Mahtab Bashir
0333 53 63 248
mahtabbashir@gmail.com
ISLAMABAD
Once celebrated as the moustachioed face of Indian air force, Group Captain Abhinandan Varthaman is now preparing for a very different kind of flight, training to operate an ATR for Indian regional airline FLY91.
One cannot help wondering: is India's celebrated fighter pilot not capable enough to fly an ATR yet? Perhaps he is. And perhaps that is precisely why he needs the training. After all, the last time he ejected, landed on the Pakistani side and was captured.
He flew a fighter jet into an encounter with Pakistani aircraft, his MiG-21 came down. So, after the MiG-21 chapter, comes the ATR chapter.
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And somewhere in this curious aviation story, one sentence continues to hover above everything: “Tea is fantastic.”
Those three words, uttered by Abhinandan while in Pakistani custody in 2019, became an unlikely cultural phenomenon in India. The captured pilot, visibly injured but composed, was shown drinking tea and answering questions without revealing information.
But Indian media soon did what Indian media does best when presented with a dramatic television moment: it turned a cup of tea into a national epic.
The man whose aircraft had been shot down and who had subsequently been captured was transformed into a heroic symbol. His moustache became iconic, his photographs appeared everywhere and his name became embedded in India's political rhetoric.
Then came the Vir Chakra.
Abhinandan was decorated with India's third-highest wartime gallantry award, while the episode was increasingly packaged as a story of “extraordinary Indian military valour”.
And that is where the story deserves a little less Bollywood and a little more reality.
There is no question that maintaining composure while injured and in enemy custody is difficult. But composure in captivity and victory in aerial combat are two very different things.
Yet somehow, in the Indian telling of the story, the distinction became rather conveniently blurred.
The pilot was captured.
The tea was fantastic.
And the hero was born.
Now, seven years later, the same hero is reportedly preparing to fly an ATR in India's regional aviation sector.
The symbolism is almost too perfect.
The MiG-21 was built for combat. The ATR is built to carry passengers between cities.
One carries weapons. The other carries luggage.
One produces the sort of noise that makes people look up nervously.
The other produces the sort of announcement that makes passengers check whether their flight is delayed.
For Abhinandan, therefore, the aviation vocabulary is about to change dramatically.
“Target acquired” may become “boarding completed.”
“Enemy aircraft detected” may become “cabin crew, prepare for take-off.”
And instead of wondering whether the opposing aircraft has locked on, passengers will presumably be wondering whether their checked baggage has made it onto the plane.
But perhaps the biggest irony lies in the fact that Varthaman's most internationally remembered words came not from a successful fighter sortie, but from his time after that sortie had ended rather abruptly.
“The tea is fantastic.”
It was a remarkable public-relations victory for Pakistan. A captured Indian fighter pilot sitting in Pakistani custody, calmly drinking tea and praising it, became one of the most replayed moments of the confrontation.
India, meanwhile, had a different response: instead of allowing the episode to remain an uncomfortable military episode, it elevated the man at its centre into a national icon.
The medal helped.
The television coverage helped.
The moustache certainly helped.
And the tea? The tea became legendary.
Now imagine the next stage.
A passenger boards an ATR. He looks toward the cockpit. Perhaps he notices the pilot's name.
“Abhinandan Varthaman?”
The passenger might reasonably wonder whether this is the same man whose photograph once dominated television screens across India.
And then comes the announcement:
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard.”
No Pakistani jets.
No dramatic dogfight.
No ejection seat.
No international crisis.
Just an ATR heading toward its destination.
That, perhaps, is the most amusing part of the entire saga.
War propaganda thrives on drama. Commercial aviation thrives on routine.
The first requires enemies, headlines, medals and patriotic speeches.
The second requires punctuality, discipline, navigation and passengers who have remembered to switch their phones to flight mode.
The Vir Chakra cannot help with turbulence.
A patriotic slogan cannot land an aircraft.
And a famous moustache is no substitute for an aviation licence.
Perhaps this is why the ATR chapter is so revealing. It strips away the political theatre and returns aviation to what it actually is: a profession in which performance matters far more than mythology.
If Abhinandan successfully completes his training and begins flying commercially, he will simply become another professional pilot responsible for getting passengers safely from one airport to another.
No national anthem required.
No heroic soundtrack necessary.
And certainly no need to remind anyone about the tea.
Although, given the extraordinary afterlife of those three words, one suspects that whenever Abhinandan is offered a cup of tea before a flight, somebody somewhere will remember:
“Tea is fantastic.”
What a journey.
From the cockpit of a MiG-21 to the cockpit of an ATR.
From aerial combat to domestic routes.
From fighter pilot to commercial trainee.
A passenger boards an ATR. He looks toward the cockpit. Perhaps he notices the pilot's name.
“Abhinandan Varthaman?”
The passenger might reasonably wonder whether this is the same man whose photograph once dominated television screens across India.
And then comes the announcement:
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard.”
No Pakistani jets.
No dramatic dogfight.
No ejection seat.
No international crisis.
Just an ATR heading toward its destination.
That, perhaps, is the most amusing part of the entire saga.
War propaganda thrives on drama. Commercial aviation thrives on routine.
The first requires enemies, headlines, medals and patriotic speeches.
The second requires punctuality, discipline, navigation and passengers who have remembered to switch their phones to flight mode.
The Vir Chakra cannot help with turbulence.
A patriotic slogan cannot land an aircraft.
And a famous moustache is no substitute for an aviation licence.
Perhaps this is why the ATR chapter is so revealing. It strips away the political theatre and returns aviation to what it actually is: a profession in which performance matters far more than mythology.
If Abhinandan successfully completes his training and begins flying commercially, he will simply become another professional pilot responsible for getting passengers safely from one airport to another.
No national anthem required.
No heroic soundtrack necessary.
And certainly no need to remind anyone about the tea.
Although, given the extraordinary afterlife of those three words, one suspects that whenever Abhinandan is offered a cup of tea before a flight, somebody somewhere will remember:
“Tea is fantastic.”
What a journey.
From the cockpit of a MiG-21 to the cockpit of an ATR.
From aerial combat to domestic routes.
From fighter pilot to commercial trainee.
And from a captured pilot's famous cup of tea to a career where the real test is no longer how convincingly one can appear heroic on television, but whether one can safely land the aircraft.
Perhaps that is the final irony.
The Indian establishment spent years turning a three-day captivity into a legend.
Now aviation may reduce the legend to something wonderfully ordinary:
Captain, passengers are waiting. The aircraft is ready. Please fly.
The writer is a journalist who completed MPhil thesis titled “U.S. Pro Israel Policy: The Rise of Anti American Rhetoric in Pakistan" from Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad.
