Bhaskar was a nice, friendly, and a tough guy. He came to the NDA from Bengaluru and landed up in Golf Squadron. He was an excellent Basketball player and kept the goal in hockey and football. Golfie RK Sharma remembers a hockey game that went into the tiebreaker and Madhavan came out a hero winning them the match with his excellent saves. RK Sharma was one of the non-vegetarians who never liked chicken, a fact that Bhaskar noticed early on. Ever since he made it a point to sit next to RK at the dinner table and used to barter his piece of papad for RK's share of the chicken.

He was generally a happy-go-lucky young man. Benipuri shares that Madhavan could really imitate some of the instructors well. One was Flt Lt R Shankar, who used to teach English. Madhavan would roll his eyes and huff and puff exactly like Flighty Shankar while describing the speaker on western classical music. Madhavan tried desperately, to look like a real fucker type with juniors but failed miserably due to his innate good nature. Generally, Bhaskar Madhavan felt pleased if people turned up for a fall-in, ordered by him .

Madhavan was from the Bengaluru gang of four- Sudhir Pillai , Sridhar, and Rathindranath being the other three. Sudhir Pillai shares the following on dear Madhavan:

"Bhaskar was the only son of late Wing Commander Madhavan. He was my Bangalore type in NDA. He had one sister. Four of us who hung out together were Sridhar, Bhaskar, Rathan and self. Also, we had Pynax (Pynumootil) in our group at NDA given his closeness with his school buddy, Rathan. Madhavan’s sister was a close friend of now politician Renuka Reddy ( more famous as Renuka Chaudhary) then Renuka Rao D/o Air Cmde Rao, Comdt IAM ( Institute of Aerospace Medicine ). Sridhar, Bhaskar and I were all staying together in the IAF Trg Comd campus in Hebbal. I finished school from Hebbal, Bhaskar and Sridhar from elsewhere but we met at the NDA. Sridhar’s dad was the SOA (Senior Officer I/c Administration) at Training Command. Bhaskar and I met last if I remember correctly when Renuka Chaudhary hosted us for dinner at Secunderabad Club when I was at Hyderabad flying club.”

Bhaskar Madhavan was not destined to be a pilot, and he got into the Navigation branch of the Flying stream. After leaving Bidar, he joined the Navigation & Signals School at Begumpet and later joined the transport fleet as a Navigator. He was posted to 106 Sqn on Canberra’s. His peers and colleagues found him to be a lively guy with a great sense of humour.

Bhaskar, a promising officer, lost his life because of a freak road accident due to dense fog and the untimely falling of a massive tree on the road while returning back to the mess. A couple of hours before the accident, the road was clear, but in the intervening period, a massive tree had fallen across the road. Bad Fog contributed heavily to the disastrous end of this young lad!

Ajaya Kr Singh C 56 ( of the Nishan Toli fame ) has this to tell us about that fateful night. "It was, I think, Dec of 85. We were in Agra. A dense fog had set in. The squadron was preparing for the Pagal Gymkhana starting the next day. After the preparations Madhavan and Sudhir Sharma (55th course Navigator) had gone to the Nav Ldrs house from there, they landed up at Kalamkar's house (55th course Nav) and from there along with Kalamkar they reached my place around 0130 am. I too had had a late night with Kanak Singh, he used to be Echo Squadron's Div Officer during our cadet days. Anyhow typical of all of us, at that wee hour, the bachelors expected dinner to be served. My wife was on her last leg of pregnancy. Also, as luck would have it, there were no eggs in the house. So Madhavan went next door to Kuldeep Sharma's (50th course) house to fetch some eggs. While my wife made some sandwiches and scrambled eggs, Sudhir was knocked out in the chair. By the time the food came, Sudhir was woken up, and after a bite or two they all left saying goodbyes by about 2 am, and we hit the sack. Around 4 am, there was a knock at the door, and I woke up with a bad feeling. Sure enough Kalamkar the only sober guy from last evening was standing there with an ashen face, trembling, not a word was spoken, and he just kept shaking his hands repeatedly. I quickly changed and hopped onto his bike. Driving through the thick fog, we reached the main Guardroom and there under the street light was a tree fallen right across the road. The scooter was lying on the side of the road, and the two of them flung across the trunk of the tree. They were lying motionless! It was the last I saw him until the funeral was held after two days. He was a very good guy, a real friend, and a real Leo if I remember correctly."

Madhavan was not married. His father is no more. No news on his mother. May Bhaskar Madhavan be at peace. God bless.

🙏May his soul rest in peace🙏