Mukhshuddhi

You know that thing you do sometimes when you have a bad or bitter taste in your mouth and you need to eat something tasty just to drown it with sophistication and happiness? Like when you touch something slimy and gross and then have to wash your hand with medicated soap to rid yourself of that sensation? Or like when you smell something rotting or that came out of the back of a mammal’s alimentary canal and have to have a bath and spray some perfume on to mask that crap? Yep. Same feeling.

Here’s a photo of my kid bro, the late Flt Lt Abhijit Gadgil, dressed in his overalls, G-suit, and flying boots, holding his helmet stylishly as he grins confidently at the camera through his IAF-issued Ray-Ban Aviators. A real pilot who made the ultimate sacrifice. An actual fighter pilot, comfortable and at home in his surroundings, standing in an easy pose next to his (yes, that’s his name, ABHIJIT, right there under the canopy and next to the Panther Squadron’s logo and the IAF roundel hidden behind his head) MiG-21. So there.

And now, I feel cleansed.