The one who flew with imagination
By Shahzad Chaudhry

To those who were born in the 80s and after, the Alam of M M Alam Road in Lahore is no more. Muhammad Mahmood Alam died on March 18, 2013 at the age of 78 in Karachi. He was a hero of the 1965 war between India and Pakistan and held a record of sorts in shooting down five Indian aircraft in quick succession; in claimed thirty seconds. Whether he did it or not in exact thirty seconds, he was a special breed.

To those who witnessed the 1965 war, M M Alam was a national hero. That is when someone thought of naming a read after him, though the road is now known more for chic restaurants and fashion houses.

It was 1967. Spring melts early into summer in Sargodha. Alam was a household name and many like me, then a 14 year old, had chosen to follow in his footsteps and joined a public school that streamed youngsters after due process into the air force; this included a five year education and grooming process on the line of British Public Schools.

Joining the military, and the air force as a fighter pilot, was still a dream choice for many. On a particular Sunday, dressed in my walking-out white shirt-and-trousers outfit, I set forth to make it to M M Alam, reportedly living somewhere in the officers’ mess. I was accompanied by another friend who had a broad idea of where to head.

Schoolboys, as we were all known, were not expected to roam the surroundings of the mess, especially since the distance between the school and the air force installations was more than a mile and it took long in walking the distance. It must have been post-Noon that we both reached the BOQs (Bachelor Officers Quarters) where the officers lived. Yes, despite his rank then (a squadron leader, equivalent to a major) he was still a bachelor and remained so all his life.

An officer was busy with a phone call in a booth right in the middle of the BOQs complex; this for long remained the only means of communication that officers had with the outside world. The licence to entering Sargodha was to qualify to be a fighter pilot; from thereon Sargodha took over in modeling one as its own, including giving the licence to use the phone in the red booth.

The officer in the booth hollered us over, inquiring what we were doing there. We being easily discernable, courtesy our tell-tale dresses, were in violation of standing orders by being at the wrong place. We, as naive as one could be at that age, mentioned our desire to meet “Uncle M M Alam”. Shocked at our audacity, he looked at in disbelief. But then something changed; with a slight smile, impish perhaps, he led us to a corner room just adjacent to the phone booth. He knocked at the door, opened it slightly and announced, “Alam, you have guests”.

Alam had been sleeping, the usual afternoon nap in a sultry Sargodha afternoon. He peeped out of his door to see two young boys standing at his door. He was none too pleased, we could tell. But who cared, we had seen the best fighter-pilot in the world in person, standing right before us. Alam had a white shalwar on and a white vest over it.

He let us in. As he put on his white kurta to become a little more presentable. The room was Spartan. His niwar bed lay in the middle of the room, under the fan. Under the bed lay the trademark tin trunk that was an essential accompaniment of all officers and men and carried the treasures of each as they moved on posting from one base to another.

In the corner, with a window lay his writing table and a cane writing chair – a standard issue in the BOQs. It had some books and papers on it. Along the same wall was a fireplace in the middle which had a mantelpiece above it. On the mantelpiece lay some hand-drawn pencil sketches of what we later found were views from the cockpit of an F-86 aircraft that he had flown, of target aircraft that he had shot during an aerial combat.

The first question then to our hero: “Uncle how did you shoot down Indian planes”? Answer: “I have black magic”. Question: “Where is it”? Answer: “In my trunk”; as he pointed to the trunk under his bed. And then ,after having played us around with such inanities, led us to the mantelpiece. He explained, “I visualise and draw every possible situation where I could push my quarry to and how I would prefer for him to appear in my shooting sight. This prepares me mentally to be ready for a situation”.

As he drew, he spent time reflecting on it and internalised the entire process, to be ready and prepared when an opportunity offered itself ever so fleetingly in the furious dynamics of an aerial combat. With that sort of mission preparation, it was perfectly possible to shoot all those number of enemy aircraft as he did – even if five were shot out within a single stream of thirty seconds. Try shooting one, even that is an achievement.

With that the brief meeting with our hero came to an end.

As we grew in the air force and measured up to modern dictates there remained an abiding lesson – mission preparation. Visualising and enacting in the mind the various possibilities that could emerge in a combat. We later called it “thought process”. Talk to a management guru and he will tell you the same essentials.

Many years later, in an ironic twist, after I had been through the same stages of career as Alam, when I had first met him, I was invited by a senior officer to his home to meet a guest – none other than M M Alam. I was introduced to him in some laudatory terms. I could only laugh to myself. I remembered how as a child I had already met that paragon of excellence, my hero who was a lot taller than his apparent 5’4” height.

The Alam of M M Alam Road is no more, and this country is the poorer for it.

The writer is a retired air-vice marshal of the Pakistan Air Force and served as its deputy chief of staff. Email: shhzdchdhry@yahoo.com