After nearly 55 years, I managed to contact an ex-RAF officer Henry Chambers. He was with me on the same Pilot Attack Instructor Course in Leconfield, Yorkshire, UK from September to November 1953. Two years ago, he saw a letter of mine in the Daily Telegraph in UK and sent me a letter simply addressed to Gp Capt Kapil Bhargava (Retd), Bangalore India. The letter found me with only a slight local delay.
We had got quite friendly as we were two of the very few attending the course who were not out chasing skirt every evening. We discussed many things including Hindustani Classical Music and calligraphy. At his request, I had given him, a sample of my calligraphy on a sheet of a notebook, which had guide lines printed in light blue on the pages.
We never met or corresponded after November 1953 but are now in contact though email and phone calls. We found that we still had much in common to talk over.
Henry suddenly located the calligraphed piece and sent me a scan of it. The paper was yellowed and frayed at the edges and had some smudges in places. I cleaned it up to produce a neat image on completely white background which looks quite new. I then made an old age version of it.
This is attached for your examination. As I see it, it was fairly good calligraphy, though not perfect. But it was a pleasure to see it after all of 55 years.
Wow. This is an exquisite piece of calligraphy. I wish fonts were designed this way. In the 21st Century we type more than write. Nowadays I have started to jot down things on paper and quite enjoy it 🙂
It’s amazing that a letter reaches you in this crazy, congested city just with your name on it…that’s known to have happened only in the virtual and computer world. This version of your calligraphy looks different and more flowery than any I’ve seen in the past – would you still write more ornately when it came to poetry? Hope Kabir picks up the skill from you and Kishore.
Hi Kapil.
Great work there with the pen. and I’m impressed that the letter actually reached you with such an address. 🙂
BTW, I think its great what you are doing with the gnat get-together. Drop over to my blog sometime – I’m sure you’ll find the old pictures of IAF interesting. Sadly Haven’t been able to update the blog regularly, but will get around to it soon.
Cheers,
Anuj
Ooops, I think I posted my comments on a wrong place. Well, I have not only admired the writer but have always been fascinated by his beautiful hand writing right from the time I joined the “Bhargava” family. :-