नभः स्पृशं दीप्तम्।

The Indian Air Force celebrates the 75th Anniversary of its inception today.

Starting with six officers and four Westland Wapiti IIA biplanes, the IAF has come a long way. With exceptional men piloting and maintaining the machines, IAF has frequently proven its superiority even over more advanced machines. In today's world where the supremacy of airspace is important, IAF is led in its quest for latest technology by air superiority fighters like Su-30MKI and multi role combat aircrafts like MiG-29 and Mirage 2000.

With Tejas replacing the mainstay of IAF (and the cause of many a controversies) MiG-21 by 2010, and possible development of fifth-generation of fighters with Russia, as well as indigenous MCA, IAF is set to continue defend India's airspace for years to come, as they have admirably done till date.

Here's to heroes in the air from an ex-NCC cadet (Air Wing) and a flight-sim fan (not to mention a Su-30 fan).


- The Great Eagle Has Spoken

P.S. Interestingly, this also marks 75 published posts on this blog.

A Toast To Women

On the International Women's Day, I propose a toast to all women, starting with:

• My mother and my sis, for being what they are


• My niece, need I say anything more?


• My friends
  
  • For having the honor to be called my friend
  
  
  • For aiming their boxes at other friends even when I am the one with naughty comment
  
  
  • Not for not helping me in my l'amour(Sorry, toasts only contain good parts, I guess)
  
  


• JKR, Enid Blyton and many other writers who help keep the child in me happy, and have written a lot many books I like


• For my blogger friends, for writing nice posts which keep me entertained and thinking (if I start writing names here, the post will go on and on and on, but you all know to whom this toast goes)


• The women who have proven that they are not second to anybody with their merit, in all walks of life

My friend also wants to add a toast to all the girls who have left a mark on his life (and not their fingerprints on his cheek) and “left footprints on his heart” (by not using their sandals and other assorted footware on him). I won't give his name, but he knows who he is... [There, now don't say I am not a true friend]


A special thanks to Silverine for pointing out the technical problems in my halo. This is a part of my series to polish my halo back to its original brightness. On that note, I hope the old specs-cleaning strategy of blowing on the glasses and polishing with your sleeve or shirt-front (ok, hanky if you are too particular) works on halos too... Any tips there?



The Great Eagle has spoken...

Quote of The Day:

What would men be without women? Scarce, sir, mighty scarce.
- Mark Twain

A Toast To All My Teachers

On this Teachers' Day, I'd like to propose a toast to all teachers...

• To my parents, because they are my first teachers


• To my dear sister, because our reputation of “having least quarrels in siblings” is (if I put it egotistically) 70% because of her (and that's patience for you)


• To my dear niece, who taught me quickly and effectively that “mama is not supposed to get angry”, among many other things


• To my cousins and brother-in-law, who taught me how to help others selflessly (and are teaching me even now)


• To my teachers in primary school, who are even now remembered even if I don't remember what they taught


• To the teacher in my school, who told me that a good boy like me should not be a friend of my best friend (what she had against him, I don't know)


• To teachers in my school, who used to explode at the least provocation


• To teachers for whom we were favorites, because we used to be always fighting for first 3 spots in class


• To teachers who were our favorite


• To teachers who tried to teach us everything they knew


• To teachers to whom nobody used to listen


• To teachers who held the attention of the class for all the time


• To teachers, whom nobody used to make fun of


• To teacher, who informed us in 9th std, that "energy crisis is over" (she might have been talking about the chapter, but the choice of words was a bit unfortunate)


• To teachers who were fun to be with in the class


• To my college teachers, who taught me many things besides the subjects they were teaching, in and out of class (ok, mostly out of class)


• To the teachers whose classes I attended who are more remembered for their teaching styles, and whose idioms have become an essential part of our language now (“Kaltay ka kahi?”)


• To teachers, who produced some gems like "You will be displayed on notice board" and "we need some power to discharge a capacitor", to ensure we never had a dull moment in class


• To the teacher, who used to line marofy on girls in our class


• To teachers, who ensured we had free run of department and labs after office hours, on holidays, anytime we wanted, so that we could learn


• To teachers, who let us go on our "Industrial Tour" without a cheperon professor, and allowed us to come back 15 days after college started


• To teachers, who let us use any of departmental facilities for creating our magazine and organizing inter-collegiate events, and never interfered in our preparations, but always were ready to help in any way they could


• To my friends, each of whom has qualities which I would like to learn


• To many authors (book- and blog-), who are teaching me a lot about how to write (that shows you what is to come, I still fancy myself as a writer)


• To Sherlock Holmes, because after all, having a bad student is not teacher's fault


• To Harry Potter, Prof. Dumbledore, Nanda Pradhan, and countless other characters, reading about whom has never bored me, and I read something new every time I read them


• and last but not the least, to all my readers, and not just because you must be bored holding the glass by now

To All Teachers....



P.S. Hi people, kindly adjust. Apparently, after moving my blog to blogger beta, I cannot comment on the blogs which have not shifted. I can still comment on blogs where blogger account is not needed for commenting, but please to forgive, if I am not able to comment on your posts, at least till Blogger solves this or till you shift to beta.

P.P.S. Kindly adjust again... Thanks to Keshi's suggestion (and Blogger team's too) I have opened a new blogger account just to comment on non-beta blogs (which will be deleted when all blogs move to beta, which blogger team tells me is imminent). So in recent future, if you see somebody named "alias fleiger" commenting on your blog, as you can see, it is my alias.


The Great Eagle has spoken...

Quote of The Day:
The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.
- William Arthur Ward