The Man for All Seasons |October 2017

Ghazala Wahab

I first met the Marshal of the Air Force, Arjan Singh, in September 2003. FORCE was just a month old. But since its inaugural issue had managed to draw the attention of the discerning readers, both inside and outside the government of India, the Indian Air Force (IAF) public relations officer was less reluctant to forward the request for an interview.

However, once the request was accepted by the Marshal of the Air Force, he was jittery about letting loose an untested journalist on IAF’s most loved officer. He called me to his office for a briefing before the meeting. Looking warily at the photographer carrying two cameras and multiple lenses, he issued two terse warnings: Don’t ask too many questions, he may not like it. Don’t take too many photographs, he may get irritated.

So understandably, I was nervous. Believing that the PRO is representative of his boss’ temperament, I arrived at his home with bare minimum expectations. As I sat waiting for him, with the PRO for company, I mentally prepared myself to go through the motions of the interview and get away as fast as possible.

And then the Marshal of the Air Force walked in. More than his formidable height which dwarfed all three of us (the photographer included), his warmth filled the room. In no time, he suggested to the PRO that there was no reason for him to linger on and settled down for what turned out to be friendly chat enveloping his early years, his air force and post air force careers.

In all the positions that he held in a career spanning 51 years, 31 of them in the IAF, Marshal of the Air Force Arjan Singh always managed to rise a bit above his office, influencing the office more than getting overwhelmed by the power and limitations of the chair. Whether as the rookie pilot in World War II, whose gallantry during the Burma Campaign earned him the ‘Distinguished Flying Cross’; or as the chief of air staff during the 1965 India-Pakistan war; as India’s ambassador to Switzerland in 1971; as Lt Governor of Delhi in 1989, he retained his innate goodness, which sometimes translated into unimaginable courage and sometimes as humbling magnanimity. The driving force always had been the sense of putting others, especially the subo