Have a look at India’s first Lady Pilot who entered the cockpit wearing a saree

New Delhi, February 14: 80 years ago if one says that a lady flew a flight that too in a saree then? Isn’t that an astonishing question when women were not allowed to even step out of the house freely. And at that time a woman flew a flight. She was Sarla Thakral.

She was the one who became India’s first woman pilot! She got an extraordinary support from her family to her unflinching passion to achieve her dreams. But she is the one who was Married at 16 and widowed at 24 with two children.

"My husband was the first Indian to get airmail pilot's license and flew between Karachi and Lahore. It wasn't so much of him though. My father-in-law was even more enthusiastic and got me enrolled in the flying club. I knew I was breaching a strictly male bastion but I must say the men, they never made me feel out of place." - Sarla Thakral

Her husband was the initiator of her achievement and her father-in-law was also supportive of all the things. At a time when aviation was only about men, Sarla entered the cockpit of a Gypsy Moth and made a history as India’s first lady pilot in 1936.

During her training in Jodhpur in 1939, her husband died in a crash. She was widowed at 24. That's when she abandoned her plans to become a commercial pilot. But after the partition, she moved to Delhi with her two daughters. She successfully took up jewellery making, saree designing, painting and designing for the National School of Drama in her later years.