LEGEND HAS IT THAT LIDO ANTHONY “Lee” Iacocca—celebrated president of Ford Motors and the father of the Ford Mustang—went from aardvark to zebu in the dictionary to find an apt animal name for the muscle car. Finally, the name came from the car’s designer, John Najjar, who adored P-51 Mustang fighter-bombers.
The name suited the car and the image that Ford wanted to project. The mention of mustangs conjured up images of powerful, free-spirited stallions thundering across wide open spaces. Add to all that a dash of Spanish ancestry in their bloodlines, and is it any wonder that the growly Mustang continues to be a much-desired car?
Now, coming to this week’s cover on MiG-21s, I am bothered that NATO used the reporting name Fishbed for a legendary aircraft. The standard explanation is that it had to be an F word for fighters, and a word random enough not to be used in usual conversation. Hence, Foxbat for the MiG-25, Foxhound for the MiG-31, Flanker for the Sukhoi-27, and so on. Logic accepted; name, not so much.
In his intro to the cover, Resident Editor R. Prasannan writes, “In the history of military flying, no fighter has been made in such large numbers—more than 11,500; 850 of them by IAF alone; none so multi-tasked, so long flown, so glorified, and so unkindly reviled as the MiG-21.” Hence, this farewell of a cover. As always, Prasannan brings in lesser-known side stories, like the one on Air Commodore M. Bhaskaran PVSM, who headed the project to make MiG-21 airframes in India.
Speaking of staying power, on September 17, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will turn 75, and on October 7, he will complete 24 unbroken years in public office. He will soon overtake two chief ministers who have breached the 24-year mark: Pawan Kumar Chamling of Sikkim and Naveen Patnaik of Odisha. True, Modi’s career is split between Gujarat and Delhi. In this issue, Senior Assistant Editor Pratul Sharma looks at a career that is “a testament to political endurance, centralised authority and (has left) a lasting influence on India’s destiny”.
Our fiery neighbourhood also comes alive in the pages with Kathmandu-based journalist Ramesh Pokhrel and former Indian ambassador Ranjit Rae writing about the tumult in the Himalayan country. Security expert Abhijan Das writes about the election in Myanmar and the delicate task in front of India—safeguarding its interests with pragmatism while keeping China at bay.
In @leisure, Principal Correspondent Pooja Biraia writes about how percussion greats Bickram Ghosh and Taufiq Qureshi are blending the classical with the contemporary. And, Senior Correspondent Shubhangi Shah tries something my generation might never do—paying for the privilege of dining with strangers.
Coming back to the cover story and naming conventions, how many of you remember a car named Zica, which had to be renamed after the Zika virus popped up in 2016? What timing, I say. On second thought, the timing was not that bad, as it was caught early enough, giving the manufacturer enough time to rebrand it. The rechristened car is now with us as the popular Tata Tiago.