Vir Chakra awardee Group Captain Om Prakash Taneja remained a fighter till the end on July 22, when he finally gave in to liver cancer after two years.
Group Captain Taneja died in New Jersey while visiting his daughter and was cremated there. “He would visit us every year. He loved to swim despite his 89 years of age and cancer. He would say that he won’t want to live if he couldn’t do what he enjoyed,” said Sanjana, his daughter.
His family and friends came together for a prayer meeting at the Arya Samaj Mandir here on Saturday. One of the former Indian Air Force officer’s closest friends, former Army officer Nimmi Puri, led from the front.
Known for his daring exploits, Group Captain Taneja was known to be game for all challenges, especially when it came to striking the enemy in its den.
A story that Mr. Puri shared from their days at Lahore Government College was that of 19-year-old Omi, as he was fondly called, wanting to meet a hostel warden he did not like much. After repeated refusals from the warden, he threatened to break a wall. “Omi decided to break the boundary wall. It must have been a miracle, or a very weak wall, that it crumbled the moment he rammed it,” recalled Mr. Puri.
Considering the fact that the war hero was known to be a disciplinarian, Mr. Puri’s story of Mr. Taneja being called ‘Wild Jack’ in college left everyone present in smiles.
After retiring from the IAF, Group Captain Taneja ventured into the stock market.
The decision to become a fighter pilot came when Jumbo Mazumdar, a Royal Air Force officer, came to their college for a talk and encouraged them to become pilots and participate in World War-II, said Mr. Puri.
“From that day, he was convinced that he wanted to be a pilot,” he added.
Getting into the air force, however, didn’t come easy. His family feared that they might lose him to war. His father, who was well connected and even considered close to Jawaharlal Nehru, tried to pull strings to prevent him from going ahead.
Commissioned in 1950
But those who could have influenced the outcome said that he had aced the entrance with a score so high that faking a rejection was not an option.
Group Captain Taneja was finally commissioned as an IAF officer in 1950.
On September 6, 1965, Mr. Taneja, who was a Wing Commander then, led his squadron into Pakistani territory and destroyed fuel wagons in the Gujranwala sector. The next day, he led a formation of 12 aircrafts to launch a dawn strike over the Sargodha airfield, an important base for the Pakistan Air Force.
Group Captain Taneja married twice and is survived by three children — Sanjana, Rahil and Nikhil — and six grandchildren. His former wife, Zohra, was among those present at the prayer meeting. She, in fact, remained a friend and neighbour to the IAF officer till the end.
Zohra, who was born to a British mother and an Indian Muslim father, said that Group Captain Taneja wasn’t religious. “Not being religious in the strictest sense of the word is one of the reasons we connected. This is also why he wanted his prayer meeting to be held at the Arya Samaj Bhawan because it is a movement that is not very ritualistic,” she said.
From what Ms. Zohra or Ms. Sanjana remember, discussions about the 1965 war or any other military operation were never part of family discussions.
One of Ms. Zohra’s memories were about how the Group Captain spoke of a time when he had a lot of administrative work, which earned him the reputation of someone who was reluctant to fly. “When it mattered, he flew. We all know how that turned out,” she said.