When we talk of the senses, the first to come to mind is sight, followed by hearing. Smell, though important, does not stand out until it disappears — meaning, cough, cold, fever, and COVID-19 that numbs the sense, suddenly making us unhappy. More unhappy as the fourth sense of taste too diminishes as it is so well enmeshed with smell.
Trainee pilots in any stream — civilian or military, flying fixed-wing aircraft or helicopters — are primarily taught to trust their sight followed by hearing. Suffice to say, when military aviators wear a helmet and put on the oxygen mask, all the work of our third sense stays in the background.
The story starts with military helicopters operating in the undulating hills of Northeast India. We were posted in Assam, tasked with operating from the plains to pick up rations and supply them to remote posts in the hills of Arunachal Pradesh. We would take off early in the morning, sometimes 4.30 a.m. in the summers, reach the base and do numerous shuttles to helipads in the hills, depending on which valley is clear of clouds and rain. All work tends to be monotonous after some time, and we also were not immune to this syndrome. Plus flying in the east with the morning sun in one’s eyes is not relaxing by any measure. We thus had a series of interesting games and quizzes that we made on the spot to ensure that both pilots are alert and “in the zone” while flying.
The best out of all these quizzes was the one in which we had to guess what cargo is being loaded by the Army men. We have restricted visibility through the front wind shield, nil behind because of the partition between the cockpit and cargo compartment, and about 10% in the sides through our windows. Plus the helicopter engines are running at 80 decibels, there is smoke and dust due to the running rotors and we have to scream out our fuel and weight limits to the load supervisor, who will, in turn, shout it out to the helpers. That particular day in June was hot, humid and unbearably fatiguing. We had started in the unearthly hours, and it was now beyond noon with my co-pilot leading the score at 8-7. He had got the last load right by his keen sense of smell for the return leg, which consisted of 10 civilians with their huge bags of black cardamom. I cursed myself for having a sip of water during loading, and he smiled at my switched-off microphone while mouthing Moti Elaichi and showing me the score on his notepad while I gulped down my defeat. Next trip I will win, I indicated.
I kept my weary eyes peeled for any tell-tale indications on our cargo at the farther end of the helipad, but could not get any idea, as all cardboard boxes looked the same from far. I need to up the ante before lunch, and I thought of the extra “chits” I would have to sign in the bar that evening if I lost. Hearing something unusual, I took half of my headphone off my ear to guess what the loader was saying, but it was all drowned in a weirdly shrill cacophony of shouts, screams and what we thought was a fish market behind us.
Never has a disciplined force made so much noise during loading, I thought, and quickly told my co-pilot to hold on to the controls while I released my straps and opened the door to check the cargo compartment. It was as if my ears hit a sound wall as I removed my headphones. I looked at the crate being loaded, and nothing could prepare me for the sight before my eyes. We used to regularly carry crates of eggs, chicken and goats as livestock for rations, but seeing this particular crate, I was both laughing and crying.
It was a crate of goats, but the noise coming from them was because they were loaded upside down! Their bleating was heard above the sound of two engines and a metal gearbox just above our head. The fork-lifter was not available, so the guys had manually lifted the crate and instead of sliding it, tipped it over, thus sending 15 packed goats into a Samudayik Sheershasan! I pleaded with the loaders and offered to help in righting the crate and we managed to do it in the next couple of minutes. As soon as the blood flow corrected itself in the brains, the goats settled down to an eerie calm. Thinking that I single-handedly resolved a big issue, I walked into the cockpit to see my co-pilot smilingly holding out my notepad. It now read, “Goats, 9-7”!
Later, when we were comfortably sitting in our sofas in the evening, he explained that while I was so concerned and bothered with the noise of the inverted goats, he had already guessed the right answer by the signature stench when the door was opened. The third sense trumped the first and second by a big margin today! Guess who paid the tab that night?
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