The Hindu Business Line : Cleared for take-off

Chennai, July 15 Sidhesh earned his wings today. He is now cleared for take-off. I did not know he wanted to be a fighter pilot. Perhaps he, too, hadn’t a clue. Though as a teenager he repeatedly climbed from our flat onto the terrace, then to the top of the water tank towering above it, and stood there, six foot two, gazing silently at the sea, arms folded across his chest, sometimes till long after sunset.

My first guess was that the seed was sown when he was about seven. One could see a small triangular ledge just below if you looked out of our bathroom window, walled off from the world outside by some sort of cemented latticework.

Pigeons used to raise families there, their little ones covered with yellow down. Most unpigeon-like, yet it was they got most of their parent’s attention, while kind words were flung to their elder siblings now and then. In short, though food was rationed, the parents did indulge the older ones as much as possible. Till it was time to teach them to fly. This was a bit tricky. We lived on the fourth floor.

First, the parents tempted the young ones by themselves making gay, carefree, free-wheeling sorties from time to time. Back home, they kindled the flames with gentle urgings. Later, after nagging, too, had failed, they would peck the little ones insistently as they stood there dubiously, gazing down at the world below; shifting from one foot to another, and trying to side-step their determined parents. But I must have got it wrong. The baby pigeons had their eyes fixed firmly on the ground. Sidhesh looked to the sky.