I must confess in the very first line of this post that this was not my first choice for letter “F”. I originally wanted to write about “Fearless Female Fighter Pilots”. But to my utter dismay, India is still to get it’s “Female” fighter pilot. The reason I read about the same was even more disheartening and de-motivating.
"As far as
flying fighter planes is concerned, it's a very challenging job. Women are by
nature not physically suited for flying fighters for long hours, especially
when they are pregnant or have other health problems,'' said ACM Raha. Source
A major hindrance is
that it takes over Rs 13 crore to train a single fighter pilot, with the huge
investment being recovered over 13-14 years of active flying. "Women
fighter pilots may get married; have children, disrupting our tight flying
schedules. Fighter flying requires very high level of physical and mental
fitness," said an officer. Source
As they say, “it’s
all in the head”, the authorities and respected officers must give it a really
deep thought. A simple, straight forward, yet an awesome blog post might help
all – “women-fighter-pilots “.
Never the less, I was
determined to find the female fighters and I stuck gold when I thought of one
of the most under-rated respectable jobs – THE FIRE FIGHTERS.
The very first line
of WIKIPEDIA about Women in
Firefighting says – “Firefighting was formerly an all-male profession.”
We need to re-read the third word. Read it loud and clear – “FORMERLY”.
Not wasting any more
precious words, let’s meet some of the commendable ladies from our country.
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Meenakshi Vijayakumar joined the Tamil Nadu Fire and Rescue Services -- TNFRS -- as a
divisional fire officer. She has many firsts and only to her credit.
She is the only woman officer in field
operations in India. She is one of the first woman fire officers in India, to
qualify as the Divisional Fire Officer.
She is the first
Indian fire officer to have won medals for India in the World Fire Fighters,
held in Korea (2010) and Australia (2012).
She is the first
Women Fire officer of India to have led an all men contingent in Republic
Parade in Chennai Marina in 2005.
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Priya Ravichandran, the present divisional fire officer, Central Chennai City was one of
the first female fire officers in Tamil Nadu. Priya also lead the Republic Day
parade Contingent for two succession years - 2008 and 2009. Information Source
She was also
severely injured during one of her operations when a fire broke out in
Kalasahal Heritage Structure. She received 40 percent of burns while she
was leading a team of around 150 firefighters, 15 fire tenders, 30 water
tenders and two sky lifts. Unfortunately, one of her firefighter had to
bid adieu to world during this operations while one more received critical
injuries and survived in the same operation. News Source
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Image
Sources: Pic1,
Pic2(Top),
Pic3(Bottom)
|
Harshini Kanhekar created history by taking admission in the only institution in India for
fire services – National Fire Service College, Nagpur. She was the first ever
female student and yes she had no idea about this fact. She graduated from the
college in 2005 to become the ‘First Female Fire Engineer in India” and joined ONGC
(Oil and Natural Gas Commission) as a fire and security officer.
She has one of the
best answers to the odd questions – “I
don’t think there is anything ‘manly’ or ‘womanly’ about a job”. Her words
should be written in gold and bold when she says – “It is a myth that women can’t take as much physical strain as men.”
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| Image Source |
Fabulous Five at Mumbai Fire Brigade: Kavita Gurukul, Kanchan Rathod, Varsha
Budhvant, Lata Rathod and NIrmala Ingle were appointed on Wadala Fire Station
in Mumbai in January 2012 and became the first women fire fighters in the city.
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| Image Source |
Century from Rajasthan: The Rajasthan government recruited 155 female fire fighters in
current year (2015). According to Jaipur's Chief Fire Officer Dinesh Verma, “…if
women are in the army and stationed at the border and are ready to fight our
enemies, then they can surely be encouraged to fight fires." News and Image Source
Dear Ladies, please
accept my sincere thanks and gratitude towards your commitment and dare to
dream. The following image says it all – well done.
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| Image Source |
This post is written as a part of April 2015 A to Z
Challenge. My theme for this year is Women
In A to Z Professions. Click at the link to check other
professions women have excelled in and their respective links.
Update: Dream Come True - India has finally opened the doors for female fighter polits
Update: Dream Come True - India has finally opened the doors for female fighter polits
Yay for the fire fighters! All amazing women. And boo for the reasoning against female fighter pilots. Such nonsense.
ReplyDelete@TarkabarkaHolgy from
Multicolored Diary - Epics from A to Z
MopDog - 26 Ways to Die in Medieval Hungary
This is so good to hear. I hope India gets it's fighter pilots soon too.
ReplyDeleteLike they say, what a man can do, a woman can do, only better.
ReplyDeleteKudos to the Breaveheart our Female firefighters. Yes Formerly it was men's job but luckily female entrants made inside to take key positions. They made it and brought fame to firefighters community. In bed of hour situation they boldly took decisions and marched a head.Chennai DD Mrs. Priya Ravichandran had went further to set an example how female is superior in risking the life, it is tough for a female to sacrifice the beauty, she came back as a Phoenix after 40% scare risking her life for us. She set an great example and role model for the future entrants. Have too Thank them whole heatedly. Want to end up my comment adding quotes of Stacy Schiff "For the several thousands of years before they became firefighters and physicians, women were sirens, enchantresses, snares. At times it seems as if female powerlessness is male self-preservation in disguise. And for millennia, this has made for a zero-sum game: A woman's intelligence was a man's deception".
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