William H Gates and his son Bill: Kerosene call

New Delhi, Nov. 13: Looking out of his plane window, Bill Gates might have been excused for mistaking the sight for an untimely Diwali, held in his honour.

But what the Microsoft chairman was being treated to on Saturday evening was not Indian culture but an unforgettable demonstration in Indian technology.

His private jet was taking off by the light of kerosene lamps from the Jodhpur airbase.

The runway lights had been under repair for months; so the air force arranged for more than 200 “gooseneck” lamps and was up and about placing them along the runway and lighting them for its VVIP guest.

Tech titan Gates would not have known much about gooseneck lamps — they are filled with kerosene and a rag-like wick is lit. “They are quite similar to Diwali lamps,” a source said.

The Jodhpur airfield, a strategic airbase near the Pakistan border, has been undergoing repairs since mid-April and the authorities had ordered that no flight could take off after 4pm.

By the time Gates — visiting India with his family for travel and work on health-related issues — arrived for the flight, it was a few minutes past 4pm. The airbase authorities, however, gave permission for take-off, the source said.

As the plane taxied to the runway, Gates’s father, William H. Gates, suddenly remembered he had left behind two pieces of luggage in his hotel room.

The aircraft was halted and the baggage brought from the hotel, but airbase authorities said it was now too late for take-off. Gates’s staff, however, insisted their boss had to leave for the US the same day.

Air force headquarters in Delhi was contacted and special permission granted for take-off. But the question of lighting still remained.

Gates’s security said the light from the aircraft would be enough for the pilot to see the runway, but the airbase officials were not prepared to take chances. The source did not say how much more time was taken up to light so many lamps and place them along the runway.

IAF authorities acknowledged they made “special arrangements for lights for the VVIP, which saved him from inconvenience”.

“We helped out the VVIP with gooseneck lights,” Wing Commander Satish Menon, spokesman for the South-Western Air Command, told The Telegraph.

It’s not clear how impressed Gates was by India’s readiness with earthy alternatives in a time of crisis. But if he needed any proof that India required his help to take wings as a tech superpower — a subject of discussion between the Centre and Microsoft officials yesterday — he has got one.