I enjoyed reading the four-part account "Flight to fame” (Parsiana, April 7 to June 6, 2021) about the path-breaking flight of Aspy Engineer in 1930. It was a great adventure fraught with danger from sand storms in the Libyan desert and marauding Bedouins.
One Purushottam Meghji Kabali, a Maharashtrian gentleman, was the first licensed pilot in India. Like Engineer, he came from a well-to-do family which allowed him to purchase a British made Simmonds Spartan single-engine bi-plane in 1930. At the taking charge of the plane ceremony in Croydon the achhu-michhu ceremony was performed by Sarojini Naidu in the presence......