Title: Lion of the Skies: Hardit Singh Malik, the Royal Air Force and the First World War
Author: Stephen Barker
Genre: Biography
Publisher: HarperCollins India
Cost: Rs 599

Before Tom Cruise dreamt of the fighter jet manoeuvres in Top Gun, there were the daredevils of the Great War. Among them was Hardit Singh Malik. Stephen Barker’s book outlines the journey of a man whose life is marked by great events and names. If you share a fancy for the adventures of war, as this writer does, Malik’s journey makes for a fascinating read. It feels surreal to read about a war hero whose personal anecdotes include playing cricket for Sussex after being spotted by Kumar Ranjitsinhji himself, being stumped by the off spin of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and meeting golfing great Harry Vardon. But this ambitious journey also runs parallel to the complex struggle for Independence and identity. Barker’s detailed biography touches upon it using archival evidence of letters and documents.

The British government’s suspicion and apprehension of Indians in the armed forces and their tactics to delay his commission were products of the relationship between the Empire and its colonies. The reader cannot help but be fascinated by the complex threads of history that ran through individual lives in this period. Malik’s rise as a pilot in the war suddenly acquires a larger symbolic importance.  As Malik writes, “For I do believe that a man is all the better for having been tested in the forge of modern warfare and having been brought face to face with the elemental problems is fitter to live like a man.” Perhaps, that applied for his whole generation.