Chennai airport gets its first woman firefighter

Chennai: In the extremely thin presence of women in the terribly tough job of firefighters in the country, the mother of a two-year-old girl is the latest entrant. Remya Sreekantan had quit her staid job as Assistant Professor at a technology college for women to plunge headlong into a “work space that remained as a male stronghold for long”, to quote from a media statement from the Airports Authority of India (AAI) which proudly announced the joining of the 28-year-old post-graduate in structural engineering at the Chennai airport as its first woman firefighter.

Remya is only the third woman firefighter of the AAI across the Indian airports. “I feel truly proud to be the first woman firefighter of the airport here. It’s a challenging job, a huge responsibility. We have to put in our very best efforts all the time since we cannot afford to slip in this field where there aren’t many women”, said Remya, adding that she is “quite confident of delivering, proving myself”.

It was actually a difficult decision to make at a time when the first baby in the house was just beginning to utter her first words and take the maiden strides on the firming feet. Why leave a cushy teaching job, ideal in the circumstances, and opt for being a firefighter? But then, Remya has always been a tough person striving to test herself into challenging situations.

She spotted the AAI advertisement during her two-year sabbatical from teaching to give birth to the baby. She applied though she hardly knew anything about being a firefighter, and got selected in the general category as there was no special quota for women. In fact, she was the only woman trainee when the batch of 100 recruits underwent four months of rigorous training at the Fire Training Centre (FTC) in New Delhi after clearing two tests. “I was the only woman in our batch”, smiles Remya, recalling that even the college where she had worked for two years was exclusively for women.

After clearing the written test in 2018, Remya decided to take rigorous physical training at her home city of Thiruvananthapuram to ensure she got through the tough physical training for four months for the AAI recruitment in March 2019. “I could manage all that well since my family, my child, were still with me during all preparation for the AAI physical test”, she recalls.

But once she got selected and needed to go to Delhi for the training, she had to leave family behind as the weather there did not suit the baby. “My family, particularly my husband, was very supportive and let me pursue mydream. I missed my baby much while in Delhi, but now we are happily reunited at this Chennai posting”, says Remya.