With great regret I have to inform members of the Indian aeromodelling community that C.J.DeCruz, John as he was known, passed away yesterday, a month before his 72nd birthday.
Old timers would remember John.
In the late sixties, he was one of the aeromodelling pioneers in Delhi.
He even built his own single channel radio in the early 1970s (which I still have).
And then a Galloping Ghost system (I still have the motorised actuator he built)
In those days we used to window shop at the India Hobby Centre, opposite Plaza cinema in Connaught Place. One day John wrote to Mr Suresh Kumar (father of aeromodelling in India and owner of IHC and Aurora Model Mfg Co) that this was not the best way to run a hobby shop. In response, he got an invite to Calcutta to meet Mr Suresh Kumar, and an AC Chair Car ticket!
That's how John became the manager of the Delhi IHC.
He attracted and mentored a lot of budding aeromodellers.
Including one Mr Sanjay Gandhi.
I remember him trying to start his OS60 in the small space at the back of Hobby Centre.
Later I had to start it in his red Focke Wolf at Polo grounds in Wellington Crescent.
John had a lot of personal friends amongst the high and mighty in Delhi.
But he remained unchanged, just as he was in the sixties.
Same flat, same clothes, same old bearskin jacket, no airs.
Though the lane to his building would sometimes be half blocked by an S Class Benz.
I had the good fortune to go with him to the office of some real big shots, where everyone from the parking lot attendant to the MD's secretary greeted him like a personal friend.
Even the dogs in the farmhouse of an industrialist.
He last called me on 1st of this month. I told him that I was going to Bombay and would call him when back. But that was not to be.
Memories of 1970.
John's Piper Cherookee, his Galloping Ghost radio, my Enya 19, Mukul Luthra as Pilot.
Flying at Polo Ground.
And we lost it.
We got hundreds of pamphlets printed in red inserted into newspapers the next day, but we never recovered the model...
Epitaph: "A Good Guy"
Some of us were fortunate to have known him. And his ever self effacing wife.
We were fortunate to know his family, dad, mom, brother, sisters, wife and kids.
When we were kids in Delhi, he used to come to my house.
Decades later, he came to my son's wedding.
But he never saw where or how we lived in the last 50 years or so.
A few years ago I asked him why he never visited us (though we visited him once every year).
His honest answer shook me, and has been a lesson.
He said "I don't feel welcome"
What an irreparable loss!
Last 2-3 years he was convinced, and propogated in every conversation, that the world was going to be a better place soon.
Perhaps he was disappointed.
And left for a better place.
RIP, Dear Friend.
I found this last month and sent it to John. He felt deeply embarrassed!
May there be blue skies and fair winds, where the Airman has gone behind the sun.