Considered a hero in air force circles, Malhotra’s teenage dreams lay not in the clouds, but in the depth of the ocean. He was, after all, always interested in serving the navy.
“For some reason, I wanted to join the navy. When I went for the selection, they said my eyesight was not good enough for the navy, but good enough for the air force. They were running short of air force cadets. So, I said alright and that’s how I joined the air force and the fighter stream,” he said.
During his career as a fighter pilot, he fought in the 1971 Indo-Pak war and had a close call as well. “We were attacking some tanks in Chamb-Jaurian sector in West Pakistan, when there was heavy anti-aircraft gunfire against my plane. In the cockpit, you hear a lot of thud thud thud. But I was lucky, that nothing came through,” he said.