India, Sept. 26 -- December 1980. There were seven of us, newly commissioned Pilot Officers (a rank which no longer exists in the Indian Air Force). It was close to the end of our applied course on Iskra TS-11 jet trainers and we had been summoned to the Chief Instructor's (CI) office. The Fighter Training Wing, located at the Hakimpet Air Force Station in Secunderabad, had been our home for the previous 12 months. None of us knew where and when we had messed up to deserve the call up to the CI's office, a feared location best avoided.

When we came out, half an hour later, none of us could stop smiling. We had been selected to go directly to MiG-21 squadrons instead of the usual route via Hunter aircraft at Operational Conversion Unit, K...