Opinion P V Iyer, an unlikely soldier, continues to inspire
He took to running, like a duck to water, and regularly ran 10-15 milers early morning. Once, in the dark of an early Delhi winter morning, he collided with a buffalo on Janpath road.
P V Iyer, an unlikely soldier, continues to inspire 
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In June this year, a video clip was shared by Param Iyer featured his father Air Marshal PV Iyer (retd) doing pull-ups on a bar. Netizens reacted to the tweet, calling the Air Marshal an inspiration.
October is the month Air Force Day is celebrated in India and this is also a good occasion to celebrate the birthday of an Air Force veteran — Air Marshal P V Iyer —who turned ninety today. Known as the Running Air Marshal in the Indian Air Force, having logged in about 1,20,000 kms in his over 50-year running career, he has turned running and fitness into a passion and inspired countless others, including his family, to make this a lifestyle. One person he could not inspire to undertake extreme running, however, was his son, the author of this piece.
In 1985, when I was general manager of the Uttar Pradesh Road Transport Corporation, based in Lucknow, my dad was planning to lead a contingent of about 200 Air Force and civilian runners on an Agra-Delhi 210 km ultra-marathon in just three days. I could, or at least was trying to, run buses in UP, and did my daily four-five km run, but definitely did not plan to embark on an ultramarathon with my father and his merry band of athletes. So, we amicably agreed that I would take one of my buses from Agra to Delhi while the Air Marshal and his team ran the distance. With night halts at Mathura, Palwal and Faridabad, they completed the run in style, being received by then Air Chief Marshal LaFontaine at Air Force Station Palam on Air Force Day, October 8, 1985. The gruelling run had a dropout rate of about 50 per cent, but the then 56-year-old Air Marshal and his co-runners, finished in fine fettle, and celebrated with a “burra khana” lunch at Palam.
Young P V Iyer was always an unlikely candidate to join the military. Born in Kozhikode to a family of traditional temple priests, who had never done more exercise beyond throwing petals in the sacred fire while performing marriage rituals, he was destined to be an academic or a lawyer, like his father. He completed a Master’s in mathematics from Presidency College, Madras, and was heading towards a teaching career, but fate willed otherwise — he got selected as a commissioned officer in the Indian Air Force. In 1952, he met Kalyani, a tennis star and veterinary doctor from Queen Mary’s College, and after a short courtship, they got married.
The Air Marshal only accidentally got into fitness in 1976 when the Indian Air Force introduced a mandatory annual fitness test for its officers. He soon took to running, like a duck to water, and regularly ran 10-15 milers early morning from the Curzon Road Apartments near India Gate to Palam airport and back. Once, in the dark of an early Delhi winter morning, he collided with a buffalo on Janpath road. Luckily, the buffalo was more startled than my father and galloped away.
In between his running career, the then Air commodore Iyer took a little time off to help his son prepare for the 1980 civil services exam. As the Commanding Officer of the Air Force station at Chakeri, Kanpur, he realised that his son, having never studied the subject before, was struggling a bit in preparing for the philosophy paper in the main exam. The Commanding Officer took a week’s leave and prepared some notes on philosophy to assist the aspiring civil servant. One of the notes was on phenomenology, the philosophical study of the structures of experience and consciousness — something which did not make any sense to me. But my father had it figured out and his notes came in handy in my responses to the questions in the exam. I managed to get selected for the IAS.
Last year, again on Air Force Day, the Air Marshal was thrilled to meet the prime minister during the evening reception at the residence of the Air Chief in Delhi. In a face to face interaction, they discussed his Air Force career. Today is another important occasion: His 90th birthday. While all of us will sorely miss Kalyani, we will enjoy and celebrate the remarkable life and career of the Running Air Marshal, with the clear intention of having many more such celebrations in the years to come.
This article first appeared in the print edition on October 30, 2019 under the title ‘The running air marshal’. The writer is Secretary, Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Ministry of Jal Shakti. Views are personal.
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