THE WHEELS OF FATE
Fate and destiny unfailingly spring up a surprise and they’ll find a way. These two words hold in them a magnitude capable of wreaking chaos or of unleashing a fortune. In the words of Jean Fontaine, “A person often meets his destiny on that very road which he had taken to avoid it.” The wheels of destiny never stop rolling.
These thoughts surged through my mind, when I stood in the midst of an intuitive crowd at the Indian Air Force Heritage Museum in the City Beautiful, as I attempted to find an Air Force plane — Pushpaka Rath. To experts well-versed with defence forces, this might ring a bell, for this was the very plane involved in the mishappening at the infamous Jorhat air crash.
The only motive behind discovering this plane itself establishes a long story, often told to me by my father. Despite having listened to it multiple times, it never fails to impress me and conveys through it the strength of a dictum of fate.
It is a story of miracles — one that closed as death and the other opened to life.
A single flight from New Delhi to Jorhat in Assam overwhelmed two life spans completely different and in sharp contrast.
My father’s maternal uncle Wing Commander Joginder Singh, was a well-known IAF flier. At New Delhi’s Palam airport a strange thing happened to this air force veteran. He knew it was a day to relax as there was no duty assigned to him.
Soaked deep in veneration to the Almighty, he was suddenly alerted by a bell at the door. It was some people from the Air Force, informing him that a small illness had caused the entire crew to be overhauled and he was a part of the new flying squad, scheduled to fly the then Prime Minister Morar Desai to Jorhat in Assam.
Despite his astonishment, he maintained his composure and his training ensured that he was ready for the flight in a jiffy. The pilot in him was full of pride and satisfaction, at being handed over the crème de la crème of all flying assignments in his eventful career.
At the same time, another flying crew member, PK Raveendran was scheduled to take a place in the cockpit, but fate held something different in store for him.
Not being in the appropriate VIP uniform and wary of a rebuke by his seniors, he immediately took a seat at the back of the plane, not wanting to attract attention. And thus, the plane took off.
The first evident signs of problem became evident on reaching Jorhat, considering the turbulent weather, which made it difficult to fly. In the end, the plane unfortunately crashed at the airport and all the cockpit crew was dead.
The impact of the crash was such that the rear portions of the plane remained relatively unharmed. It was miraculous that the Prime Minister survived unhurt, alongwith a few other dignitaries. But, the most legendary of all survivals was that of Sqn Ldr PK Raveendra, who escaped just because of a mishap with his uniform. On the other hand, my father’s uncle didn’t live to see any other day.
It was wondrous how God and Destiny found out the most shocking of ways to take the life of one and keep death at bay for another.
As the anniversary of this unprecedented call of destiny approaches on November 4, the sad memory makes me reminisce how destiny has found its way in the lives of each one of us. Truly, the wheels of fate won’t stop ever.
Saikrit Gulati, Class X, St John’s High School, Chandigarh
