A well-spoken and suave Bihari Babua from the famous Jhumri Tilaya is how Anand Mohan is remembered by his friends. A product of Sainik School Tilaiya, Anand Mohan remained a cool, calm and a focused Air Force Cadet in the NDA. Anand had initially been selected into the 54th NDA but lost out by a whisker in the final merit. He finally joined the 56th course and was a part of Juliet Squadron. He was a School Classmate of AK Singh L 56 ASC (now looking after ECHS in Bhagalpur). AK remembers this smart young boy from Patratu (now in Jharkhand) joining their class in the summer of 1968. His father was a big shot - General Manager of the Thermal Power Plant at Patratu. Anand was the only boy in his class who could speak English - the rest of the boys came from a rural background. He was a subject of awe, inspiration and motivation to the rest. He was an obvious choice for being a leader and was the longest standing monitor of his class. Given his height, he stood taller than the rest and was good at Basketball and running because of his long strides.

Anand Mohan was a sophisticated urbanite of Bihar from Sainik School Tilaya. He reported to the Academy with Harpal Singh in stylish bell bottoms and long hair but got a shock when he got a typical NDA Zero hair cut. His Amitabh Bachchan looks were brought down to plain young recruit of the NDA in no time. He was in the humanities steam and had to study from newspapers and magazines in the sixth term, but his study material would be confiscated by the duty DivO in the study period. During one of the study periods he was seated without any study material, and the Duty DivO asked him why he was not studying, his immediate reply was- "Sir you confiscated my study material in the evening." DivO said- "What do you mean? He said "Newspapers and magazines are my study material. You must be a techie, sir, but I am a non-techie." The DivO had to return the confiscated study material and apologized for having picked on him wrongly. Rajan Kapur remembers Anand as a very dear squadron mate, and also as the cadet signing as a witness on his Will. Anand Mohan was a regular at the Basketball games at Bidar and at the academy. He played well and was very crafty in his moves.

Anand had a good training record at Bidar, and thereafter he moved to AFA Dundigal. He was flying the Kiran Jet Trainer at the Air Force Academy. During his solo sortie, in a routine General Handling (experience building) exercise, Anand was doing a hard turn. While executing this manoeuvre, his aircraft entered into an inadvertent spin. He was smart enough to recognize that he had got into a spin. He announced over the radio that he was in a spin and called out his height, as per the SOP. He was asked by the Duty Safety Pilot to "EJECT EJECT EJECT", to which there was no response. Either, Anand never attempted to pull the ejection handle, or if he did, we do not know if the pull failed or if the seat did not fire. But that fateful day, 19 Mar 1980, our course lost our second friend in close succession to losing Ashwinder Malhotra in Hakimpet. Our heart goes out to this gentle soul. He was a decent and cultured Babua, who was loved by all. May God bless his soul!

Penned with inputs from AK Singh (Lima), Rajan Kapur, Harpal Singh, AKRC Dutta and Rajiv Battish.

🙏May his soul rest in peace🙏