The goal

This course is the first on-the-job training programme the officers undergo after their training as cadets at the Officers Training Academy, Chennai. Here they are taught how to lead air defence troops independently.

“We maintain a very high standard of training with discipline and implicit obedience because when you give an order it has to be obeyed. The lady officers are trained to become good officers so that her troops respect her, so that they are willing to do anything for the officer,” continues Colonel Sharma.

To be a good officer is a common answer that runs through the women officers at the Air Defence College. Ask them their goals, where they see themselves five years later -- and this is their one and only answer.

“Actually, the answer is this only -- to be a good officer,” smiles Lt Sujata Mandotra who is married. Her husband is undergoing another training programme at the same college.

Lt Mulasi reasons that serving in the defence forces is not about just looking at it as a badge of patriotism. “You cannot just treat it like that. It is a profession and you have to be good at it. For that we have to study and that is what we are doing here.”

The girls are required to have a degree in science to enter the Air Defence wing. They are selected for the Officers Training Academy after a series of tests and interviews held in different centres in India.

Reportage: Archana Masih. Photographs: Jewella C Miranda