzzled by their lack of success in passing themselves off as locals. What was it that gave them away? Not their speech, for they’d hardly said a word. It must be something in their appearance. But none of them, even forty years later, is sure what it was. Grewal still wore his Sikh kada, his steel bracelet, for it wouldn’t come off, but he’d made sure it was tucked up under the sleeve of his shirt. Granted, a long-sleeved dress shirt is not the same as a kurta and looks rather odd worn with a traditional salwar. But the problem may have been the clothes they had saved for the escape—the dress shirts worn by Sinjhi and Grewal, even Dilip’s salwar-kurta were so obviously new, so little worn, that everyone else on the bus looked shabby by comparison. Or maybe it was their canvas shoes. Everyone else was wearing chappals.

  At Attock, halfway to Peshawar, there was a halt. Everyone piled out and sat on benches at a dhaba, drinking cups of milky tea. Apart from the feeble light from the dhaba, the night was still pitch dark. Nearby was the mighty Indus River, which had figured so largely in the debate about escape routes, but they could neither see nor hear it. They could have been anywhere. They could have been at home, stopping at Karnal or Ambala en route to Delhi.

  Christmas Day

  (1971)

  At five o’clock on 25 December, all the POWs in the Pindi camp assembled for a special tea. They were taken, one by one, to a room that would accommodate all of them. By this time most of them had guessed that the camp was a small one for Indian Air Force prisoners only. Some of the able-bodied, who had been captured earlier than Dilip, had already been taken outside to a courtyard where they could warm up in the sun and get some exercise. But on Christmas, all twelve, even the injured, were brought together for a party.

  Dilip found that he knew half of them. Two were his batchmates. He had trained at the flying academy in Jodhpur and again in Secunderabad with Flight Lieutenants Tejwant Singh and Jawahar Lal Bhargava. There was Singh, the only obvious Sikh in the group, with his dark beard and neatly tied white turban. And there was Bhargava, known as Brother Bhargava by all his mates—his high forehead was thrust back as he listened to one man after another and called each one ‘brother’.

  But it had been a long time since his training days, and Dilip had been posted with some of the others, too. Wing Commander Coelho, the most senior officer among the prisoners, had been flight commander of a Hunter squadron Dilip had served in. Coelho, who would be close to forty now, looked somewhat sombre but held himself together, making the rounds and going through the necessary courtesies as senior officer. His hair was beginning to grey, just a little, over the ears.

  At the beginning of the war Coelho had been commanding a squadron on the eastern front. After the IAF quickly gained control of the air there, Coelho and his squadron had been transferred to the western front where fighting was still heavy. He had been shot down on 9 December, the day before Dilip.

  Squadron Leader Jafa, who was second in seniority, was from Dilip’s own squadron, the 26th. He had been serving as Aide de Camp (ADC) to Air Chief P.C. Lal before the war, but had opted to return to active service with his squadron in Adampur. He was shot down on 5 December, the second day of the war. His mates believed he had ejected safely and they were right. Here he was, suffering pain from a spinal injury, but otherwise his urbane, confident self.

  Flight Lieutenant Aditya Vikram Pethia, whom Dilip had encountered already, looked particularly pale and fragile despite his height, and Squadron Leader Kamat, a heavyset fellow, was weighed down further by the casts on his legs.

  Dilip knew another Sikh in the group, Flight Lieutenant M.S. Grewal, who wore his hair short and his beard trimmed. With his grey eyes and brown hair, Grewal could easily pass as a European, or a Pathan for that matter. Dilip and Grewal had been posted at the same station once and had played hockey and squash together.

  The other four pilots, the ones Dilip didn’t know, were several years younger than he was. Apart from Flying Officer Kuruvilla, a tall, fit-looking fellow, none of them was in good shape. Flying Officer Chati, the youngest of the POWs, was long and lanky, too thin really, and one side of his face was bandaged. He said very little and when the cake was cut the poor man ate it with difficulty. Flight Lieutenant Harish Sinjhi was a slightly built young man with a thick head of hair, long eyelashes, and broad lips. Good-looking in a boyish way, if it weren’t for the scrapes and bruises. Flying Officer Mulla-Feroze, a little older than the other junior men, and certainly the most pugnacious despite his small frame, had one arm bandaged and in a sling. It was a blessing that without mirrors none of the men had any idea of his own appearance. Dilip’s unshaven face was scratched and bruised. He was wearing canvas shoes without laces, as were some of the others. Only a few had managed to keep their flying boots.

  Soon the camp commandant arrived with a Christian padre. The commandant’s name was Squadron Leader Usman Hamid. He was a good-looking man of medium height and a very gentle manner. The prisoners had already met him individually, and they liked him from the start. Now in excellent English he wished them all a merry Christmas and introduced the padre. After the padre said a prayer, Usman asked Coelho, as senior officer, to cut the cake. Coelho was one of two Christians in the group; Kuruvilla was the other. But many of the POWs had attended Christian schools, so celebrating Christmas was not a novelty. They could have sung Silent Night or Come All Ye Faithful if asked.

  They appreciated Usman Hamid’s gesture of bringing them together on Christmas, though no one was in a mood to celebrate, not just yet. Most of them were still in pain from hard landings and beatings by angry villagers. But their state of health was not the only reason they were not in a party mood. Unfortunately, Hamid had chosen to set up the party in the room previously used for interrogations.

  ‘As soon as the camp commandant and the padre left, we checked out the place, looking for microphones. We checked the fans, felt under all the chairs and tables,’ remembers Dilip. Grewal remembers finding ‘No. 3 Provost and Security Flight’ stamped on the backs of the chairs, but in terms of hidden microphones, they found nothing. Still they were not ready to confide in one another. Even if the walls didn’t have ears, who knew if someone among them might have collaborated, and might continue to pass along information? It was hard to break the ice, especially on that first day.

  But it was a great relief to have Tejwant Singh confirm that India had won the war. He had been shot down on his 24th mission on 17 December, just before the ceasefire was declared. (Singh was the only pilot shot down in an air fight. The others had all been downed by ground fire.) On 16 December, from Amritsar, he had watched the surrender of Pakistan’s eastern army on TV. Now they all knew that Bangladesh had gained its independence, with their help. The news they’d hoped and prayed for was finally confirmed. It was all that mattered for the moment. Dilip returned to his cell in a buoyant mood. ‘Our morale was touching the skies,’ he remembers.

  The morale in India mirrored that in the Pindi camp. There was great pride everywhere, in India’s victory, and more good news was to follow. On 20 December Yahya Khan resigned in favour of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Though Bhutto was no lover of India (he was known in India as Pakistan’s foreign minister during the Indo-Pakistan War of 1965), his was the first civilian administration in Pakistan since 1958. In early January Bhutto announced that he was ready for peace talks with India and said that he would release unconditionally Sheikh Mujibur Rahman from his nine month sojourn in prison. True to his word, Bhutto released Rahman on 8 January and two days later Rahman returned to Dacca in triumph to take up his post as provisional president of Bangladesh.

  Even more important for India was the return and resettlement of Bangla refugees. According to the Times of India, by 6 January more than 4,00,000 refugees had returned home and an average of 64,000 were returning daily.

  All this good news was of little comfort to the
families of POWs who didn’t yet know if their loved ones were alive or dead. While Dilip Parulkar rejoiced in the Indian victory, his parents back in Nagpur were unsure whether to mourn his death or to keep their hopes alive. No one on the mission had seen him eject. When he didn’t return to Adampur on 10 December, he was classified as missing. It was sobering news. All his comrades believed he was dead. And if Dilip—with all his luck—had gone down, what chance did the rest of them have?

  For his parents, the waiting, the not knowing, was excruciatingly painful. They had already lived on pins and needles for years because of their son’s passion for flying. It had all started on 15 August 1947, as India celebrated its newly won independence. There was an air show in Nagpur that day, and five-year-old Dilip was taken to the Nagpur airport on his father’s bicycle. There they watched as a Tiger Moth performed aerobatics. ‘I was so thrilled,’ Dilip remembers, ‘that on the way home I told my father “I’m going to be a fighter pilot.”’

  That idea did not sit well with his parents. There was no military tradition his family. His father was an English teacher. And everyone knew that being a fighter pilot was a risky business. No way would the Parulkars consider allowing their only son to take up such a dangerous career. They consulted astrologists, palmists and fortune tellers, all of whom gave the same answer, the only one his parents wanted to hear. ‘No, he will not become a pilot,’ one astrologist told them. ‘He may be a doctor, or perhaps an oilman.’ Dilip’s parents breathed a sigh of relief.

  In 1953, when Dilip was eleven years old, a second son was born. One of his aunts remembers him looking at the new baby, then turning to his mother and saying, ‘Now I’m going to be a fighter pilot.’ From that point on he had his parents’ reluctant permission. His goal was to enter the National Defence Academy (NDA), an institution that provides initial education and training for officers in all three services. ‘I was an average plus student most of the time, and liked to play the fool, but I did get coaching for exams.’ At the age of fifteen he managed to pass the entrance exams and series of interviews.

  He would be at the NDA, near Pune, for the next three years. The first two years involved common education and training for all the cadets, regardless of service. In the final year, half the training was service-specific. For the air cadets this meant practise in winch-launched gliding. But the training was only part of the attraction. Three years at the NDA built a strong sense of brotherhood, of camaraderie for all who attended. They would carry this into every phase of their careers. It was at the NDA that Dilip met Inder Khanna who was to become one of his closest friends.

  From the NDA, those cadets destined for the air force moved on to the flying academy at Jodhpur where they trained first on a Hindustan Trainer 2 and then on a Harvard/Texan. Then, for the fighter pilots, it was on to Secunderabad for jet training on the Vampire. Dilip was training in Secunderabad in October 1962, when the Chinese mounted a surprise attack on India’s northern border with Tibet. The Sino-Indian War ended in a negotiated settlement a month later, but for the armed forces there was continuing fallout. Suddenly the western world saw India as an ally against Communist China. Previously India had had to pay for all its planes, equipment, and training, but now there were offers of support.

  For Dilip and other pilots-in-training, the first opportunity was helicopter training in Britain or France. Anyone who agreed to switch from fighter training to helicopter training would leave for Europe within two weeks, and on return would receive his commission three months early.

  ‘In those days,’ says Dilip, ‘going to Europe was impossible unless you were very wealthy. Everyone wanted to go. My cousin, Uday Barve, who had gone through the NDA with me and was with me training on the Vampires, said, “Dilip, let’s go!” but I was not tempted. I wanted to be a fighter pilot and that was that!’

  Because of the urgency of expanding India’s armed forces, jet training that year was compressed. Commissioning for pilot officers in the fighter stream was set for 9 March 1963. On 3 March, Dilip watched his cousin Uday take off on a routine training flight. The Vampire’s engine failed immediately after takeoff. There was no ejection seat so no possibility of ejection. Uday attempted a forced landing but hit three electrical poles. The plane caught fire and crashed a few kilometres from the airport.

  Dilip was in shock. He and Uday had been constant companions since childhood. They were closer than many brothers. Dilip’s parents pressured him to quit. ‘My father rushed to Hyderabad and offered to pay the entire cost of my training to get me out of the air force, but I held fast and gradually they accepted it.’

  The commissioning took place as scheduled, but Dilip did not celebrate as he might have with a few drinks. For a boy from a pious Hindu family, drinking was not acceptable. Of course, he had tried it anyway, and many a night Uday had helped him back to the barracks after a few too many. Every time that happened Uday had pleaded with Dilip to stop drinking.

  Immediately after the commissioning ceremonies, Dilip skipped off. He was AWOL for over a week. He spent several days at home, resisting his father’s pleas to give up the IAF. Then he decided, as a tribute to Uday, that he would never drink again. It was a vow that served him well in prison. Wanting a drink, needing a drink, would have added another aggravation.

  After his commissioning, Dilip was posted to Jorhat in Assam. Weeks after Uday’s death he confessed in a letter to Inder Khanna that there were still days when he suddenly missed his cousin, but most of the time he was back to being his ‘jolly old self’. He and his mates lived in bamboo huts that were comfortable enough, and because it was an ops area discipline was somewhat relaxed. When they’d finished flying for the day, they would take off on their motorcycles in a gang of seven or eight for neighbouring towns. There they had the use of two posh clubs built by tea planters. Each club had a big wooden dancing floor, a picture hall, tennis courts, and a swimming pool and one even had polo grounds and a golf course.

  In the fall of 1963 Dilip, by another stroke of luck, was sent to the UK for training on the Hunter. But he found his first trip overseas not much fun after all. While he loved the flying, he found the weather bitterly cold, and since the IAF gave them only enough money for necessities, dating was out of the question. The only compensation after a long day’s work was watching sports on television. Apart from the flying, it was a rather dreary life for a twenty-one-year-old.

  Settling In

  Soon after the Christmas party, living conditions at the camp began to improve. Each prisoner was issued a long-sleeved shirt and pants in cotton serge and an olive green sweater (the basic winter uniform for enlisted men in the Pakistani Air Force). They were still cold, but the new clothes were an improvement on the ragtag wardrobe they’d been wearing, even though most of them were a poor fit. Now that interrogations were over, it seemed that Master Warrant Officer (MWO) Rizvi, the second in command, was doing all that was within his power to make them comfortable. He gave all the men toothbrushes and towels, but no razors. And it was Rizvi, early on, who had supplied Tejwant Singh with his white turban.

  One day Rizvi told Coelho that he had served in the Royal Indian Air Force before Partition. His family came from Kanpur. ‘I’ve heard the name Coelho before,’ Rizvi said. ‘My father was in the British army and he often mentioned a Brigadier Coelho.’

  ‘Brigadier Coelho was my father,’ Coelho told him.

  And so a link was established between Coelho and Rizvi. ‘The first month was hell,’ Coelho remembers, ‘but after that things settled down.’

  Many muhajirs (1947 refugees) from India, like Rizvi, had settled in the Punjab of which Rawalpindi was the capital, and the prisoners encountered them more than once. When Kuruvilla was taken to the hospital for an X-ray, he met a Tamilian who was very happy to have the chance to speak his own language again. A lascar at the camp, who had migrated from Patiala, was eager to question Bhargava, who knew Patiala well because he had studied there. It was surprising that despite the trauma
of their 1947 displacement, the muhajirs were always friendly. Twenty-five years is not a long time in the scheme of things. Memories of India were still strong and not all of them were bad memories.

  Among the prisoners, both Grewal and Tejwant Singh had fled Pakistan with their families in 1947, but since they were only four and five years old at the time, they had few memories to draw on. What they did possess was fluency in Punjabi, which proved an advantage in dealing with most of the camp staff.

  But even more vital to the POWs recovery than the improved relations with the staff was the end of solitary confinement, which had been as stressful as the interrogations. The prisoners had all found those first weeks after capture disorienting, lonely and frightening, and most of their fears were entirely reasonable. Who knew they had survived and were prisoners of war? Only their Pakistani captors, which meant they were completely at their mercy.

  ‘My worst time,’ says Tejwant Singh, ‘was the initial days after capture when days went by and nights came and the interrogators came and went and I didn’t know what was in store. Before we all met on 25 December, one person came to my cell and threatened me with dire consequences because I had given incorrect names of the pilots in my squadron. He said I was trying to be very smart and that they had not yet declared my name. So when we met on the 25th I was very relieved that someone had seen me alive.’

  Kuruvilla was held in solitary confinement for several days before being interrogated. He encountered no one but a silent guard who delivered food and put a hood over his head for his trips to the toilet. Finally he was at the end of his tether and could stand it no longer. He pounded on the door until the guard came.

  ‘I can’t be treated like this,’ he told him. ‘It’s against the Geneva Convention.’ He asked for a piece of paper so that he could record his complaint. The next thing he knew a heavyset man in his fifties or sixties appeared at his door with a paper and pencil. It was Rizvi to the rescue. It seemed like a miracle. Kuru had what he needed. He had suddenly gone from being no one to being a person who merited the attention of this affable little man.