And I have often been asked by television anchors and newspaper editors, ‘Air India had been going down for a long time. Why were steps not taken to prevent the decline? You knew what was happening!’It was not just the media that was doing the questioning. At social gatherings, industry seminars and corporate get-togethers, I found the same issues being raised by friends, colleagues and professional acquaintances, some of whom I had not met in years. Former minister of civil aviation Rajiv Pratap Rudy, who has been a co-panelist on several television debates, questioned the propriety of my pointing fingers at the government and the political and bureaucratic machinery and highlighting systemic shortcomings of Air India when most of the controversial decisions that led to the decline were taken while I was in the airline. Praful Patel, also a former minister of civil aviation, when asked to comment on my criticism of the way Air India was managed, said on national television, ‘A person after retirement can say whatever he wants.’My answer to all my querulous questioners has always been the same: ‘I was never a silent spectator to the way the airline was being managed.
