Death Wasn't Painful Stories of Indian Fighter Pil... - (13 - Tigers in The Cage)

13
Tigers in the Cage
As the end of the year 1971 approached, and the New Year appeared
around the corner, vague hopes of going home stirred among the
Indian prisoners in the camp. The exciting tales of the war were
already wearing a bit thin. Brother and Teja, the indefatigable
talkers, continued to spin sporadic yarns in one corner while the
others simply sat on the few available chairs or lay about on the
Copyright © 2014. SAGE Publications India Pvt, Ltd.. All rights reserved.
cement floor, their eyes staring fixedly straight ahead and their
thoughts far away. Rizvi’s arrival broke the reverie.
‘I ... ah ... have brought ... ah ... some indoor games. I ... ah ...
thought ... ah ... you have nothing much to do.’ And he produced a
chess set and a pack of cards.
‘This is alright for six. What about the others?’ enquired Mulla
who was adept at discovering a discrepancy in any given situation.
‘Ah ... well ... ah ... more will come, Insha Allah,’ assured Rizvi
with a promising grin.
Mulla and Brother Bhargava commandeered the chess set right
away. A foursome for cards was quickly formed. The rest gathered
around as onlookers first, then turned into advisers and finally
formed into two opposing blocks. The games were not played, as
they never can be played in such circumstances, merely between two
players, but between two teams, each jeering and cheering to the
eternal chagrin of the actual contestants.
106
Jafa, Dhirendra S.. Death Wasn't Painful : Stories of Indian Fighter Pilots from the 1971 War, SAGE Publications
India Pvt, Ltd., 2014. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/algomauca-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1759068.
Created from algomauca-ebooks on 2023-11-28 00:41:24.
Tigers in the Cage
Only Garry paced up and down the courtyard, hands locked

behind and head cast down in deep thought. Whether in deep
thought or otherwise, when Garry walked about like this there was
just one impression he gave—that of a caged tiger. On this occasion,
even in thought, he was not far from this comparison.
‘I say, when do you chaps think we’ll go back?’ he asked,
stopping abruptly and addressing no one in particular. All eyes
turned towards him, all minds weighing the question.
‘Shouldn’t be long,’ said Kuru. It was more a wish than a
considered opinion.
‘I’d say very soon. Any day.’ Another wishful outburst, this
from Mulla. And finally there were as many opinions as people.
Vikram’s gambling instinct was quick to discover the possibility of a
good wager. He offered half-a-month’s salary to any one forecasting
the correct date for repatriation and began to talk others into sealing
the bet.
‘That’s too much money,’ said Bunny Coelho. ‘If I know my
wife, she would have burst up my next year’s salary too by the time
I get back.’
And so a token bet of fifty rupees was decided upon, the house
going to the person whose prediction came closest to the actual

date. Harry borrowed a stub of pencil from a guard and wrote each
forecast on an empty packet of cigarettes. He saw that all dates fell
within a span of two months, except one.
‘Why must you be awkward?’ he asked Garry. Harry liked to
think pleasantly and act pleasantly. An unpleasant thought was like
a pain one inflicted on oneself, unnecessarily.
‘Why, that’s my feeling. Nothing is going to happen for six
months. Just wait and see.’ And with this Garry resumed his pacing.
He had wagered on 31st July.
‘Pessimist!’ countered Harry, but with some uncertainty.
A little while later Dilip walked over to where Jafa was lying
down in the sun and sprawled alongside.
‘I see that you have placed your bet on 10th January. You think
we might go back so soon, Sir?’ he asked.
107
Death Wasn’t Painful
‘We don’t know what’s happening outside, in politics, in

diplomacy. So, perhaps like Garry, one date is as good as another,’
said Jafa.
‘I have doubts about any rapid cooling down between our
countries,’ said Dilip.
‘Yes, Dilip,’ said Jafa thoughtfully. ‘The arrogance of victory and
the defiance of defeat ... there is little common ground between the
two. It’ll take just one face-off, one minor incident to be perceived
as an affront, to delay settlement for ever.’
Dilip was quiet for a while and then he said, ‘Sir, if our
repatriation remains uncertain and keeps getting put off indefinitely,
then we have to think of something, some way of getting out of
here. Even though it is going to be difficult and risky.’
Jafa’s mind went back to the twilight period before the war,
a period of waiting, seemingly endless waiting for something to
happen, something to start, nerves on edge, the athlete waiting for
the gun to go off, the hound on leash and the scent of hare strong.
Curiously, no one talked of the danger of death, which was a very
likely certainty for many. The conscious mind went only as far as
the dreaded possibility of having to bail out over enemy territory
and being captured by the enemy. Thus, in the crew-rooms and

operations rooms a lot of time was spent on discussions regarding
evasion and escape. Everyone seemed to be firming up his ideas on
the subject. Jafa remembered a south-Indian officer whose linguistic
skills were limited to English and his native Malayalam, being given
a crash course in Hindustani by a Punjabi officer. Questions and
answers were devised as between a suspicious Pakistani and an
evading Indian. The whole exercise was so hilarious that someone
seriously advised the officer that the safest thing for him in Pakistan
would be to find the nearest police station and surrender.
‘If I can’t talk my way out, I can always leg it out,’ said the
Malayali officer in final repartee. ‘I will hide and run, hide again and
run faster.’
‘But there can be no hiding in Pakistan,’ said someone else. And
that was the truth. In the heavily populated areas of West Pakistan
108
Tigers in the Cage
an attacking aeroplane was almost constantly in sight. The troops

on the ground would hardly miss a parachute descending from a
burning aircraft, and even if one was fortunate in getting away from
them, there could not be any escape from the vast civilian population
which was just as keenly involved in the war. There were absolutely
no pockets among the populace where one could expect help or
even silence on being spotted. There was no question of any one
from the majority community extending help to an Indian. And,
unlike India, the minorities were too scarce and too scared not to
run to the authorities with the slightest suspicion and information
of this kind.
Fighting men consider capture by the enemy as humiliating,
mortifying, something to be avoided, resisted, endured, and, if
possible, overcome through escape. Escaping from the enemy
signifies defiance, a testing of one’s wits and courage, an act of
daring, a challenge to the power and might of the enemy from
within his captivity. The penalty for failure is usually death. The
thrill of success is like coming through a winner in a particularly
dangerous sport, like climbing the Everest, like sailing the oceans
alone. There are such restless, even reckless young men in the armed
forces all over the world who cannot abide the crushing confines
of a prison camp and who must attempt a breakout if only to defy
the enemy.
Dilip was one such. During a particularly lively discussion in the
crew-room he had once declared, ‘If I am shot down and captured, I
shall escape. By God, I’ll not sit in their jail. I shall escape.’
And now Jafa smiled at Dilip, the smile of an indulgent elder,
and said, ‘What you can dare, you may will; and what you can will,
you may achieve. And that’s how, Dilip, sometimes great things get
done.’
He did not elaborate. He had his own reasons for encouraging
this young, intelligent, dashing officer to attempt a very difficult feat.
109

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13

Tigers in the Cage

Only Garry paced up and down the courtyard, hands locked

going to the person whose prediction came closest to the actual

‘We don’t know what’s happening outside, in politics, in

and being captured by the enemy. Thus, in the crew-rooms and

an attacking aeroplane was almost constantly in sight. The troops

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