My latest water colour painting of a flock of  Water Lilies.

Teela Bungalow

  My water colour painting of Teela Bungalow…

Teela Bungalow…this magnificent bungalow was the official residence of Executive Director (ED) of Hindustan Lever (now Unilever) Limited’s Plantation Division in Doom Dooma, located in Upper Assam. Teela in Assamese means a small hillock. With luxurious interiors, sprawling lawns and a huge compound almost the size of a mini golf course, the bungalow built on top of a small hillock was a majestic site that almost reminded one of the times of the Raj. In 2005 HUL got out of tea plantation by selling their tea gardens but retained this iconic building as their company guest house. 

HF-24 Marut

 This is my pencil sketch of a legendary jet fighter of Indian Air Force that fought valiantly in 1971 Indo-Pakistan war. By far the most elegant military aircraft to take to Indian skies, this indigenously built fighter bomber by Hindustan Aeronautics named HF-24Marut (in Sanskrit “Spirit of Tempest”) first flew on 17 June 1961. Designed by the well-known German aircraft designer Kurt Tank and Indian engineers from Hindustan Aircraft Limited at Bangalore, a total of 147 aircraft were built, including 18 two-seat trainers. Although originally conceived to operate in the vicinity of Mach 2, the aircraft in fact turned out to be barely capable of reaching Mach 1 due to the lack of suitably powered engines for the airframe.  However, with twin engine benefits and good flying control characteristics this aircraft proved to be a very robust platform in 1971 Indo-Pakistan war where it was used for attacking ground based enemy targets. Armed with 4x30 mm ADEN cannons with 120 rds per gun, Retractable Matra pack of 50× 2.68 in (68 mm) rockets and upto 4000 lbs on four pylons, this aircraft carried a fair punch in its ground attack role. It has even an air-to-air kill to its credit. Marut flown by Sqn Ldr KK Bakshi of 220 Squadron shot down a PAF F-86 Sabre on 7 Dec 71. PAF pilot shot down was Flying Offr Hamid Khwaja. Another creditable war record of this fleet of aircraft  is that no Marut was lost in air-to-air combat, although four were lost to ground fire and two were destroyed on the ground. Three Marut pilots were awarded the Vir Chakra commendation.

The Marut had good survivability record too in enemy airspace. On number of occasions, Maruts    regained their base after one engine had been lost to ground fire. On one of these, a Marut returned to base on one engine, from about 150 miles (240 km) inside hostile territory.  Consequently, the pilot had no difficulty in flying his crippled fighter back to base.  

All Maruts were retired from IAF service in 1990

.. (Information courtesy Wikipedia)  

Pink creeper

This is a water colour painting of a creeper wih beautiful pink flowers that bloom in autumn season in Assam and can be seen hanging from walls and fences of homes. Through vibrant colours of flowers and blooming in plentiful this creeper covers wide spaces turning an area into a spectacular sight for eyes.

My pencil sketches of aircraft

A view of a typical tea garden in Assam

This is my painting in water colour of a typical tea garden in Assam. Tea pluckers with their baskets hung on their backs moving deftly through lush green gardens, spread over acres after acres tea bushes present a beautiful sight, particularly in summer months. 

Tribal woman fishing

Some of my landscape paintings

My paintings in water colour and in oil of common flowers

Shooting down of Pakistani Jet in Indo-Pak War of 1965

On 16 September 1965, as the air war between India and Pakistan was raging on its 16^th day, a young fighter pilot from Indian Air Force (IAF) was able to draw first blood shooting down a F 86 Sabre jet of Pakistan Air Force (PAF) from his British made Hawker Hunter F 56.  Indian pilot was Flying Officer (later Air Marshal) PS ‘Pingo’ Pingale  and for him the sweet taste of victory was laced with larger satisfaction of getting his scores even with PAF in a period of less than ten days.

On 07 September 1965, Fg Offr Pingale while flying a Combat Air Patrol (CAP) mission over Halwara, Punjab was shot at by a PAF Sabre who had managed to creep  in behind unnoticed and  let go a deadly volley of machine gun fire from point blank range on his Hunter fighter. On looking back Pingale spotted his attacker behind and turned into him. But his controls were sluggish and his cockpit was already getting filled with smoke. He was left with no other option but to pull the ejection handle of his Martin Baker seat as his aircraft was plummeting towards ground with mere 100 feet to go. He did survive the ejection but experienced a severe pain in the lower back, a common injury that most fighter pilots suffer in an ejection. The injury was serious enough for any pilot to be grounded for months on health ground as another ejection during recovery period can either be fatal or result in permanent injuries like complete paralysis from waist down. For Flying Officer Pingale, spending the rest of the war lying on a hospital bed while his squadron was fighting a war was unthinkable. There was also a burning desire in his guts to get even with Pakis. Pingo managed to convince the doctors at Air Force Central Medical Establishment (AFCME), New Delhi that he was fine and fighting fit although he was nurturing a nagging pain in the lower back.  Very soon Pingo joined his squadron known as ‘Battleaxes” at Halwara. It did not take too long for him to strap into a cockpit and fly a number of interdiction missions deep in enemy territory. But while engaging targets on ground his eyes constantly scanned the sky to find an enemy fighter to even out his personal score with his enemy. 

On 16 September 1965, that opportunity arrived as the Hunter formation flown by him on an air defence mission  with  Flying Officer FD Bunsha as his wingman  was vectored by the GCI station (ground radar) for an intercept on two enemy aircraft prowling in Indian airspace at around 20,000 feet. Pingale’s made visual contact with one Sabre approaching head on and from beneath. As he maneuvered his section to get behind the Sabre it turned on a Southerly heading and carried on straight. It appeared to him that the Sabre had not spotted the Hunters at this stage and that helped the Hunters to steadily close in on the lone enemy. However, gut feeling and months of air combat training kept telling Pingale to look for a second enemy aircraft and on deepening his scan in the rear quarter he spotted the second Sabre at 4 O’clock at approximately 800 yards rapidly closing in and ready to fire.  Pingale told less experienced Bunsha to split and go for the enemy ahead as he turned on to face his adversary in rear quarter.  Pingale  crossed the Sabre head on and  reversed steeply to engage him using the vertical plane, a tactics that was well suited for a Hunter with a more powerful engine as compared to a Sabre. US made Sabre, on the other hand, was an extremely well designed fighter for a dog fight especially at low level and had an unviable record of almost 5:1 kill in favour against Russian MiGs in Korean War.  Its six browning machine guns could fire an extremely lethal envelope of bullets that could rip apart an aircraft to shreds. However, it lacked a powerful engine.  Combat advise to all Hunter pilots was never to engage a Sabre in a turning plane as it can out turn any fighter in the world at low level. Take the fight vertical and watch his performance bleed owing to a less powerful engine and then close in for a kill, it said.   

As combat with the Sabre progressed, Pingale started gaining on his adversary forcing him to make series of errors that helped him to close in further and open fire with his four 30 mm cannons spewing bullets at 1200 to 1300 rounds per minute. First burst was from 400 yards  but missed as aiming with a gyro gunsight required steady tracking for few seconds and in the excitement of the battle Pingale’s aiming had gone wild. But soon training took over and he settled down for his second shot from 200-250 yards with proper ranging and tracking. The correct aiming index in a dog fight is always the opponent’s cockpit which ensures a sure kill.  For the second salvo of bullets, Pingale had pipper of his gunsight perfectly resting on the Sabres’ cockpit He eased back the pipper a bit behind the cockpit hoping the rounds would not hit the pilot and pressed the trigger for the second time and watched the Pakistani jet literally explode in front him.

(My painting tried to capture on canvas the precise moment  Fg Offr Pingale releases the trigger as the Sabre is about to explode in front at probably 150 yds from him)

 Pakistani pilot was young Flying Officer Shaukat Ali, who managed to eject unaware that a fellow pilot’s benevolence had saved his life. Shaukat spent rest of the war in an Indian POW camp.

 While combating with his Sabre, Pingale had noticed Bunsha gradually loosing his hold in his battle with the first Sabre and warned him to be careful. But to his dismay, he saw the Pakistani getting better of Bunsha and Hunter going down spewing smoke. He yelled at Bunsha to eject but there was no response from Bunsha’s aircraft as it continued to go down. By now Pingale’s Sabre was a ball of flame and he instantly put his Hunter in a turn towards the Sabre who had continued to fire at the stricken aircraft of Bunsha. Bunsha did not to eject as cannons shells from Pakistani pilot seemed to kill him instantly.  As Pingale turned into Sabre on Bunsha’s tail, it gave up firing and turned sharply to face him. Both aircraft crossed head on at high speed and Pingale immediately reversed hauling the Hunter around half expecting to find the Sabre doing the same. But he was in for surprise. The Sabre choose to fly away at high speed from the fight on a homebound course. An indignant Pingale gave chase diving steeply with an aim to close in behind the running Sabre. As ground rushed in Pingale pulled hard to recover from his steep dive he was in  and immediately felt a shearing pain from his back injury suffered during his recent ejection.  High ‘g’ force also blacked him out completely. As he was recovering his wits about, the Sabre made a clean get away.  Later it was confirmed that one who got away was none other than ace of ace of Pakistani Air Force, Squadron Leader MM Alam. Alam claimed both the Hunters, Bunsha with guns and Pingale with a Sidewinder AAM..and Pakistan Air Force obliged its hero with two more Hunters to his credit.

Satisfied at shooting down of a Sabre and sad at losing Bunsha, Pingale flew back to his base under radar cover. Back at the base his gun camera footage was analysed to grant him the kill of Flying Officer Shaukat Ali’s aircraft and that earned him a Vir Chakra.

An IAF MiG-21 firing a K-13 AAM over the sea of Saurashtra.

An IAF MiG-21 firing a K-13 AAM over the sea of Saurashtra.