Image and Narrative contributed by Brian Fernandez, Maharashtra
This image has my three year old brother Bruce on my left, and I, four years old, gazing with awe and wonder at the unmistakable icon, India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru signing my father’s autograph book. And it has several fond and sad memories attached with it.
Nehru had arrived at Adampur, on a whistle-stop election tour, in an Illyushin aircraft of the IAF (Indian Air Force). I can still vividly remember the twin-engine, grey aircraft with its distinctive, clipped wings. I believe these aircrafts were in service for many years after that, into the 70s. The IAF also had a squadron of Vampire aircrafts ( plywood, twin-rudder, jet- fighter aircrafts ).
Our family – my Dad, Mum, and younger brothers Bruce & Barry used to live by the airstrip, in a huge canvas tent which was the standard Officers’ accommodation in those days, before we moved to Adampur village.
My father Captain L. T. Fernandez, an Army pilot, was posted to an Air Observation Post (AOP) Flight, based in Adampur and flying the propeller driven Harvard. He retired in 1981 as a Colonel in the Regiment of Artillery and passed away a year after my mother, in 2009.
Somewhere along the way we misplaced my late father’s autograph book on which Pandit Ji’s signature was taken. But what I do remember is that Jawaharlal Nehru signed his name in Devanagari (hindi) script. This photograph is special to me, because it also reminds me of Bruce, my younger brother who suddenly died at a very young age of five, on September 7, 1957, of an incurable tumour in the Jullundur Military Hospital. He would have been 59 this year. I am now a 61 year old retired school teacher.
2 Responses
Really a memorable moment. Its sad that the book has been misplaced.
Reading it brought a lump to my throat ..